Western Front
Battle of the Sambre including the
Second Battle of Guise (4th/5th): British Fourth (3 divisions with 26 tanks and 6 armored cars; 1,200 casualties), Third (8 divisions with 11 tanks) and First Armies (6 divisions) attack on 30-mile front from east of Valenciennes to Guise; Landrecies falls to 600 men of 25th Division. NZ Division storms Le Quesnoy taking 2,500 PoWs and 100 guns. Lieutenant W Owen (Manchester Regiment), war poet, killed aged 25 by MG fire at Sambre Canal assault. BEF 5-mile advance captures 10,000 PoWs and 200 guns. Haig orders Plumer to be ready to cross river Scheldt c. November 11. German Second Army begins retreat to Antwerp-Meuse position (night November 4-5). 10,000 prisoners and 200 guns captured.
Belgians advance to north-west and southern suburbs of Ghent.
French reach Le Chesne on Ardennes Canal.
Meuse and Argonne: Franco-Americans clear Argonne; AEF take Stenay and Dun-sur-Meuse.
New Zealand soldiers using a captured German machine gun near Beaudignies, France:
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...754460330196992
Allied soldiers on the frontlines near Le Quesnoy:
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...042593110147072
Divisional commanders on horseback riding into the newly captured town of Le Quesnoy, France:
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...072788458364928
Allied troops win the Battle of Sambre, crossing the Sambre Canal and capturing the town of Le Quesnoy, Painting showing New Zealand troops scaling the walls of the town, by George Edmund Butler (1920):
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...102987749126145
Southern Front
Third Battle of the Piave (aka
Battle of Vittorio Veneto):
Battle of Vittorio Veneto, and all fighting on the Italian Front ends with the armistic3e effective as of noon (see October 24th). Hostilities between Austria-Hungary and the Entente cease (see 3rd and 15th).
Diaz cables Paris that Italy will intervene to enforce Germany’s armistice terms if necessary.
US 332nd Infantry Regiment gets into action a few hours before ceasefire, capturing Austrian MGs on east bank of river Tagliamento. Italian 1st and 4th Cavalry Divisions reach the frontier in Carnia and Caporetto beyond. Italian 54th Division captures 10,000 Austrians at Muzzanella bridge west of coastal frontier after Commander Borghese cuts the road with Bafile Batallion and Arditi (November 3-4) who are forced to surrender at 0800 hours.
Montenegro: Antivari occupied by Italian naval forces (see January 22nd, 1916).
Serb Second Army liberates capital Cetinje.
Following the armistice with Austria-Hungary, Italian troops begin occupying all of Tyrol, including Innsbruck. Austro-Hungarian troops captured at Trento:
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...012390992404480
Asiatic and Egyptian Theaters
Mesopotamia: Mosul occupied by British forces under General Fanshawe (see October 23rd).
Naval and Overseas Operations
Baltic: Enraged by ‘Karlstrasse Bloodbath’ thousands of sailors, 20,000 garrison troops and workers join Kiel mutiny. Crew of battleship
Grosser Kurfürst overpower their officers and march to Karlstrasse to swear an oath of vengeance. At mass meeting in 1st Torpedo Division, Artelt demands immediate establishment of a ‘sailors’ council’. Officers attempting to silence him are savagely disarmed. Council elected with Artelt as chairman drafts programme of ’14 demands’. Troops of 1st Dock Division arrive but refuse to fire, hand over their weapons. Even the staunchly loyal U-boat Division now turns against officer corps. At 1345 hours Kiel city Commander informs Souchon ‘
The mutiny … continues to spread … we no longer possess any reliable troops…’. Souchon dismissed and replaced by Socialist Gustav Noske.
Demonstrating German sailors in Wilhelmshaven:
https://i0.wp.com/ww2-weapons.com/w...rosen.jpg?ssl=1
Karl Artelt, one of the leaders of the incipient revolution:
https://twitter.com/CenturyAgoToday...785904364535809
Adriatic: Italian ships enter Fiume and Zara, occupy Rovigno, isles of Lagosta, Meleda and Curzola, and port of Dulcigno.
Political, etc
Germany: KIEL MUTINY: Revolution spreads to Lübeck and Travemünde (November 5), Hamburg, Bremen, Cuxhaven, Wilhelmshaven (November 6), Landwehr and workers. General Greoner goes to Berlin and learns no armistice if Kaiser does not abdicate; meets Chancellor Ebert on November 6. Stuttgart founds first Workers Council.
Turkey: Liman reaches Constantinople, put in command of evacuation; most Germans have or are sailing to Odessa (until November 19).
United States: U.S. recognize Polish army as autonomous and co-belligerent.