~1916: Oh what a wonderful war
January 1916: Constantinople falls to the British and Greeks. Sultan Mehmed V sues for terms.
January 1916: Despite very vocal protests by the French, Asquith makes the decision to continue with the maritime strategy, though further troops are deployed to France.
January 1916: The British introduce conscription throughout the UK with the exception of Ireland.
January 1916: The Ottomans agree to an armistice, leaving the war. The British, French, Greeks, Italians and Russians occupy the Empire.
January 1916: Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare.
February 1916: The Airco DH2 and Nieuport 11 are introduced enabling the Entente to regain air superiority over France.
February 1916: The Germans launch an attack on Verdun with the aim of breaking the French army by drawing them into a battle of attrition. The intention is to bled the French white while avoiding significant German losses.
March 1916: With the collapse of the Ottomans, the Russians begin to redeploy nearly half a million troops from the Caucasus to the eastern front.
March 1916: Yuan Shikai is deposed as Emperor. His fall leaves no clear successor. The Beijing government of China devolves into a number of warlord cliques without and real central authority.
March 1916: The Russians launch an offensive in an attempt to force the Germans to withdraw troops from Verdun. The offensive will be very costly and fail in forcing the Germans to make withdrawals from Verdun.
April 1916: British merchant shipping losses mount alarmingly and the Board of Trade forces the adoption of a convoy system. Shipping losses immediately begin to fall.
April 1916: Attempting to take advantage of British distraction due to the war, a group of Irish Republicans launch a rising in Dublin. The rising is rapidly suppressed and courts martial are arranged. Asquith intervenes, stating, as at Galway, it is a local matter, transferring the trials to civil courts under local law. This, along with the earlier handling of unrest will later become part of Commonwealth constitutional process as the Galway Doctrine. Few tried are found guilty and only three are sentenced to death. At Asquith's urging, those sentences are commuted to penal servitude. Irish public opinion begins to turn against radical nationalism as a result.
May 1916: The British launch an offensive in the Balkans in concert with the Serbs.
May 1916: The British Grand Fleet under Admiral George Callaghan clashes with the High Seas Fleet under Admiral Reinhard Scheer in the North Sea. The battle is inconclusive but a British strategic victory as Scheer retreats. It also highlights a number of very serous deficiencies in the British fleet.
May 1916: The Goeben, despite being scuttled after the Ottoman surrender, is raised and transferred to the Greeks as the Lemnos.
June 1916: The Russians position has been strengthened by the opening of the Turkish Straits allowing Entente supplies to flow and them to export produce. They launch a major offensive under General Aleksei Brusilov. The Brusilov offensive is a huge success, inflicting 1,500,000 casualties on the Austro-Hungarians and Germans but at the cost of 1,000,000 Russian losses.
June 1916: The Motor Corp begins to receive its first tanks. The decision is made to hold off deployment to enable them to be used in large numbers to achieve a breakthrough.
July 1916: The British finally respond to French demands and launch an offensive in Flanders with French support. The Battle of the Somme will last for three months and result in 350,000 Entente casualties against 200,000 German.
July 1916: The US Congress approves a massive new naval program to produce a fleet "second to none."
July 1916: Neutral protests again lead to Germany suspending unrestricted submarine warfare.
August 1916: The Austro-Hungarian army in Galicia routs under the weight of the Brusilov offensive.
August 1916: The success of the Brusilov offensive and British operations in the Balkans brings Romania into the war as part of the Entente. The Romanians perform poorly as the Central Powers divert significant forces to face them. However the vital oil fields remain out of the Central Powers hands.
September 1916: Brusilov takes the critical Galician oil fields, cutting off the Central Powers last source of oil.
September 1916: Germany diverts significant forces from Verdun and is finally able to halt the Russian offensive and stabilise the front in the Carpathian mountains. However the Austro-Hungarian army has been pushed to the verge of collapse.
October 1916: The Motor Corp deploys the first tanks in France. Used en mass, they achieve a breakthrough, enabling the British to make a significant advance on the Somme.
October 1916: With their existing aircraft being outclassed by newer German fighters, the Entente introduce the Sopwith Pup, Nieuport 17 and SPAD VII to counter the improved German aircraft.
October 1916: The British offensive in the Balkans, though costing 150,000 casualties brings the badly stretched Austro-Hungarians to breaking point. Their line breaks and Entente begins to advance through Serbia.
November 1916: The Treaty of Sévres is signed between the Ottomans and the Entente. The Ottoman Empire is dismantled. Armenia is ceded to Russia. Syria, Hatay and Lebanon become French colonies. Palestine and Iraq go to the British with Egypt becoming a full colony. Konya is awarded Italy while Smyrna and East Thrace are ceded to Greece. The Turkish Straits are placed under international control and Constantinople becomes an international city. Finally an independent Kurdistan is created. The rump Turkish state in Anatolia becomes a British client state.
November 1916: The British offensive in the Balkans comes to a halt inside Bosnia as winter sets in, allowing the Austro-Hungarians to stabilise the front.
November 1916: In a closely fought election, the Republican Charles Hughes narrowly defeats the incumbent Woodrow Wilson to become US President. To avoid uncertainty until Hughes is inaugurated in February, Wilson appoints Hughes as Secretary of State then he and Vice President Thomas Marshall resign, allowing Hughes to immediately assume his position. Hughes, having run on a platform of increased preparedness in case the US is forced into the war, launches a military build up.
December 1916: HMS Hermes, the worlds first purpose built aircraft carrier is laid down in December.
December 1916: The Battle of Verdun finally comes to an inconclusive end. The Germans have inflicted some 450,000 casualties on the French, but they themselves have suffered some 380,000 and, while seriously strained, the French army shows no sign of breaking.
December 1916: Since the start of the war the Entente have been purchasing massive quantities of war materials from the US, funded by loans secured against their gold reserves. This has resulted in an unprecedented economic boom in the US, the economy having grown by at least 10%. President Hughes is concerned by the seeming unending stalemate in the war. The Entente's gold reserves are finite and likely be exhausted within eighteen months to two years. An abrupt end to those orders would result in an equally unprecedented crash. Likewise an Entente defeat may result in default. He commissions a report on options in either event.
December 1916: With the entry of Romania into the war and the massive losses inflicted on the Austro-Hungarians, the Germans has been forced to divert more troops to the east. To free up troops they withdraw in France to a prepared defensive position known as the Hindenburg line, adopting a scorched earth policy as they fall back.
December 1916: The conversion of HMS Powerful is completed and she begins trials. She is fitted with a flying off deck forward and a landing deck aft of her superstructure. The aft landing deck is quickly found to be unusable due to turbulence from the superstructure and smoke from the funnels.
December 1916: The RN begins the design of the R class submarines, specifically designed for high underwater speed and endurance as hunter killers to engage other submarines.
