Western Front
Battle of the Somme: French capture Chapitre Wood, Feuilleres, Buscourt, Flaucourt; also Assevillers to the South. British capture Ovillers-La Boisselle, 9th Scottish Division captures Bernafay Wood (east of Montauban). Falkenhayn visits Fritz von Below at St Quentin, replaces his Chief-of-Staff for allowing withdrawal south of Somme; Below obediently orders counter-attacks ‘I forbid the voluntary evacuation of trenches’.
“Y” Wood & German trenches at the Somme. Snow-like appearance on ground is due to bombardment:
http://imgur.com/HbxSZ6T ©IWM (Q49323)
Battle of Verdun: Germans take and lose Damloup work, their attacks on Avocourt and Hill 304 fail on July 5.
North of Ancre actions indecisive.
12,300 prisoners to date.
30 Anglo-German air combats. Royal Flying Corps (7 aircraft missing) bomb Cambrai, and Comines stations, shoot down 3 German aircraft. Haig and Rawlinson thank RFC for its work.
Eastern Front
Battle of Baranovichi continues south of Vilna.
Southern Front
Italian Second Army reformed (HQ Cividale) for Isonzo offensive.
French air raid on Sofia from Salonika.
Asiatic and Egyptian Theaters
Russians again resume offensive in Armenia, west of Erzerum.
Naval and Overseas Operations:
North Sea: Two lines of U-boats patrol Heligoland Bight in support of the High Seas Fleet (until August 4).
Russian sea-attack on German lines near Riga.
British advance in East Africa, in region between Lake Tanganyika and Victoria Nyanza.
Political, etc.
Alfred Kleiner, a Swiss physicist & Albert Einstein’s doctoral advisor at the University of Zurich, passed away.
Russo-Japanese Far East mutual consultation treaty, Russia cedes 60 miles of Chinese Eastern Railway.
Easter Rising: Irish Rebellion Commission Report published makes Chief Secretary ‘primarily responsible’.
Stock Exchange minimum prices finally removed, first wartime free market.
Germany: Settlement Law for military pensions farm purchase, esp. in Baltic area.