Battle of Mărăști – Russian and Romanian forces broke through a 30 km stretch of German line and advanced 20 km into German held territory in eastern Romania. While the victory did not entirely defeat the German Ninth Army, the Russian-Romanian forces took 2,700 prisoners and 70 guns, and inflicted 9,600 German casualties. The Russian-Romanian force sustained 4,879 casualties.[1]
British hospital ship HMHS Letitia ran aground and sank off Nova Scotia while traveling from Liverpool to Halifax. A single person was killed and the rest of the crew were rescued.[3]
Montana labor leader Frank Little was abducted by six masked men from his room in a boardinghouse, beaten and then dragged by car through the streets of Butte, Montana. His official cause of death was asphyxiation. Little had been in town as representative of the Industrial Workers of the World organization to oversee a miners' strike at Anaconda Copper. His murder was never solved.[5]
The German Navy Zeppelin L 53 achieved an altitude of 20,700 feet (6,300 meters), a new record for an airship.[6]
Battle of Pilckem Ridge – Days of constant rain turned the battlefield into mud, making it hard for troops and vehicles to traverse and thus slowing the advance. British casualties by then were recorded at 31,820 casualties while German casualties were 30,000, including 5,626 prisoners captured on the opening day of battle.[13][14]
Battle of Rumbo – A combined British-Portuguese force of 6,000 defeated a German unit of 2,500 men at the village of Rumbo in German East Africa. The Germans lost 1,500 casualties and 600 were captured, while the Allied forces sustained 386 casualties.[15]
Italian flying acePier Ruggero Piccio scored his eighth victory by shooting down Austro-Hungarian ace Frank Linke-Crawford, who was flying a two-seat aircraft without a rear gunner on board. Linke-Crawford survived uninjured.[17]
British air naval officer Edwin Harris Dunning successfully landed his aircraft on Royal Navy carrier HMS Furious in the Scapa Flow. However, he died while making a third attempt to land on the same ship five days later.[18]
Green Corn Rebellion – An armed group of Oklahoma farmers estimated between 800 and 1,000 met up with an armed posse on the Canadian River where shots were exchanged before the group dispersed. Three people were killed over two days of unrest and 450 were arrested. Of that group, 184 were charged and 150 were convicted and sentenced to prison.[20]
American business leader and retired star football player and coach John de Saulles (member of the 1901 College Football All-America Team), was shot by his estranged wife Blanca Errázuriz in front of his home in Westbury, New York. He later died from gunshot wounds in hospital. The two had been going through a high-profile divorce and custody battle over their son that had rising film star Rudolph Valentino involved as a character witness.[24]
Battle of Passchendaele – German troops launched a surprise attack against British units near Hollebeke, Belgium, capturing the village (although it was later abandoned).[31]
Railway workers in Sydney officially walked off the job to strike, with eventually over 100,000 industrial workers joining the general strike throughout Australia.[40][41]
Third Battle of Oituz – After suffering initial setbacks, Romanian forces pushed back against the combined Austro-Hungarian and German assault in the Oituz valley of Romania.[53]
Convicted Swedish serial killer Hilda Nilsson committed suicide by hanging herself using linen cloth tied to her cell door, without knowing the court had commuted the original death penalty to life imprisonment that same day. She was the last Swedish death penalty prisoner not to be pardoned.[58]
German Gotha bombers attacked the towns of Shoeburyness and Southend in England in the sixth raid of Operation Türkenkreuz ("Turk's Cross"). Along with a previous raid on July 22, the Germans lost a combined five bombers including one that was shot down and four others wrecked in crashes while returning to base.[62]
Disruptions caused by Catholic pilgrims flocking to the village of Cova da Iria, Portugal to see visions of Our Lady of Fátima forced provincial governor Artur Santos to take custody of initial witnesses Lúcia Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto. The children were interviewed to see if they had made up the story but they defended the visions were real.[67]
An explosion and fire at a weapons manufacturing plant in Kazan, Russia killed 21 people and injured another 172, including 30 children in the surrounding neighborhoods. Over 500 buildings were destroyed and an estimated 12,000 machine guns and one million shells were lost.[70]
After two months of study on Allied aircraft in Europe, United States Army aeronautical commission head ColonelRaynal Bolling made recommendations of the materials, engines and parts the United States could provide to the Allied air war effort. He also recommended all top cadets in the U.S. aerial schools be dispatched to France to complete their training to ensure trained American pilots were on hand to support Allied air military campaigns. The U.S. government signed an aeronautical agreement with France by the end of the month.[78]
Battle of Hill 70 – Attempts to draw more German forces away from the Ypres salient failed. Many units suffered casualties from German gas attacks, with an estimated 15,000–20,000 shells of Yellow Cross fired into Canadian trenches.[82]
Born:Zvi Keren, American-Israeli jazz pianist and composer, known for his jazz compositions "Electronic Brain", "Riot in Russia", and "Regards to Igor", in New York City (d. 2008); Safa Khulusi, Iraqi writer, author of Islam Our Choice and Abu Nuwas in America, in Baghdad (d. 1995)
Died:John W. Kern, American politician, U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1911 to 1917 (b. 1849)
Battle of Langemarck – The German Fourth Army was able to hold the lines against the Allied attack but suffered 24,000 casualties, including 2,100 troops taken prisoner along with 30 guns and another 5,000 missing.[94] Both British and French armies suffered 36,190 casualties.[95]
A total 28 German bombers were launched in the seventh and largest raid of Operation Türkenkreuz on England. However, unfavorable wind conditions hindered travel and forced aircraft to use up so much fuel that the strike commander ordered bombers to abort the raid to ensure most aircraft could return to base. The striking squadron lost two airplanes in the North Sea, another two were forced to crash-land in the Netherlands, and several more were lost in Belgium.[97]
Third Battle of Oituz – Austria-Hungary regained lost ground from Romanian counterattacks, nearly ending the battle. Combined casualties for the Austro-Hungarian and German forces were estimated at 1,500 with no official record of Romanian casualties.[53]
Battle of Mărășești – With no chance of breakthrough, Germany switched to improving its offensive positions for a renewed offensive against Romania.[60]
An antiwar uprising broke out in Turin for "peace and bread".[114]
An internal explosion on German submarine SM UC-41 sank the vessel in River Tay, Scotland, killing all 27 crew and seven British prisoners of war.[115]
German submarine SM UC-72 went missing on this date with the loss of all 31 crew.[116]
Most of the provisions of Corn Production Act come into force in the United Kingdom, guaranteeing minimum prices for wheat and oats, as well as specifying the minimum wage for agricultural workers.[118]
The eighth raid of Operation Türkenkreuz involved 15 bombers attacking England during daylight. Five aircraft were forced to turn back over the North Sea, and the remaining 10 encountered British fighter aircraft and heavy anti-aircraft fire over the Isle of Thanet. Two bombers were shot down immediately, and a third was shot down over Dover. The losses prompted the German Air Force to halt daylight raids over the United Kingdom and switch to night bombing.[120]
Eight German Navy Zeppelins commanded by Naval Airship Service officer Peter Strasser aboard L 46 attempted a high-altitude raid on England, but only reached the British coastline. It bombed the Kingston upon Hull area, destroying a chapel and injuring one civilian.[121]
Houston riot of 1917 – Following a rumor of an African American soldier dying while in police custody, 156 soldiers of the 24th Infantry Regiment mutinied and marched on Houston where they clashed with police officers, resulting in 20 deaths. Courts-martial for the soldiers resulted in 19 being executed and another 41 given life sentences.[123]
Born:Mel Ferrer, American actor and director, known for his roles in Lili and War and Peace, in Elberon, New Jersey (d. 2008); J. L. Mackie, Australian philosopher, best known for his contribution to the discussion of ethics, author of Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, in Sydney (d. 1981); Lou van Burg, Dutch television game show host, best known for his game show Der goldene Schuss ("The Golden Shot"), in The Hague (d. 1986)
August 26, 1917 (Sunday)
Battle of Verdun – France achieved a costly advance into German territory around Verdun at a cost of 14,000 casualties including 4,470 killed, while capturing some 11,000 German prisoners.[139]
Battle of Mărășești – After more than three weeks of fighting, Germany only managed to achieve a 2–6 km-deep and 18–20 km-wide breakthrough in the Romanian line.[60]
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^Hastings, Max, Bomber Command: Churchill's Epic Campaign - The Inside Story of the RAF's Valiant Attempt to End the War, New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987, ISBN0-671-68070-6, p. 38.
^Curtis, T. J., Capt, USMC and Lothar R. Long (1919). History of the Sixth Machine Gun Battalion, Fourth Brigade, U.S. Marines, Second Division and Its Participation in the Great War. Germany: Neuweid on the Rhine. p. 5. OCLC11237160.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^International Hat Company (1942). International Harvest Hat Company: A Brief History, 1917–1942 (25th Anniversary ed.). St. Louis, MO. p. 3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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^Gerolympos, Alexandra Karadimou. The Redesign of Thessaloniki after the Fire of 1917. University Studio Press, Thessaloniki, 1995
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