rammjaeger Forum Ace of Aces



Join Date: Sep 1998 Posts: 4,593





A calendary of the Great battles in WWI by the General staff mentions an attack of LZ 98 against Petersburg for 30 January 1917. However, this mission did fail like the earlier ones because of unfavourable conditions.



"Fligth" reported in the issue of 7 March 1918 (probably know to you):

"A Raid on Petrograd.

PROBABLY by way of stimulating the Bolshevists of Petrograd to hurry their delegates to sign the peace treaty, a German aeroplane dropped bombs on several parts of Petrograd on March 3rd. Three people were killed and five

wounded, but the material damage was not serious."



So, I note one day difference to your source.



However, the German troops had captured Hapsal (Haapsalu) on 23 February and took Reval/Tallin in very early March 1918. THese locations are situated 350 to 400 km from Petersburg/Petrograd and it is hard to imagine that the German would risk this adventure if the Peace treaty was already signed on 3 March 1918. On the other hand one could argue and see a sense in an attack like "Flight".



I think two facts are interesting here:

1) Lenin was trying to get peace, whatever the price was but Trotsky was very afraid of the German advance to Petersburg and willing to co-operate with the Allieds in this time.



2) The Estonian troops did often change the sides in this time and some co-operated with the advancing German troops. So, we have still the opportunity that Estonians or anti-Soviet minded troops did attack Petrograd (IF the above report about an attack is not a fake or informational error).

There were enough airplanes around, the Germans captured alone 22 Russian airplanes within some days according to reports.



However, even the way from Estonias borders to Petrograd was pretty long and I can not see any positive proof for a German attack until now.

I wonder if some of our Russian or Baltic contributors know more here.

My homepage:

http://www.flugplatzgeschichte-grossenhain.de.tl/ __________________My homepage: Last edited by rammjaeger; 22 February 2012 at 07:14 AM . Reason: date corrected