Background
In 1917 the Allies were losing an artillery duel against heavy German guns along the Flanders coast in Belgium, and the important French Channel port of Dunkirk was being shelled by 38 cm German guns sited in Belgium at a range of over 24 miles (39 km). There was also a need for the Allies to bombard strategic targets in the German rear areas to hinder German capability to stage attacks. The largest Allied guns in the area were British 12-inch Mk X guns which were outranged.
Read more about this topic: 14"/50 Caliber Railway Gun
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)