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Trench Warfare Underway on the Western front
Trenches on the Western front were in very poor condition, which made living hard for the soldiers. Behind the trenches was a mass of supply lines, training establishments, stores, workshops, headquarters and all the other elements of the 1914-1918 system of war, in which the majority of troops were employed. The trenches were the domain of the infantry, with the supporting arms of the mortars and machine-guns, the engineers and the forward positions of the artillery observers. -
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WWI
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Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
He was married to Sophie Chotek von Chotvoka and had three children.Sarajevo, He and his wife were planning the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovnia, to make an inspection of the Austro-Hungarian troops there but the Black Hand decided to assassinate Ferdinand -
Christmas Truce
After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, the world was plunged into war. Germany, realizing they were likely to face a two-front war, attempted to defeat the western foes before the Russians were able to mobilize their forces in the East (estimated to take six weeks), using the Schlieffen Plan. -
Russia, France, and Great Britain go to war agianst Germany and Austria-Hungary
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand provided the Austro-Hungarian government with a ready made excuse to launch what it believed would prove a limited war against the manifestly weaker Serbians. -
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
Beacause of on 28th June 1914 Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo, by a Serbian nationalist. Convinced that the Serbian government had conspired against them, Austria-Hungary issued Serbia an unacceptable ultimatum, then they declared the war on Serbia on 28th July 1914. -
First Battle of the Marne (Germany invades France)
When Germany invaded Belgium on August 3rd 1914, their movement across Western Europe was swift and in accordance with the Schlieffen Plan. The Belgium army was swept aside with relative ease and the British Expeditionary Army (BEF) had retreated at the Battle of Mons. General French had wanted the BEF to withdraw to the coast but this had been forbidden by Lord Kitchener who ordered that the BEF should not separate itself from the French army. -
Battle of Tannenburg
The Battle of Tannenberg was an engagement between the Russian Empire and the German Empire in the first days of World War I. It was fought by the Russian First and Second Armies against the German Eighth Army between 26 August and 30 August 1914. -
Armenian Genocide
Most Armenians in America are children or grandchildren of the survivors, although there are still many survivors amongst us.
- Many deaths. -
Battle of Gallipoli Starts in Turkey
British Commonwealth and French troops struggled to take the peninsula between February 19, 1915 and January 9, 1916. The First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill developed a plan for attacking the Dardanelles. -
Sinking of the Lusitania
On May 7, the ship neared the coast of Ireland. At 2:10 in the afternoon a torpedo fired by the German submarine U 20 slammed into her side. A mysterious second explosion ripped the liner apart. Chaos reigned. The ship listed so badly and quickly that lifeboats crashed into passengers crowded on deck, or dumped their loads into the water. Most passengers never had a chance. Within 18 minutes the giant ship slipped beneath the sea. One thousand one hundred nineteen of the 1,924 aboard died. -
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun is considered the greatest and lengthiest in world history. Never before or since has there been such a lengthy battle, involving so many men, situated on such a tiny piece of land. The battle, which lasted from 21 February 1916 until 19 December 1916 caused over an estimated 700,000 casualties (dead, wounded and missing). -
Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme was planned as a joint French and British operation. The idea originally came from the French Commander-in-Chief, Joseph Joffre and was accepted by General Sir Douglas Haig, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) commander, despite his preference for a large attack in Flanders. Although Joffre was concerned with territorial gain, it was also an attempt to destroy German manpower. -
Zimmerman Note
Though Germany had previously promised President Wilson that it would cease attacking neutral carriers, on February 1, 1917 Germany departed from its policy of restraint and began unrestricted submarine warfare against all ships destined for Britain. -
German policy of unrestricted Submarine Warfare
Bernstorff announced a re-opened German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare (initially introduced and then rapidly abandoned in 1916 owing to U.S. protests), to take effect the day following the date of the note -
Bolshevik Revolution
Many Russians were discouraged with the outcomes of the war and injuries, so they wanted to get back at their enemies -
United States enters the War
Since the beginning of World War I in 1914, the United States, under President Woodrow Wilson, had maintained strict neutrality, other than providing material assistance to the Allies. Even in May 1915, when a German submarine sank the British ocean liner Lusitania, killing 128 U.S. citizens out of a total 1,200 dead, the United States, though in uproar, remained neutral. -
Mutiny breaks out among French and German soldiers
Took place on the Western Front and over one million French soldiers had been killed. -
President Wilson's Fourteen Points Plan
It was made for peace which later became the basis for peace negotiations. It was a plan that Wilson wished to follow. -
Russia withdraws from the war (Treaty of Brest-Litvosk)
Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine, Georgia and Finland; gave up Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to Germany and Austria-Hungary; and ceded Kars, Ardahan and Batum to Turkey. The total losses constituted 1 million square miles of Russia's former territory; a third of its population or 55 million people; a majority of its coal, oil and iron stores; and much of its industry. -
Spanish Influenza
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as "Spanish Flu" or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster. -
Allies defeat Germany at the 2nd Battle of Marne
Attacking these positions on August 6, Allied troops were repulsed by a stubborn German defense. The salient retaken, the Allies dug in to consolidate their gains and prepare for further offensive action. -
Armistice Signed (Fighting in World War I ends)
The final Allied push towards the German border began on October 17, 1918. As the British, French and American armies advanced, the alliance between the Central Powers began to collapse. Turkey signed an armistice at the end of October, Austria-Hungary followed on November 3. -
Paris Peace Conference Begins
The winning European powers Britain, France, Italy demanding to 'get something' out of the War (loot, territory, provinces, colonies) as they had in past wars, even though doing so was unfair and would cause problems later. Unbalanced French desire to get revenge on and punish Germany.The winning European powers ordering defeated Germany to pay for the whole war, even though they knew/ should've known that was impossible. -
British Blockade of German ports begins
Since the early 18th century, trade blockades had been a vital coercive element in the maintenance of British naval supremacy. This supremacy was still very much intact when war broke out in August 1914. The British government moved immediately to strangle the supply of raw materials and foodstuffs to Germany and its allies. This marked the beginning of the 'hunger blockade', a war of attrition that lasted until Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. -
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was the peace settlement signed after World War One had ended in 1918 and in the shadow of the Russian Revolution and other events in Russia.
