-
Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated inSarajevo. His death is the event that sparks World War1.
-
Russia mobilizes its vast army to intervene against Austria-Hungary in faovr of its ally, Serbia. This move starts a chain reaction that leads to the mobilization of the rest of the European Great Powers, and inevitably to the outbreak of hositlies.
-
Germany invades Belgium.
http://www.1914-1918.net/wf.htm -
The Germans fire shells filled with chlorine gas at Allied lines. This is the first time that large amounts of gas are used in battle, and the result is the near-collapse of the French lines.
-
A German submarine sinks the passenger liner Lusitania. The ship carried 1,198 people, 128 of which were Americans.
-
Reacting to international outrage at the sinking of hte Lusitania and other neutral passenger lines, Kaiser Wilhelm suspends unrestricted submarine warfare.
-
The British employ the first tanks ever used in battle, at Delville Wood.
-
Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare in European waterways.
-
British intelligence gives Wilson the so-called Zimmermann Telegram, a message from German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann proposing that Mexico side with Germany in case of war between Germany and the United States. In return, Germany promises to return to Mexico the "lost provinces" of Texas and much of the rest of the American Southwest. Mexico declines the offer, but the outrage at this interference in the Western Hemisphere pushes American public opinion to support entering the war.
-
President Wilson outlines his case for war to Congress.
-
Congress authorizes a declaration of war against Germany. The United States enters World War I on the side of France and Britian.
-
Congress passes the Selective Service Act suthorizing the draft.
-
The Germans sign a peace treaty with tthe new Bolshevik government of Russia.
-
The Battle of Cantigny is the first major American offensive of the war.
-
The Americans attack the Germans at Chateau-Thierry. This battle would morph into the larger Battle of Belleau Wood.
-
The Battle of Belleau Wood begins as the U.S. Marine Corps attacks the Germans across an open field of wheat, suffering huge casualities.
-
The battle ends with the final expulsion of the Germans from the wood, which marks the farthest German advance of Paris.
-
The battle begins when 300,000 American troops under the direct command of General Pershing fling themselves into the German lines.
-
Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates, ending all German hope for a victory. He and his retinue quietly slip over the border into the Netherlands where he lives out the remainder of his life in relative peace and writes a self-promoting memoir defending his actions in the war.
-
A document signed ending the fighting on the Western Front.
