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assassination of Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria,and his wife, had decided to inspect Austro-Hungarian troops in Bosnia. The date chosen for the inspection was a national day in Bosnia. The Black hand supplied a group of students with weapons for an assassination attempt to mark the occasion. -
Austria declared war on Serbia
The Austrian government blamed the Serbian government for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife and declared war on Serbia -
Germany declared war on Russia
Germany declared war on Russia. -
Germany declared war on France
Germany declared war on France. German troops poured into Belgium as directed under the schleiffen Plan, drawn up in 1905.The British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, sen an ultimatum to Germany demanding their withdrawal from the neutral Belgium -
Germany attempted a blockade on great britain
The Blockade of Germany, or the Blockade of Europe, occurred from 1914 to 1919. It was a prolonged naval operation conducted by the Allied Powers during and after World War 1 in an effort to restrict the maritime supply of goods to the Central Powers, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. It is considered one of the key elements in the eventual Allied victory in the war. -
Germans first used chloride poisonous gas
On April 22, 1915, German forces shock Allied soldiers along the western front by firing more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres, Belgium. This was the first major gas attack by the Germans, and it devastated the Allied line. -
German submarine sank the british ship lusitania
On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans. -
Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary
On this day in 1915, Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, entering World War I on the side of the Allies—Britain, France and Russia. ... On May 23, 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary. -
British troops withdraw from Gallipoli
On December 15, Allied forces begin a full retreat from the shores of the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, ending a disastrous invasion of the Ottoman Empire. The Gallipoli campaign resulted in 250,000 Allied casualties and a greatly discredited Allied military command. Roughly an equal number of Turks were killed or wounded. -
10,000 british troops surrender to the Turks
The Siege of Kut Al Amara 7 December 1915 – 29 April 1916, also known as the First Battle of Kut, was the besieging of an 8,000 strong British-Indian garrison in the town of Kut, -
Russian began an offensive in eastern Galicia
The Battle of Galicia, also known as the Battle of Lemberg, was a major battle between Russia and Austria-Hungary during the early stages of World War I in 1914. In the course of the battle, the Austro-Hungarian armies were severely defeated and forced out of Galicia, while the Russians captured Lemberg and, for approximately nine months, ruled Eastern Galicia. -
British army first used tanks
The first use of tanks on the battlefield was the use of British Mark I tanks at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) on 15 September 1916, with mixed results; many broke down, but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through. -
Germany first used submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare was first introduced in World War I in early 1915, when Germany declared the area around the British Isles a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, would be attacked by the German navy. -
The USA declared war on Germany
On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked a special joint session of the United States Congress for a declaration of war against the German Empire. Congress responded with the declaration on April 6. -
First American troops land in France
By June 1917, only 14,000 U.S. soldiers had arrived in France and the AEF had only a minor participation at the front in late October 1917, but by May 1918 over one million U.S. troops were stationed in France; though only half of it made it to the front lines. -
Russia signs armistice with Germany
On 15 December 1917, an armistice was signed between the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on the one side and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire—the Central Powers—on the other. -
US President Wilson reveals "Fourteen Points" for peace
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. -
Russians signs Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between the new Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia and the Central Powers Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire, that ended Russia's participation in World War I. -
Fighting finally ended
At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. -
Germany signs an armistice
The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was an armistice during the First World War between the Allies and Germany – also known as the Armistice of Compiègne after the location in which it was signed – and the agreement that ended the fighting on the Western Front.
