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Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, start of WW1
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife are killed by an assassin's bullets just hours after they escaped another assassination attempt. This set off a chain of events that led to war in early August 1914. The assassination was traced to a Serbian extremist group that wanted to increase Serbian power in the Balkans by breaking up the Austro-Hungarian Empire. -
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
World War I began when Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia in July 1914, following the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers. -
Germany declares war on Russia
When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Serbia's ally Russia started mobilizing for war. Austria-Hungary's ally Germany demanded Russia stop preparing for war. When Russia refused, Germany declared war on Russia. -
Germany declares war on France
Germany declared war on France because of the diplomatic alliances that were in place before World War I. Austria-Hungary's ally Germany declared war on Serbia's ally Russia. France prepared for war in support of its ally Russia. Germany then declared war on France. -
Germany invades Luxembourg
The Germans needed to maintain Luxembourg's occupation for three strategic reasons: to guarantee the security of the Diedenhofen fortress (Thionville in French) to use their position in southern Luxembourg for the artillery shelling of French Lorraine. to use the railroads leading to Belgium and France. -
Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia
Austria-Hungary's aggression towards Serbia and Russian support for Serbia in the aftermath of the assassination stemmed from fears that, if either backed down, they would lose credibility and prestige as great powers. -
Japan declares war on Germany
Japan issued an ultimatum to Germany to remove its forces and surrender its territory in China and island possessions in the Pacific. -
Japan declares war on Austria-Hungary
Japan declared war on Austria-Hungary, too, on 25 August 1914. Japanese forces quickly occupied German-leased territories in the Far East. -
Austria-Hungary declares war on Belgium
Austria-Hungary was in war with the United Kingdom, and that one supported Belgium so Austria-Hungary decided to declare war on Belgium, also in order to help Germany invading Belgium. -
First Battle of the Marne
The First Battle of the Marne was fought from 5 to 12 September 1914. The German army invaded France with a plan for winning the war in 40 days by occupying Paris and destroying the French and British armies. -
First Battle of Ypres
The First Battle of Ypres was fought on the Western Front around Ypres, in West Flanders, Belgium. The battle was part of the First Battle of Flanders, in which German, French, Belgian armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) fought from Arras in France to Nieuwpoort (Nieuport) on the Belgian coast. -
The Battle of Gallipoli
The Battle of Gallipoli was a military campaign in the First World War on the Gallipoli peninsula (now Gelibolu) from 19 February 1915 to 9 January 1916. The Entente powers, Britain, France and the Russian Empire, sought to weaken the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central Powers, by taking control of the Ottoman straits. -
Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary
Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary because annexing territory along the two countries' frontier stretching from the Trentino region in the Alps eastward to Trieste at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea was a primary goal and would “liberate” Italian speaking populations from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while uniting them with their cultural homeland. -
Erich von Falkenhayn planned the attack in the Battle of Verdun
was the second Chief of the German General Staff of the First World War from September 1914 until 29 August 1916. Falkenhayn was removed on 29 August 1916 after the failure of his offensive strategy in the west at the Battle of Verdun. He was the one that planned this battle. -
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun was the longest and one of the bloodiest. It was fought between the Germans and the French around the city of Verdun, in eastern France. On February 21st, 1916, the attack began. The Germans opened fire with hundreds of artillery guns to bombard the enemy line. For the next few months, the two armies would attack and counter-attack each other, without either side gaining the upper hand. The Battle of Verdun ended in a draw on December 18, 1916. -
Philippe Petain commanded the french troops in the Battle of Verdun
Philippe Petain was a general who commanded the French Army in World War I and became the head of the collaborationist regime of Vichy France, from 1940 to 1944, during World War II. Pétain commanded the Second Army at the start of the Battle of Verdun in February 1916. -
Christmas battles
The Christman battles were offensive operations of the Russian army and Latvian units during World War I in the area of Jelgava, Latvia, by the Russian 12th Army of the Northern Front. Its objective was to attract the German reserve forces, thus helping their allies to resist on the Verdun battlefield. -
Rasputin was assesinated :(
Rasputin was a Russian mystic and holy man. He is best known for having befriended the imperial family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia.
A group of nobles led by Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and Prince Felix Yusupov decided that Rasputin's influence over Alexandra threatened the Russian Empire. They concocted a plan in December 1916 to kill Rasputin, apparently by luring him to the Yusupovs' Moika Palace. -
February Revolution (March Revolution)
The February Revolution or the March Revolution was the first of two revolutions which took place in Russia in 1917. The revolution was provoked by Russian military failures during the First World War, as well as public dissatisfaction with the way the country was run on the home front. The economic challenges faced due to fighting a total war also contributed. -
Vladimir Lenin returns to Russia from exile
On April 16, 1917, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returns to Petrograd after a decade of exile to take the reins of the Russian Revolution. He decided to return to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks but found that most passages into the country were blocked due to the ongoing conflict. He organised a plan with other dissidents to negotiate a passage for them through Germany, with which Russia was then at war. -
Murder of the Romanov family
The Russian Imperial Romanov family, Nicholas II of Russia, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei, were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg. -
Treaty of Versilles (end of the WW1)
The Treaty of Versailles[i] was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace of Versailles.