WW1 timeline

  • Franco-Prussian War

    Prussia(later Germany) went to war with France, ending in a humiliating defeat for France.
  • Bismark and Prussia

    Bismark completes their efforts to unite Prussia and German Kingdoms.
  • Wilhelm II

    The accession of Wilhelm II to the g\German throne occurs.
  • Early Alliance

    Wilhelm II helped to form an alliance between France and Russia, the basis for the Triple Entente.
  • Rockwell Arrives!

    Kiffin Rockwell is born.
  • Russo-Japanese War

    Russia and Japan go to war and Russia loses.
  • Tangler Crisis

    Germany attempts to make strains Between Britain and France but fails.
  • Dreadnaught

    British launches first dreadnaught.
  • Entente Cordialle

    Britain joins in on the alliance between Russia and France.
  • Anexxan

    Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  • Agadir Crisis

    Germany tried to create tensions between Britain and France but failed.
  • Italo-Turkish War

    Italy and the Ottoman Empire went to war and Itly won.
  • Red Baron

    The German Red Baron shoots down 80 other planes.
  • Franz Ferdinand

    Gravilo Princip assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand
  • WAR

    Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
  • Alliance

    The Ottoman Empire and Germany sign a secret alliance.
  • France is in

    Germany declares war on france
  • Invasion

    Germany invades Belgium, leading to Britain joining the war.
  • Britain is in

    Germany invades Belium, leading Great Britain to declare war on Germany.
  • Into Russia

    Austria-Hungary invades Russia
  • Japan is in

    Japan declares war on Germany.
  • Kiffin in Battle

    Kiffin Rockwell enlists in the French Foreign Leigon and becomes the first american to shoot down an enemy plane.
  • Poison gas

    Germany used several poison gases to fight with. If you didn't have a gas mask you had a good chance of dying. Mustard gas was one of the more famous ones and was a very dangerous and widly used poison gas.
  • Ranks

    Royal flying corps was used to watch the enemy from the sky.
  • Protect Paris!

    The British and French armies team up to keep the Germans from reaching France.
  • First Battle of Ypres

    Allied and Central armies clash for the Belgian city of Ypres. It was around this time that trench warfare started.
  • Trench warfare

    Trench warfare consisted of men digging long, deep holes and fighting from inside them. The trenches were very untidy and men got several diseases in them. They were never really dry and exiting them meant you could be mowed down by enemy fire.
  • Turkey

    Turkey enters war on the side of the Central Powers.
  • Christmas Truce

    On Christmas, the German and Allied troops came together to celebrate Christmas peacefully and even exchanged gifts.
  • Unrestricted warfare

    The Germans were using their U-Boats in a way war had never seen before called unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans would attack and sink any enemy ship, even civilian ships. This led to the sinking of the Lustitania and was one major reason America eventually joined the war.
  • German U-boats

    German U-boats ended up sinking half of all merchant supplies for Britain. They were very efficient but they never really had a decisive battle with the British navy. The only way to stop them were to group together, invent primitive forms of sonar, use spy planes to spot U-boats, and the entrance of America in 1917 had a big role in stopping them.
  • Gappolli

    This was one of the most important battles for amphibious naval craft.
  • Lusitania

    Germans attack all enemy ships with their U-boats and because of this sink the Lusitania. Hundreds died and America send very stern warnings to Germany to stop. This later wopuld be one reason America Joined the War.
  • Tanks are now in

    Tanks can go 4 miles per hour, can turn sharply at top speed, can climb 5 foot parapet, can cross an 8 foot gap, and have aa working radius of 20 miles. These are the agreements for a new weaopn to bee built.
  • Tanks

    Tanks start out crude, but they start to play a bigger role. They are designed as a combination of a military machine and a farm machine. They can go over several obsticals and cover large gaps. They brought some mobility back to the Western Front. 1st tanks treads fall off.
  • Verdun

    The French and Germans armies fought and the French won. This battle lasted into December.
  • Somme

    France and Britain took on the German army and the result was inconclusive.
  • U-Boats

    Between this date and january 1917 i.4 million tons of allied shipping was lost to U-boats. U boats were crowded and could not go very deep. They were very effective for the germans and were used for blockades. Germans built 360 U-Boats and lost 178.
  • Zimmerman telegram

    The Zimmerman telegram is intercepted and decoded, revealing a german plan to ally with Mexico if America joins the war and offering them American land for their help. This is one major reason America joined the war, along with the telegram also said that unresricted submarine warfare would soon resume.
  • Russian Revolution

    Russians were fed up with the war and the loss of life, and they started a revolution in the middle of the war.
  • America!

    America eneters world war 1 because of a variety of reasons. This was a turning point in the war. America brought millions of fresh and aggressive troops into battle and managed to stop Germany-s last major offensive attack. They then continued to advance on the Germans.
  • Riga

    Central and allied forces(including Russia) clash on the eastern front with Russian victory.
  • Wilsons 14 points

    Woodrow Wilson first introduces his 14 points. The Germans later sign the armistice on the back of these. He had several iseas in his points and some did have a large impact but they never really became too important. The points included having no more secret agreements, to let Italians live in Italy, Belgium would remain independant, and France would recover land they lost in war war to Germany.
  • Marne 2

    This was the last major German offensive attack of the war and was an Allied victory.
  • End of the War

    This was the last day of the war and was called armistice day, but fighting still continued on the western front. There were still many casualties in Germany and at the site of one of the first battles there were heavy casualties.
  • Last casualty

    1 minute before the ceasefire was settled, Private Henry Gunter is shot down in a mission to try and take a German machine gun post.
  • Armistice

    Germany had little choice but to sign the armistice. They were forced to give up thousands of their weapons and all of their submarines, as well as evacuate certain areas. They were also demanded to tell the locations of land mines and wells they may have poisoned. If the terms were not followed, then war would begin again. It was signed at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
  • Casualties

    There millions of casualties from WW1. The U.S. alone had over a quarter of a million casualties. Turkey had 650,00, Italy had almost 1.5 million, Germany had roughly 5.75 million, France had almost 6 million, Russia had 6.7 million, Britain had over 3 million, and austria-Hungary had almost 5.4 million. Needless to say that this was pretty much the bloodiest war in hisory.
  • Economic cost of WW1

    WW1 was a very expensive war. Countries had to shift their economies to making weapons of war and transporting their troops. It could be very costly to ship troops across countries and to test out new weapons and perfect them. Russia suffered a lot and had an entire revolution. Many countries were in debt from trying to get enough money for war. Citizens had bought trusts and other countries had made loans. Then there was all the economic supplies lost at sea, and the sufferage of citizens.
  • Personal Conclusion

    I feel that a lot of blood was spilled without point in WW1. Some of the people who died didn't have to, and honestly, alliances were almost a bad thing in this war. Franklu, I do also thing it brought some good. Several new technologies were created that would play big roles later on, and people did learn about how big a war really could get and could try to prevent another. The worst thing I think is that Germany changed the way war was fought by attacking citizens, which would continue in war