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Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun in 1916 was the longest single battle of World War One. The casualties from Verdun and the impact the battle had on the French Army was a primary reason for the British starting the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 in an effort to take German pressure off of the French at Verdun. The Battle of Verdun started on February 21st 1916 and ended on December 16th in 1916. -
The Zimmerman Note is intercepted
The British intercepted a telegram sent from Germany to Mexico asking the Mexicans to attack the U.S. if the U.S. got involved in WWI. They promised the Mexicans money and a return of AZ, CA, NM territory lost by the Mexicans to the U.S. in the Mexican American War of 1846-8. Mexico considered it, after all, they did not like the U.S. or Wilson but were more afraid of the U.S. than Germany. Plus Germany is 1000s of miles away it was one of the factors that helped bring us into the war. -
Russian Revolution broke out
By 1917, most Russians had lost faith in the leadership ability of the czarist regime. Government corruption was rampant, the Russian economy remained backward and Czar Nicholas II had repeatedly dissolved the Dumas, the Russian parliamentary groups established to placate the masses after the Revolution of 1905 each time they opposed his will. -
Sinking of Lusitania
On May 7 1915 less than a year after World War I 1914-18 erupted across Europe, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner en route from New York to Liverpool, England. Of the more than 1,900 passengers and crew members on board, more than 1,100 perished, including more than 120 Americans. Nearly two years would pass before the United States formally entered World War I. -
Assassation of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and wife
On 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. -
Battle of Somme
It took place 1 July 1916 on both sides of the River Somme in France. The battle was one of the largest of World War I in which more than 1,000,000 men were wounded or killed making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history. -
Austria-Hungary declares war on serbia
One month to the day after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia effectively beginning the First World War. -
Germany declares war on Serbia
German investors were following events because they were closely involved a lot of the German electrical combines for instance AEG had established themselves in Moscow and they knew perfectly well what was happening in the mines of the Ukraine with all those raw materials. They could see the railway snaking around the place and they knew that Russia was becoming a super power. -
Germany declares war on France
Two days after declaring war on Russia Germany declares war on France moving ahead with a long held strategy conceived by the former chief of staff of the German army alfred von Schlieffen for a two front war against France and Russia hours later France makes its own declaration of war against Germany readying its troops to move into the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which it had forfeited to Germany in the settlement that ended the Franco Prussian War in 1871. -
Germany invades Belgium
Invasion of Belgium in 1914The frontier between Germany and France was well fortified on both sides at the time, and a direct attack would probably not have succeeded.
By 1905 the German General Staff the central planning agency of the German army had worked out in great detail a plan for attacking France along its long and exposed northern border despite the fact that this involved violating Belgian neutrality the main plan was called the schlieffen plan. -
Great Britan declares war on Germany
It was a decision that is seen as the start of World War One. Britain led by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith had given Germany an ultimatum to get out of Belgium by midnight of August 3rd. In fear of being surrounded by the might of Russia and France Germany had put into being the Schlieffen Plan in response to the events that had occurred in Sarajevo in June 1914. By doing this the German military hierarchy had doomed Belgium to an invasion. -
Battle of Marne
On September 10 the Germans embarked on a retreat that ended north of the Aisne River beginning a phase of the war that would be marked by trench warfare. The First Battle of the Marne was fought to the north and east of Paris in early September 1914. -
Battle of Argonne Forest
The Meuse Argonne Offensive also known as the Maas Argonne Offensive and the Battle of the Argonne Forest was a part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. -
US declares war against Germany
The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a war against the United States he was uncertain as to how the war would be engaged. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor answered that question. On December 8, Japanese Ambassador Oshima went to German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop to nail the Germans down on a formal declaration of war against America.
