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Austrian-Hungarian Revolution
The revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire, ruled by the Habsburg dynasty. -
Alsace & Lorraine to Germany
a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle department of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. -
Germany officially unified
Bismarck completes efforts to unify Prussia and the German states -
Triple Alliance formed
secret agreement between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed on 20 May 1882 and renewed periodically until World War I. Germany and Austria-Hungary had been closely allied since 1879. -
Russo-Jap war
The Russo-Japanese War was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. -
triple entente formed
linking the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente on 31 August 1907. The understanding between the three powers, supplemented by agreements with Japan and Portugal, constituted a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy -
Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia
When rebellion by the Committee of Union and Progress the Young Turks took the Ottoman government by storm in 1908 -
Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated
Archduke Franz Ferdinand heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife are assassinated in Sarajevo. -
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
Archduke Franz Ferdinand heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife are assassinated in Sarajevo. -
Ottoman-Germany alliance
The alliance was created as part of a joint-cooperative effort that would strengthen and modernize the failing Ottoman military -
Schlieffen plan
the operational plan for a designated attack on France once Russia, in response to international tension -
Japan declares war on Germany
Japan sends an ultimatum to Germany, demanding the removal of all German ships from Japanese and Chinese waters -
Battle of Marne
the French army and the British Expeditionary Force against the advancing Germans who had invaded Belgium -
Battle of Verdun
was one of the largest battles of the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies. -
Lusitania sunk
Germany waged submarine warfare against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The ship was identified and torpedoed by the German U-boat -
Battle of Somme
a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. -
Zimmerman Note
a message from the German foreign secretary to the German ambassador to Mexico proposing a Mexican-German alliance in the case of war between the United States and Germany -
Germany continues Sub warefare
Submarine warfare in World War I was primarily a fight between German U-boats and Atlantic supply convoys bound for Great Britain, France, and Russia. -
Tsar Nicholas II adbicates
the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Duke of Finland, and titular King of Poland. -
USA declares war on Germany
President Wilson appeared before a joint session of Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Germany in order to "make the world safe for democracy." -
Bolsheviks emerge as a political group
a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party -
Lenin takes power over Russia
a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918 -
14 points proposed
a statement of principles for world peace that was to be used for peace negotiations to end World War I. -
Russia signed treaty of Brest-Litovsk
between the new Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia's participation in World War I. -
Kaiser Wilhelm II adbicates
Wilhelm was himself deeply reluctant to make such a sacrifice, instead expressing a preference to lead his armies back into Germany from the Western Front. -
Treaty of Versailles signed
ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. -
Stalin takes over Russia
Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. -
Germany stops war reparation payments
Each of the defeated powers was required to make payments in either cash or kind. Because of the financial situation Austria, Hungary, and Turkey found themselves in after the war, few to no reparations were paid and the requirements for reparations were cancelled.