France & Germany; key historical events (from 1/1/1870 to
31/12/1928)
Click here for events in France, Germany
1/1/1929 and later
Click here for events in France, Germany
31/12/1869 and earlier
This page also covers
World War One
Page last modified 10/1/2021
1928. Jean Marie Le Pen, French Far Right Wing
politician was born, son of a Breton fisherman. He formed the National Front
Party in 1972.
27/8/1928. In Paris, 15 nations signed the Kellogg-Briand
Pact, outlawing war. The USSR signed the pact on 6/9/1928.
28/6/1928, In
Germany, Hermann
Muller, Social Democrat, was appointed Chancellor following the
resignation of Wilhelm
Marx on 13/6/1928.
13/6/1928, In
Germany, Chancellor
Wilhelm Marx resigned.
20/5/1928, In Germany, Socialists won
the elections. The result was, Social Democrats rose from 131 seats to 153, to
become the largest party but without an overall majority. Centre Party, 62
seats. Communists, 54 seats. German National People’s Party, 73 seats. German People’s
Party, 45 seats. Nazis, 12 seats.
22/4/1928. In French elections Right-wing Parties won 325 out of the 610
seats.
28/3/1928. France shortened its term
of compulsory military service to one year.
16/9/1927. President Von
Hindenburg
repudiated German responsibility for the Great War (World War One).
24/7/1927, The Menin Gate, a
memorial at Ypres to the soldiers of the British Empire, was unveiled by Lord Plumer.
7/2/1927, Emile Coue, French psychotherapist, died at
Nancy.
8/9/1926. The League of Nations voted to admit Germany as a
member. On 11/9/1926 Spain left the League in protest at Germany joining.
29/8/1926. A Nazi Party
rally was held at Nuremberg.
24/4/1926. Germany signed a friendship treaty with the USSR.
13/3/1926. Germany was refused a place on the League of
Nations Council.
8/2/1926. Germany applied to join the League of Nations.
2/2/1926, Giscard D’Estang, French President, was born.
30/1/1926. British
troops ended a 7-year occupation of the Rhineland.
1/12/1925, The Peace of Locarno was signed (by UK,
France, Italy, and Germany), guaranteeing peace and existing national frontiers
in Europe.
27/11/1925, Aristide Briand formed a Government in France.
9/11/1925. The German Schutzstaffel,
or Protection Squad (SS), was formed.
16/10/1925, France and Germany concluded the Locarno Treaty, guaranteeing their
mutual frontier. Italy and Britain also signed.
Germany reaffirmed its renunciation of Alsace-Lorraine and guaranteed
not to attack France or Belgium. Russia feared the Locarno Treaty meant an alliance
of western powers against it, see 24/4/1926.
12/10/1925, Germany and the USSR signed a commercial treaty.
5/10/1925, The Locarno Conference opened, to decide
the German border and future of the Rhineland.
13/7/1925. French
troops begin to withdraw from the Rhineland.
18/6/1925. France accepted German proposals for a security
pact. Hitler’s
Mein Kampf was published.
25/4/1925. Hindenburg became President of
Germany. He won 48.5% of the popular vote, against 42.5% for Wilhelm Marx of
the Centre Party.
10/4/1925, In France, Paul Painleve became Prime Minister after the
defeat of Edouard
Herriot.
26/3/1925, Hindenburg was elected President of Germany.
27/2/1925, Hitler spoke at a Nazi meeting at a Munich beer hall.
14/2/1925. The ban on the
Nazi Party in Bavaria was lifted.
15/1/1925, After a month of intense political negotiations in
Germany, Hans
Luther (Independent) succeeded Wilhelm Marx as Chancellor, and Gustav
Stresemann became Foreign Minister.
20/12/1924. Adolf Hitler was freed from prison on parole after serving just
8 months of his jail term for high treason.
7/12/1924, In German elections, the Communists (45 seats)
lost ground to the Social Democrats (131 seats). The Conservative Nationalists
also gained (103 seats) whilst the Nazis slumped to 14 seats. The
Centre Party won 69 seats.
2/12/1924, The UK and Germany signed a trade pact.
30/11/1924, The last French
and Belgian troops left the Ruhr.
7/11/1924, Germany announced its first balanced budget since
the war.
30/8/1924, The German
Reichsbank was made independent of the government. It issued a new currency, the ReichsMark, at 1,000,000 million old Marks to the new
currency.
17/8/1924. French and Belgian
troops agreed to withdraw from the Ruhr within 1 year following Germany’s
agreement on war reparations.
16/8/1924, The Allies and
Germany accepted the Dawes Plan, for a revised timetable of reparations.
8/8/1924, A ten-nation
summit agreed a plan drawn up by US banker Charles Dawes, designed to assist Germany’s
economy and fulfil reparation payments.
8/7/1924, Adolf Hitler resumed leadership of the Nazi Party.
11/5/1924, In French elections the Left bloc emerged with the
largest number of seats, 287 out of 581.
4/5/1924, In elections to
the German Parliament (Reichstag), the Nationalists made gains, winning 95
seats, as did the Communists with 62 seats. The Social Democrats won 100 seats
and the Centre Party had 65 seats. For
the first time the National Socialist (Nazi) Party entered Parliament, with 32
seats.
1/4/1924. Adolf
Hitler was jailed for 5 years for his
part in the abortive Munich beer hall putsch.
26/2/1924, Adolf Hitler was
charged with treason for his part in
the abortive Munich beer hall putsch.
28/12/1923. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, who designed the 300
metre Eiffel Tower, Paris, died aged 91.
15/11/1923. Rampant German inflation peaked with the Mark worth 4,200,000 Million to the US Dollar, and 10,000,000 Million
to the UK Pound – if you could find anyone willing to change your marks for
dollars. It had been 4.2 to the Dollar in 1914, 350,000 to the pound (1 pound
was 5 dollars) on 1/6/1923, and 622,000 to the pound on 22/6/1923. A loaf of
bread cost 63 pfennigs in 1918, and 250 pfennigs in January 1923. But by July
1923 a loaf cost 3,465 pfennigs, and by November 1923, 201,000 million marks. Workers were paid twice a day and by the
evening a loaf of bread would cost what a house was worth in the morning.
Money had effectively become
worthless; trade was done by barter. Middle class families with cash in the
bank had been ruined. The problem had
been that, after French troops occupied the Ruhr to enforce war reparations,
the German Government began to print marks in huge numbers. German industry
was unable to produce the goods to match
the vast increase in money supply. On 15/11/1923 Germany introduced the
Rentemark, tied to the country’s real estate. Each rentemark was worth 1,000
million old marks.
9/11/1923. The Munich
beer hall putsch marked the start of Hitler’s
rise to power in Germany. This
putsch against the Bavarian Government failed and Hitler was arrested on
11/11/1923 in a village outside Munich and imprisoned. Hitler then spent several months in prison in
Landsberg Am Lech, Bavaria, where he dictated part of his Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess.
23/10/1923, A Communist
uprising occurred in Hamburg.
22/10/1923, Communists in Hamburg led by Ernst Thälmann were secretly
called on to mobilize.
11/10/1923, The German Mark reached 10,000 million
to the UK Pound.
1/10/1923, The German mark reached 242,000,000 to
the US$
30/9/1923, A German uprising in Dusseldorf against French occupation of
The Ruhr.
27/9/1923. Martial law
was proclaimed in Germany, under Article 48 of the Constitution.
15/9/1923, As the German
economy deteriorated, the German Bank Rate was raised to 90%.
2/9/1923, Hitler fiercely denounced the Weimar Republic.
10/8/1923, Civil unrest
began in Germany; strikes and riots, until 13/8/1923.
6/8/1923, In Germany, Gustav Stresemann was appointed Chancellor
following the sudden resignation of Wilhelm Cuno. Stresemann formed a coalition
Government.
1/7/1923, The German Mark reached 160,000 to the US$. Pre 1914 it had been 4.20; during 1922 the
rate fell from 162 to over 7,000 to the US$.
31/5/1923, Prince Ranier III, prince of the House of Grimaldi, was born in Monaco.
31/3/1923, Rioting German
workers at the Krupps works in Essen in French-occupied Ruhr were shot by French troops.
1/2/1923. Inflation in Germany continued; £1 was
now worth 220,000 Marks. On 2/1/1922 £1
had been worth 30,000 Marks.
27/1/1923. The German Nazi Party held its first
rally, in Munich.
12/1/1923
Germany
protested at the occupation of the Ruhr (see 11/1/1923) and ceased all coal
reparations shipments to France. The
French erected customs posts and economically divided the region from the rest
of Germany. This was a serious blow to
the German economy, especially after the loss of the industrial Upper Silesia
to Poland. The resultant economic disruption hit the German
economy and its currency began to collapse. See 31/7/1925.
11/1/1923, Germany defaulted on reparations payments (see 26/12/1922), and French
and Belgian
troops occupied Essen and The Ruhr.
23/12/1922, Birth of Helmut Schmidt,
German Chancellor.
16/12/1922, The Reparation Commission accused Germany of intentional shortfalls in
wood and coal deliveries to France. See
11/1/1923.
22/11/1922, Wilhelm Cuno succeeded Wirth
as German Chancellor.
4/9/1922, Silesia voted to remain with Prussia.
24/6/1922, German Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau,
aged 54, was murdered by anti-Semitic nationalists.
16/4/1922. Germany restored relations with the USSR, signing
the Second Treaty of Rapallo. Secretly, the USSR agreed to let Germany build and
test weapons in Soviet territory that were forbidden within Germany under the
Treaty of Versailles.
26/2/1922, Britain
and France concluded a 20-year alliance.
25/2/1922, The
French murderer Henri
Landru, known as Bluebeard, was guillotined. He had killed 10 women after
luring them to his flat by dating adverts in newspapers.
31/1/1922, In
Germany, Walter
Rathenau was appointed Foreign Minister.
15/1/1922, In
France, Raymond
Poincare formed a Government in France, following Aristide
Briand’s resignation on 12//1/1903.
13/1/1922, At a
conference at Cannes, the Allies agreed to postpone Germany’s reparation
payments.
2/1/1922. As inflation
soared in Germany, £1 bought over 30,000 German Marks. See 1/2/1923.
15/12/1921. Germany sought
a moratorium on reparations.
4/11/1921. The German
currency began to collapse.
17/10/1921, Ludwig III, King of Bavaria, died.
14/10/1921, Demolition of the
great fortress of Heligoland was completed.
12/10/1921, The Council of the League of Nations awarded
the upper two thirds of Silesia to Poland (along with most of its coal mines and
steelworks). Germany reluctantly accepted the decision.
30/9/1921. French troops
pulled out of the Ruhr.
21/9/1921, Large explosion at German factory near Mannheim;
2,000 killed or injured.
26/8/1921, The former German Finance Minister, Mathias
Erzberger, was assassinated by a nationalist gang.
25/8/1921. Peace treaty (Treaty
of Berlin) signed between Germany and the USA.
29/7/1921 Hitler became President of the National Socialist Party.
28/5/1921, In Germany, Chancellor Wirth appointed industrialist Walter Rathenau as Minister for
Reconstruction, including responsibility for reparations.
20/5/1921, Germany and China resumed diplomatic relations.
6/5/1921, Germany and Russia signed a peace treaty.
4/5/1921. France invaded the
Ruhr to enforce reparations.
2/5/1921, France mobilised
its troops in preparation for an invasion of the Ruhr.
27/4/1921, The
Allies claimed £6,650 million (132,000 million gold Marks) compensation from
Germany. Germany reluctantly
agreed, but it would put a great strain on the German economy. The Fehrenbach German government at once
resigned. The Allies threatened that if
Germany did not agree, they would occupy the Ruhr.
24/4/1921. Germany
pleaded in vain to the USA for aid on reparations. On 27/4/1921 reparations were set at £6.65 billion.
24/3/1921, Pro-Communist riots in Hamburg, Germany.
23/3/1921. Germany
defaulted on reparations.
20/3/1921, A plebiscite in Upper Silesia resulted in a
majority vote for remaining with Germany.
Germany tried to claim that the whole territory should therefore remain
as German, no part passing to Poland.
The resultant crisis, with France supporting Poland, was passed to the
League of Nations, see 20/10/1921.
8/3/1921. Because of
Germany’s failure to give a satisfactory response to demands for war
reparations, Allied troops occupied the Ruhr towns. Germany agreed to pay war reparations on
11/5/1921. These consisted of £10 billion in gold over the next 42 years plus a
12.5% tax on Germany’s exports.
1/3/1921, Allied troops
entered Germany to enforce war reparations payments.
24/1/1921, The
Reparations Conference in Paris fixed German war reparations at US$ 56 billion,
to be paid over 42 years; of this sum, France would get 52%. German politician
reacted with outrage, seeing this as ‘enslavement of the German economy’, and
defaulted on repayments on 23/3/1921. Under pressure from the US, the Allies
reduced their claim but when Germany defaulted on this, too, they reoccupied
the Rhineland.
16/1/1921, In
France, Aristide
Briand formed a Government.
10/1/1921, In
Leipzig, war trials began at the German Supreme Court.
30/12/1920, The
French Communist Party was founded at Tours.
10/12/1920, Woodrow Wilson
and Leon
Bourgeois were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
23/9/1920, Alexandre
Millerande was elected President of France, succeeding Paul Deschanel
who had resigned due to ill-health.
10/8/1920. Other post-war
provisions included the creation of
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, Galicia was given to Poland, Transylvania to Romania, and Istria,
Trentino, and South Tyrol to Italy. Greece and Yugoslavia acquired parts of
Bulgaria. German East Africa went to
Britain, the Samoan Islands to New Zealand, and South West Africa to South
Africa. Germany itself lost territory to
Poland, France, Denmark, and Lithuania.
11/7/1920, The result of a plebiscite in East and West
Prussia was a 97% vote to remain with Germany.
21/6/1920, In Germany, Konstantin Fehrenbach of the Centre Party
became Chancellor. His coalition Government of Social Democrats and Centre
Party was joined by the People’s Party.
14/6/1920, Max Weber, German sociologist died aged 56.
6/6/1920, In Germany, the first elections held after the
Treaty of Versailles showed a shift away from the Social Democrats and Centre,
towards extremist Parties.
1/4/1920, The Nazi Party
was officially founded in Germany.
19/4/1920, The Conference of San Remo opened. Following on from the London Conference (see
12/1/2920), post World War One frontiers in Europe were settled.
19/3/1920. In Germany, Socialists rebelled and captured Essen.
14/3/1920, A plebiscite in the middle zone of Schleswig
favoured integration with Germany.
13/3/1920. A pro-Royalist coup was attempted in Berlin, led by
Dr Wolfgang
Kapp. The German Government had to retreat to Stuttgart but the
German workers opposed the coup and began a general strike; the coup plotters
had to flee.
24/2/1920. The National Socialist Workers (Nazi) party,
led by Adolf Hitler, published a programme for a Third Reich.
6/2/1920, The League of Nations took over administration of Saarland from France.
5/2/1920, Germany refused to
hand over alleged war criminals to the Allies.
23/1/1920, The Netherlands refused to extradite Kaiser Wilhelm
II, as demanded by the Suprme Allied War Council.
20/1/1920, Peace Talks in
Paris concluded, see 18/1/1919.
17/1/1920, Paul Deschanel was elected President of
France.
31/7/1919. Germany adopted the Weimar Constitution, named after the town where the constitution
was drafted.
12/7/1919, Britain and France authorised the resumption of
commercial relations with Germany.
4/7/1919. France demobilised
its troops.
28/6/1919. The Treaty of
Versailles was signed. This peace treaty between the
Allies and the Germans was signed at Versailles and officially ended World
War One, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand started it.
Alsace Lorraine was returned to France, German colonies were under mandate,
German East Africa went to Britain and German South West Africa (Namibia) to
South Africa. The west bank of the Rhine
and a zone 30 miles deep on its east bank was demilitarised. See 7/5/1919.
22/6/1919, The German
National Assembly at Weimar authorised the signing of the Peace Treaty.
20/6/1919, The German
Chancellor, Schiedemann,
fell due to his opposition to the Paris Peace Plan. On 21/6/1919 Gustave Bauer
formed a Cabinet comprising Social Democrats, Centre, and Democrats.
29/5/1919, German delegates
made counter-proposals to the Paris Peace conference,
7/5/1919, Peace terms were dictated to Germany. Germany had
to ceded Alsace-Loraine to France; Upper Silesia, most of Poznan, and West
Prussia went to Poland. This separated
East Prussia from the rest of Germany as Poland gained a corridor to the sea at
Danzig. North Schleswig went to Germany
and Memel went to Lithuania. See 28/6/1919.
6/5/1919. Peace conference
shared out former German colonies.
2/5/1919. German troops entered Munich to crush the fledgling
Soviet Republic in Bavaria.
4/4/1919. At Versailles, the
Germans agreed to make Danzig a ‘free city’.
11/3/1919. The Allies agreed
to supply famine-hit Germany with food.
22/2/1919. After the murder of the Bavarian Prime Minister, Kurt Eisner,
a Soviet Republic was declared in
Bavaria.
4/2/1919, The ‘Soviet Republic of Bremen’ was suppressed.
23/1/1919. The Socialists won the German elections.
18/1/1919, Peace talks opened at Versailles. See 20/1/1920. 27 nations attended; Germany
was excluded
12/1/1919, Delegates arrived
in Paris for the Peace talks, see 18/1/1919.
11/1/1919. The Spartacus League initiated a week of revolt in
Berlin. Led by Rosa Luxembburg and Karl Leibknecht, they wanted a Communist
workers State in Germany
10/1/1919, Bremen
declared itself a Soviet Republic; this was crushed on 4/2/1919,
5/1/1919. The Nazi
(National Socialist) Party was founded in Germany. Adolf Hitler, a soldier in World War One
who was awarded the Iron Cross for bravery, and who was angry at the armistice
terms imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, and extremely opposed to
Communism, headed the new Party. Hitler was a poor student in the Austrian
secondary school system. He became an artist but failed to gain entry to the
Academy of Fine Arts; Hitler was a melancholic character, obsessed
by fears that Jews, linked to communists, would take over the world.
30/12/1918, The German Communist Party was founded. However within a fortnight, irregular German
troops had murdered its leaders.
23/12/1918, Helmut Schmidt, German leader, was born (died
2015)
6/12/1918. Allied troops
occupied Cologne.
5/12/1918, The British Prime
Minister demanded that the ex-German Kaiser be prosecuted by an International
Court.
2/12/1918, One of the last
acts of the British War Cabinet; it demanded the extradition of the German Kaiser Wilhelm.
1/12/1918. The British Second
Army entered Germany.
30/11/1918. German occupation of Bucharest,
capital of Rumania, ended, see 6/12/1916.
25/11/1918, French troops
entered Strasbourg.
23/11/1918, Mutinous German
sailors occupied the Chancellery and took Ebert hostage; he was rescued on 24/11/1918 by
soldiers from Potsdam.
21/11/1918. Surrender of the German Fleet to the Allies at Scapa
Flow, for internment. On 21/6/1919
it was scuttled at Scapa Flow, in the Orkneys.
18/11/1918. The German
occupation of Brussels ended, see 20/8/1914.
11/11/1918. Armistice Day. World War One ended. Fighting ceased on the Western Front, and
Austro-Hungary signed an armistice with the Allies. See 29/9/1918. Church bells rang out across Britain in
celebration. The Allies had not expected such a sudden collapse of Germany; in
September 1918 they were planning campaigns for 1919. However General
Ludendorff was shaken by the sudden Allied advance (see 8/8/1918)
and begged Kaiser
Wilhelm to seek an armistice immediately. The Armistice was signed
in Marshal
Foch’s railway carriage, near Compiegne. Warsaw
became the capital of a restored Polish State. The armistice required
Germany to relinquish 5,000 heavy guns, 30,000 machine guns, 2,000 aircraft,
all U-boats, 5,000 locomotives, 150,000
wagons and 5,000 lorries. The surface fleet was to be interned (see 21/11/1918),
the Allies were to occupy the Rhineland, and the blockade of German ports would
continue. World War One cost 9 million lives, with a further 27 million
injured. Britain alone had lost 750,000 men, and a further 200,000 from the
Empire, with another 1.5 million seriously injured. The War had cost the Allies
an estimated US$ 126 billion, and the Central Powers a further US$ 60 billion.
Britons now celebrated, and wages rose, although higher food prices eroded some
of those gains. Women, at least those over 30, finally had the vote, and
smoking, gambling and movies boomed, with Charlie Chaplin as movie star. The US was the greatest beneficiary of the War. US
losses amounted to 53,000 men, a small number compared to 8,500,000 casualties
of the European combatants. US industry had become more efficient, and key
sectors such as chemicals had learned to do without Europe; the US aviation
industry had been transformed. Economically, The US had needed European capital
before 1914; by 1918 Europe owed the US some US$ 10,000 million.
9/11/1918. Kaiser
William II abdicated and fled to
Holland, and a German Republic was founded. On 11/11/1918 the Emperor of Austria, Karl, abdicated and a Republic
was founded.
8/11/1918, Abdication of the King of Wurttemberg and Duke
Ernest of Brunswick.
3/11/1918.. Austria
signed an armistice with the Allies.
30/10/1918. Austria
completed the evacuation of its troops from Italian territory. Austria became an independent German
speaking state. See 23/10/1918,
28/10/1918, Mutiny
broke out amongst German sailors at Kiel, spreading rapidly to Hamburg and
Bremen. On 7/11/1918 insurrection broke out at Munich.
23/10/1918, Italian forces counterattacked
against the Austrians near Vittorio Veneto, reaching the Piave River on
27/10/1918, By 30/10.1918 the Italians,
with the aid of British forces, had the Austrians in full retreat.
20/10/1918. Germany stopped
U-boat warfare.
19/10/1918, Belgian forces
recaptured Zeebrugge and Brugges.
18/10/1918. Lille
was recaptured from the Germans.
12/10/1918, Germany and Austria
agreed to US
President Woodrow’s demand that their troops should return to their
own territory before an armistice could be signed.
9/10/1918, British forces
took Le Cateau.
8/10/1918, The French retook
Cambrai, see 26/8/1914.
29/9/1918. (1) Allied troops captured part of the Hindenburg Line.
Ludendorff called for an armistice to avert a
catastrophe for Germany. Negotiations opened with President Woodrow Wilson of the
USA on 4/10/1918 but fighting continued till 11/11/1918.
(2) Bulgaria signed an armistice with the
Allies.
26/9/1918, General Allied
offensive on the Western Front; the
Germans were fighting now only to cover their retreat.
14/9/1918, Austria-Hungary
attempted to negotiate a separate peace deal with the Allies, which was refused.
13/9/1918. In the USA, 14
million men had registered for conscription.
12/9/1918, At the Battle of
St Mihel, the US 1st Army under Pershing captured the St Mihel salient.
4/9/1918. The Germans retreated to the Siegfried Line.
30/8/1918. British troops
crossed the Somme.
8/8/1918. General Haig initiated a surprise offensive against the Germans
at Amiens which started a continuous retreat of the Germans through to Armistice Day on 11/11/1918.
The lessons of The Somme (see 13/11/1916) had finally been learnt. Low flying
aircraft drowned out the noise of tank manoeuvres, ammunition dumps were
camouflaged, and decoy tank movements distracted the Germans. When the Allies
began a major creeping bombardment, the tanks moved in behind to crush the
barbed wire and infantry swiftly followed to consolidate the territorial gains.
On their part, the Germans were demoralised by the stalling of their great
Spring offensive (see 13/4/1918) and also by news of hunger, rioting and
strikes back in Germany. Reinforced by US troops, the Allies found the Germans
ready to retreat, and advanced eight miles on the first day. The battle lines had become mobile again, and
were moving east. In Ludendorff’s words, it was a black day for the
German Army.
The Allies were reinforced by US
troops and further British troops were returning from Palestine. The British
Prime Minister, David
Lloyd George, agreed to release reserve divisions of conscripts,
which he had held back, now convinced he was not simply sending them into
another meat grinder like The Somme or Passchendaele. With an assembly of 456
tanks and 2,000 guns and howitzers the Allies forced the Germans back on a
14-mile front, for 8 miles. 400 German guns were captured, along with 12,000
prisoners. The new Allied tactics
continued to work against stiff German resistance and by mid September the
Germans had retreated to the massive defences of their Hindenburg Line, 3 miles
in depth. However the Germans were demoralised and after 10 days of fighting
the Hindenburg Line was broken through at Saint Quentin. German soldiers
going on home leave, passing fresh troops travelling west to the front, taunted
them with calls of ‘you’re only prolonging the war’. However casualties on all sides were very
high. In the three months following Amiens, August 1918, 531,000 French soldiers died or were wounded or
captured, as many as in the eight months of Verdun 1916. The figure for US
soldiers for those three months was 127,000, over twice as many as lost in
Vietnam. For British and Empire troops, the toll was 411,000, the same as
during the 4 ½ months of The Somme. German losses were even higher; 785,000
killed and wounded, and 386,000 prisoners taken by the Allies.
A major issue for Germany was lack of food. Germany had
been over 80% self-sufficient in food in 1914, but the military had removed
labour from the farms without compensatory inputs of fertiliser or
mechanisation. German food production
plummeted and by 1918 German citizens had just 64% of pre-war cereals, 18%
of the meat, and 12% of the fats they had consumed in 1913.
On the German Home Front, Ludendorff
and the other Generals knew the War was lost weeks before the November 1918
Armistice. Although by then Germany was effectively a military dictatorship,
the military pretended that surrender was only due to the wishes of civilian
politicians. This perpetuated a post-War myth that the German Army had not been
defeated at all, but betrayed by left-wing politicians, that the German Army
was in fact invincible. Less than 20 years later that myth helped fuel the rise
of the Nazis.
From this day, the final German retreat began. Closing
stage of World War Two.
18/7/1918. Allied forces
launched a counter offensive on the Marne, capturing Soissons (see 9/4/1918).
15/7/1918, The Second Battle of the Marne began, when General Ludendorff attempted an advance; this
was thwarted by British, French, and US troops. Marshall Ferdinand Foch of France launched an offensive on the Marne which led
the Germans to seek an armistice in November 1918.
15/6/1918, The Austrians
began an offensive against the Italians along the Piave River Front; they were
attempting to break through to the fertile farmlands of the Veneto. See 23/10/1918.
10/6/1918, The Battle of
Belleau Wood ended.
9/6/1918, Germany opened an
offensive near Compeigne.
6/6/1918, Battle of Belleau
Wood began.
27/5/1918, The Germans took
Soissons in a thrust towards Paris.
9/5/1918, British troops
averted a German attack on Ostend, Belgium.
7/5/1918. Romania signed a peace treaty
with Germany (The Fourth Treaty of
Bucharest). Southern Dobruja was
transferred from Romania to Bulgaria; Bulgaria had been seeking the whole of
the Dobruja. See 27/11/1919.
29/4/1918. The last big
German offensive on the Western Front petered out.
23/4/1918.British forces raided Zeebrugge.
They accomplished their objective of sinking concrete-filled British ships in
the harbour entrance to block it, bottling up German submarines.
9/4/1918. Germany
launched a major offensive at Ypres.
Reinforced by the arrival of 70 divisions freed up on the eastern front by the
capitulation of Russia, Germany tried to knock the western Allies out of the
war before new American troops could arrive. However instead of concentrating
his attack here on the British forces, Ludenforff ordered secondary attacks on the
French sector of the front at Chemin des Dames on 27/5/1918 and west of Reims
on 15/7/1918. The Allied line held and a major counter offensive was launched
on 18/7/1918,
28/3/1918, Ludendorff launched Operation Mars against the left wing of
the British Third Army, to force a salient into Allied lines, but he was
repulsed.
26/3/1918, The Battle of Rosieres, northern France,
began.
24/3/1918, The Battle of Baupame, northern France, began.
23/3/1918. Ludendorff made a tactical error. Believing the Allied forces
were already almost defeated, he failed to set definite objectives for his
offensive and simply made general thrusts, gaining territory to the north west,
west and south west, towards Beauvais and Paris. However he should have concentrated his efforts towards capturing the
strategic rail junction of Amiens, whose loss would have forced the Allies to
the negotiating table before US troops could be fully deployed. Meanwhile
German troops shelled Paris from a distance of 75 miles, using a large gun
called ‘Big Bertha’.Bertha’.
21/3/1918. Major German offensive began on the Somme. This was Ludendorff’s
desperate bid for victory before American troops could become effective. British
casualties were over 300,000, and the Germans advanced on a 50 mile-wide front,
in an attempt to reach the Channel ports, and drive a wedge between the British
and French Armies, but the German advance was halted.
The last German offensives on the Western Front began.
Penultimate stage of World War One.
3/3/1918. The Bolshevik
government in Russia assigned the Treaty of Brest Litovsk with the Germans. Lenin
insisted on signing, against the wishes of Trotsky.
Trotsky
wanted the Communist Revolution to spread throughout Germany, but Lenin
feared the rapid advance of German troops into Russia, approaching Petrograd.
Russia lost heavily in terms of
land and industry (Russia
lost 56 million inhabitants, 79% of its iron, and 89% of its coal production), but the Bolsheviks needed peace at any
cost before their new and shaky administration was overthrown, by
Germany or by anti-Bolshevik White Russians and Czechoslovak troops. Under
this Treaty, Finland regained its independence from Russia. The Baltic Republics were ceded to
Germany. Communists (recruited from
Finnish labourers) joined Red Guards to
try and re-establish Communist control in Finland. Germany moved in to repulse them. See 6/4/1918.
Turkey regained territories lost to Russia even in 1877.
For events of
1917 Russian Revolution see Russia
25/2/1918. Minsk was occupied
by the Germans.
21/2/1918. Australian cavalry
captured Jericho from the Turks.
18/2/1918, Germany launched
a big offensive on the Russian Front.
9/2/1918. Ukraine signed a
separate peace treaty with Germany.
28/1/1918. A general workers strike began in Berlin.
20/1/1918, The German naval
base at Ostend was bombarded by Allied ships.
31/12/1917, During
the year 1917 German submarines sank 6,500,000 tons of Allied shipping whilst
only 2,700,000 tons was built. In April 1917 Britain had only two months’ worth
of food stocks. However with US destroyer patrols searching for German
submarines, escorted transatlantic convoys and the mining of the seas between
Scotland and Norway, Allied losses were dramatically reduced and after April
1918 never exceeded 200,000 tons a month.
22/12/1917. The Bolsheviks
opened peace talks with Germany and Austria. The Allies accused |Russia of
betrayal.
10/12/1917, Italy torpedoed
the Austrian warship Wien in Trieste.
5/12/1917. Russia signed
an armistice with Germany, at Brest-Litovsk.
3/12/1917, Britain refused to
recognise Bolshevik Russia. Meanwhile
German and Austrian delegates met at Brest-Litovsk to end Russian participation
in World War One, see 3/3/1918.
1/12/1917. German East Africa cleared of German forces.
29/11/1917, The Inter Allied War Conference opened. Lloyd George
of Britain, Georges
Clemenceau of France and Baron Sidney Sonnino of Italy were concerned
that US soldiers and material quickly reach the front lines against Germany,
since post-Revolution Russia had ceased fighting.
20/11/1917. Major British tank
offensive at Cambrai. The Battle of
Cambrai ended on 3/12/1917.
15/11/1917, General Allenby advanced to within three miles of Jaffa.
12/11/1917, Austrian forces
established a bridgehead at Zenson, 20 miles north-east of Venice.
10/11/1917, The Third Battle of Ypres ended, see
31/7/1917. The plans of British General Haig to break through the German lines
was in tatters; all
the Allies had gained was a few square miles of swamp and an obliterated
village, after 156 days of fighting and 250,000 deaths, at Paschaendaele.
The tremors from the mining of the Messines
Ridge had been felt in Downing Street. That August had been the wettest in
living memory, turning the ground into an impassable quagmire; Allied troops
faced death by drowning as much as by gunfire. The constant shelling had
disrupted the system of dykes and streams which drained the flat fields of Flanders. Meanwhile in Palestine, British forces captured
Tel-Aviv.
6/11/1917. Canadian troops captured the
village of Paschendaele, during the
Third Battle of Ypres.
5/11/1917. American
troops under General Pershing went into action for the first time on the
Western Front.
1/11/1917, In Germany, Count von Hertling was appointed Chancellor.
31/10/1917. The Italian army was shattered
unexpectedly by a German onslaught in northern Italy and was retreating towards
the Piave River, just 15 miles
from Venice. The Italian Second Army had held the Austrians off during 1916 and
had captured the fortress of Monte Santo only 2 months earlier. The Italians
had seemed well dug in around the mountains of Caporetto and Udine. However a
heavy creeping artillery barrage by the Germans and gas attacks drove the
Italians back. Morale collapsed within the Italian army, and despite roadblocks
and court martials, up to half a million soldiers deserted. A further 300,000 Italian soldiers were
captured by the Germans, and the Italians lost 10,000 dead and 30,000 wounded
in the German attacks.
24/10/1917, The
Austrian offensive against Italy was halted on the Piave River. Boroevics army was so
reduced by Italian forces during August and September 1917 that Germany and Austria feared a collapse of
Austro-Hungary.
23/10/1917, The
Battle of Caporetto began.
15/10/1917. The
legendary Dutch spy Mata Hari, who danced in the nude, was
executed by a firing squad in Paris, having been found guilty of espionage by
the Germans.
4/10/1917, British victory on
Passchendaele Ridge.
3/10/1917, The Battle of
Polygon Wood (Ypres) ended.
1/10/1917. (1) Air raids on London.
(2) Damascus fell to General Allenby.
1/9/1917, German
offensive against Russia; Riga fell to the Germans.
20/8/1917 The French broke through the Verdun front on an 11 mile wide
offensive.
17/8/1917, Eleventh Battle
of the Isonzo; Italy made minor gains.
3/8/1917, German sailors
mutinied at Wilhelmshaven.
31/7/1917. The Third Battle of
Ypres (Passchendaele) began, see
10/11/1917.
25/7/1917, Mata Hari, a Dutchwoman called Margaretha Geetruida Macleod
(nee Zelle),
aged 41, who used her charms to tempt French Army officers to betray military
secrets, was found guilty of spying by a military court (despite very little
evidence of her guilt) and sentenced to death by firing squad. She was
initially hired by the French to spy in German-occupied Belgium.
19/7/1917. Mutinies broke out
in the German Navy. The German Reichstag passed a motion to end the
war.
14/7/1917, General Pershing, 57,
arrived in Paris to set up the headquarters of the American Expeditionary Force
(AEF).
27/6/1917. 14,000 American
troops arrived in France to fight with the Allies. The American expeditionary force was commanded
by General
John Pershing.
8/6/1917. Haig launched a new Flanders offensive.
7/6/1917, The British
captured the Messines Ridge. The British had begun tunnelling under the Ridge
from august 1915, and placed high explosives in the tunnels, detonated at 3.10
am. A million pounds of explosive was used, and the explosion was heard in
London and Dublin.
4/6/1917. Brazil
declared war against Germany and seized all German ships in
its ports In France, with the co-operation of the provisional Russian
government, a Polish army was formed to fight Germany.
15/5/1917. Henri Petain became French Commander in Chief.
5/5/1917. The Battle of Arras, 9 April to 5 May. The
Allied Spring offensive against the Germans pushed them back 3 to 4 miles from
the eastern suburbs of Arras, capturing several important hills.
4/5/1917. Widespread mutiny amongst French
units on the Front.
3/5/1917, US destroyers
arrived to join the British navy.
18/4/1917, The Second battle
of Gaza; Turkish forces, with German support, forced back British forces.
11/4/1917. (1) Brazil
broke off relations with Germany after the steamer Parana was torpedoed off
France. On 1/6/1917 Brazil revoked
its neutrality in the War as a mark of ‘continental solidarity and friendship
with the USA’. After more Brazilian shipping was sunk, Brazil declared war on
Germany on 26/10/1917. Brazil’s direct contribution to the war was the dispatch
of part of its fleet to European waters and the sending of a medical mission
and some aviators to the Western Front. The main contribution was placing its
food supplies and other resources at the disposal of the Allies.
(2) British
general Sir Edmund Allenby, commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force,
occupied Jerusalem following his
victory in Palestine over the Turks.
10/4/1917 Canadian troops captured Vimy Ridge in northern
France, with heavy casualties. This was a major assault during the Battle of
Arras, World War One.
9/4/1917, The Canadians
stormed Vimy Ridge, see 10/4/1917.
7/4/1917. Cuba declared war on Germany.
6/4/1917. The USA declared
war against Germany, with a
declaration signed by President Woodrow Wilson. This followed the
revealing by the British on 1/3/1917 of the Zimmerman Telegram, a missive from Germany to Mexico urging it to
declare war on the USA and recover its lost territories. The German Foreign
Minister, Arthur
Zimmerman, had sent a coded telegram to the German Ambassador in
Mexico offering an alliance against the US, in which Mexico would recover its
territories of New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. British naval intelligence
intercepted and decoded the message and passed it to President Wilson. American
shipping bound for Britain had also been attacked by German submarines
The Germans did not believe that
the US could raise and equip an effective army quickly enough to make a
difference in Europe, and that even if they did, it could not be transported
across a submarine-infested ocean. They seriously underestimated the
determination and resources of the US. The US did indeed have only a relatively
small standing army, 300,000 men including the National Guard and reserves, but
conscription was introduced and many willingly signed up.
Meanwhile this day the King and
Queen of England attended a Thanksgiving service at St Pauls Cathedral for the
US’s entry into the ‘war for freedom’.
26/3/1917. Britain
attacked the Turks at Gaza (First
Battle of Gaza).
20/3/1917. A German U-boat sank a fully-lit hospital ship.
19/3/1917, French Prime Minister Briand resigned. Alexandre Ribot formed a Cabinet.
26/2/1917. News of the sinking of the Cunard
liner Laconia by German U-boats
reached capitol Hill just as Congress was debating measures to protect US
shipping from the growing menace of U boats in the Atrlantic. Earlier in
February 1917 a US ship, the Housatonic was sunk, making a total of
134 neutral ships destroyed by the Germans in the last 3 weeks. The US navy was
already mounting patrols to protect its ships in the Atlantic.
The entry of the United States of America into the War;
from this time on the German cause was doomed.
25/2/1917. The Germans
retreated on the Ancre, and on 28/2/1917 the British captured Gommecourt.
13/2/1917, The Dutch spy Mata Hari
was arrested by the French.
12/2/1917, US President Wilson refused to reopen negotiations with Germany until
it abandoned its policy of unrestricted naval warfare; on 3/2/1917 the US liner
Housatonic had been sunk by a German U-boat.
31/1/1917. Germany announced a policy of unrestricted naval
warfare. All ships, passenger or cargo,
found by Germans could now be sunk without warning. This was a calculated risk
by Germany because it was bound to
involve US shipping being sunk, and would therefore bring the USA in against
Germany. But Germany reckoned on the inevitability of the USA entering the
war against here soon anyway, and believed she could win the war before this
happened. The German Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Von Holtzendorff, presented a memo to
the Kaiser
saying that if 600,000 tons of Allied shipping could be sunk each month, within
five months Britain would have to surrender. In fact, in the worst month, April
1917, German U-boats sank 869,103 tons of shipping, 373 ships. The British
adopted a convoy system, despite fears that a convoy’s speed was limited to
that of the slowest ship. The Navy had feared it had too few destroyers for
this job but then realised that it had enough if only ocean-going ships, not
cross-Channel traffic, was guarded.
Meanwhile the British navy
deployed Q-ships, gunships disguised as merchant ships which lured U-boats to
the surface then opened their gun hatches at the last moment. The first trial
convoy ran from Gibraltar on 10/5/1917. The convoy system worked; of 26,604
vessels convoyed in 1917, only 147 were sunk. Meanwhile the Germans lost 65 of
their 139 U-boats. Meanwhile Allied shipping blockaded German trade, creating
shortages of tea and coffee, but more seriously, fertiliser shortages too. In
the final German land offensive of 1918, advancing German troops discovered
their privations were not being endured by the enemy, and German morale fell.
4/1/1917, Britain and Germany agreed to
exchange all internees aged over 45.
31/12/1916, By the end of 1916, Russia had seen
some 3,600,000 of its citizens killed or wounded in the Great War, and a
further 2,000,000 taken prisoner by the Central Powers.
15/12/1916. The Battle of Verdun,
which began on 21/2/1916, ended. 364,000 Allied soldiers and 338,000 German
soldiers, had died in this battle.
13/12/1916. New British
offensive in Mesopotamia.
12/12/1916, Robert Nivelle was appointed Commander in Chief of French armies
in N and NE France.
6/12/1916, The Central
Powers occupied Bucharest.
13/11/1916, The Battle of the Somme ended. It had
begun on 1/7/1916, and succeeded in driving the Germans north towards the
coast, but
cost over 600,000 Allied lives; 420,000 British and 200,000 French. German
casualties were 450,000. At
Verdun, ten
months of fighting had cost another 400,000 men from both sides. The
Allies gained, at the Somme, some two miles of ground for these casualties, about five
lives lost per inch gained. The Germans knew the ‘Big Push’ was
coming, and had prepared well by stockpiling ammunition then sitting deep in
underground bunkers waiting. The Allied bombardment fully announced this push,
but did not destroy the German bunkers. After
the bombardment the Allied soldiers walked forward over no man’s land carrying
their kit, guns, and grenades, at least 30 kg or 60 lbs per person on a hot
summer day. The Germans, as soon as the bombardment ended, climbed back up and
scythed down the Allies in a hail of machine gun fire. On the first day of
that offensive, the Allies lost 19,000 men with a further 57,000 wounded, the
greatest loss ever on a single day. Bad
communications and slowness meant the few gains made were mostly lost again.
10/11/1916, Theobald von Bethmann, German
Chancellor, made a speech to the Reichstag pledging that Germany would join or
even lead a peace league after the War, to prevent such a catastrophic war from
ever happening again. In part he was responding to anti-war concerns from
Social Democrats within Germany. The German Government was also now open to a
peace agreement for the same reason as the Allies opposed it – because Germany
was now in control of large swathes of Europe from France to Russia.
2/11/1916, French
forces recaptured Fort Vaux, which the Germans had taken on 7/6/1916.
26/10/1916. Francois Mitterand, President of France from 1981, and founder of the
French Socialist Party, was born.
24/10/1916. French troops
broke open a four mile stretch of the German lines at Verdun, and another offensive started there.
24/9/1916, The French bombed
the Krupp works at Essen. A second
Zeppelin was shot down in England.
17/9/1916, Manfred von Richtofen, the ‘Red Baron’, Germany’s greatest air ace,
won the first of his 80 confirmed kills over Cambrai, France.
14/9/1916, Seventh
Battle of Isonzo; Italian forces made small gains.
12/9/1916, British
and Serbian forces mounted an attack from Salonika, but were unable to help Romania.
9/9/1916, Battle of
Ginchy. The Irish 16th Division captured the German-held village of Ginchy in
north eastern France, but at a cost of
4,330 casualties.
4/9/1916. British troops took Dar Es Salaam
in east Africa.
30/8/1916. Paul Von Hindenburg became Chief of General Staff in
Germany. He became Commander in Chief on the Western Front on 29/11/1916.
28/8/1916. Italy declared war on Germany.
27/8/1916. Rumania declared
war on Germany, see 6/12/1916. Austria declared war on Rumania.
26/8/1916, Battle of Delville Wood. After a week’s delay due
to rain, the British attacked and captured the German trenches.
22/8/1916, Romania declared
war on Austro-Hungary. Its troops
crossed the passes into Transylvania but were expelled again by mid-November.
19/8/1916. German warships
bombarded the east coast of England.
17/8/1916, The UK, France,
Russia, and Italy guaranteed Romania the Banat, Transylvania, the Hungarian
Plain as far as the Tisza River and Bukovina as far as the Prut River, if it
declared war on Austro-Hungary.
19/7/1916, At Fromelles, a preliminary British bombardment of
a German salient gave away all hopes of a surprise attack, then troops were
ordered to advance across open marshy ground towards a well defended German
position. Allied casualties e3xceeded 7,000 with only minor and temporary
territorial gains.
14/7/1916, Bazentin le Grand
and Bazentin le Petit, villages in the Somme
area, were taken by the Allies. They were lost and then recaptured again in
1918.
1/7/1916. Battle of the
Somme began. Britain and
France launched a major offensive. This offensive lasted until 8/11/1916, and
one million were killed, including 500,000 British. However the Germans were
only beaten back ten miles – over one casualty per inch of ground won. The Germans retained the key rail junction of
Bapaume. On this first day of battle
alone, there were over 100,000 casualties, including 60,000 British. However
for the Germans the massive casualties of the Somme made it impossible
thereafter to obtain enough trained soldiers, hence it marked the turning point
of the War for France.
24/6/1916. A new German offensive began at Verdun.
23/6/1916. A Russian
offensive captured most of Galicia.
22/6/1916, The Germans
gassed French artillery positions around Verdun, France, causing 1,600
casualties.
18/6/1916, Russian forces
took Czernowitz (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine).
14/6/1916, Allied economic
conference in Paris.
7/6/1916, German forces captured Fort Vaux. Recaptured by
the French on 2/11/1916.
6/6/1916, Allied forces
blockaded Greece.
5/6/1916. Lord Kitchener,
British General and conqueror of the Sudan, born 24/6.1850 near Listowel,
County Kerry, died when his cruiser HMS Hampshire hit a German mine off
the Orkney Islands, en route to Russia. There were no survivors.
4/6/1916, Russia began the Brusilov Offensive, pushing back
Austrian forces south of the Pripet Marshes. German reinforcements halted the
Russian advance.
2/6/1916. Second Battle of Ypres.
1/6/1916, Germany established a War Food Office to set
controlled prices for food. A bad harvest in Autumn 1916 led to strict food
rationing.
31/5/1916. Battle of Jutland. On 31/5/1916 German Admirals Scheer and Hipper set sail from the Jade
and Elbe estuaries. British intelligence
picked up on this and Admirals Beatty and Jellicoe set out to engage them.
Beatty
happened to meet Hipper’s battle cruiser squadron, and the two main fleets
began to engage. Although the British suffered larger losses, the British fleet
had been much larger to begin with, and Scheer managed to retreat back to the safety
of the Jade estuary. The German fleet
rarely ventured to sea after this.
16/5/1916, French diplomat Francois-Georges Picot and
British diplomat Mark Sykes began a secret correspondence to decide how the
Middle East would be divided up after World War One (see also 30/10/1917). The
Western Powers had already decided that the Ottoman Empire was too vast and too
corrupt to be allowed to survive. Britain would claim Jordan, most of Iraq, and
the port city of Haifa. France would
take SE Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Palestine would be jointly
administered between Britain and France. Russia would be granted the city of
Constantinople and several Armenian-dominated regions. In fact the Russian
Revolution of 1917 and further diplomatic developments meant that not all these
provisions became reality, but the Sykes-Picot agreement set the scene for many
of the issues of the Middle East during the 20th century.
8/5/1916. Australian and New Zealand troops
arrived in France.
18/4/1916, Russian forces
captured Trebizond, Turkey.
17/4/1916. The Boer leader Jan Smuts led an
anti-German drive from Kenya.
24/3/1916. German forces sank a
cross-Channel steamer, the Sussex, after a decision in February 1916 that
German forces would sink any armed merchant ships on sight. See 31/1/1917.
21/3/1916. Austrian soldiers killed 10,000
Serbian civilians.
20/3/1916. Food scarcities in
Germany caused rationing to begin.
13/3/1916, Germany loosened its rules on its submarines
attacking ships; they could now sink vessels around Britain if they ‘appeared
not to be passenger ships’.
9/3/1916. Germany declared war on Portugal.
21/2/1916 Battle of
Verdun began. The Germans launched an all-out attack on the
fortress of Verdun, but Petain took over the defence and repulsed the
Germans, achieving victory by June 1916. See 15/12/1916. The previous
commander, General
Joseph Joffre, had ignored intelligence reports and, believing the
German attack would come at Champagne, failed to reinforce Verdun.
15/2/1916, Fifth Battle of
Isonzo, between Italy and Austria
11/2/1916, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered an escalation of the U-boat warfare.
28/1/1916. British and
Belgian troops took Yaounde, capital of the German colony of Cameroon.
27/1/1916. In Berlin, the German Communist Party, Spartacus,
was formed.
21/12/1915, William Robertson became British Chief of Staff.
31/12/1915, On the Western Front, positions had
scarcely changed for a year amongst the trenches, despite appalling casualties.
Major attacks became bogged down in bad weather, and tens or hundreds of
thousands died for little territorial gain by either side. France had seen, during 1915, 330,000 soldiers killed and
a further one million wounded, in addition to the 900,000 killed or wounded
during 1914. In 1915 alone, 170,000 German soldiers were killed and 680,000
wounded. In 1915 alone, Britain saw 73,000 soldiers killed and 240,000 wounded.
19/12/1915, Douglas Haig replaced
John French
as British Commander in Chief for France and Flanders.
12/11/1915, Roland Barthes,
French philosopher, was born (died 1980).
11/10/1915, Henri Jean
Fabre, French entomologist, died in Serignan, France (born
21/12/1823 in St Leons, France).
21/10/1915, The
Battle of Isonzo began; Italian forces made small territorial gains.
9/10/1915. The Serbian capital, Belgrade, fell to the Austro-German
army.
26/9/1915. British and French
troops began two big offensives, in Champagne and Flanders.
25/9/1915. (1) The Battle of
Loos began, and the London Regiment’s 18th battalion went over
the top kicking a football.
(2) The British forces used poison gas for the first time. Its first use
was by the Germans on 22/4/1915.
19/9/1915. The Germans took Vilna (Vilnius),
capital of Lithuania.
18/9/1915, (1) The Kaiser gave renewed assurances
that passenger ships would not be attacked.
(2) German forces entered Vilnius, Lithuania.
30/8/1915. The great Russian
fortress of Brest-Litovsk fell to the Germans.
19/8/1915, Battle of the Gulf of Riga. The German High Seas Fleet was able to clear the
Russian minefields and enter the gulf, but withdrew after German cruiser SMS
Moltke was hit by a torpedo fired by British submarine HMS E1.
18/8/1915, The Germans took
the fortress of Novo Georgievsk.
17/8/1915, The Germans took Kovno.
5/8/1915. Austro-German forces took Warsaw as the Russian abandoned it.
4/8/1915, Nurse Edith Cavell was
arrested in Brussels, see 12/10/1915.
12/7/1915, The
German Government took control of the coal industry.
23/6/1915, Italy
launched its first major military campaign in World War One with an army of
225,000 under command of Luigi Cadorna attacking Austro-Hungarian
positions above the Isonzo River in the Alps.
22/6/1915. The Austrians
retook Lemberg (Lvov), capital of Galicia, which they had lost to Russia on
3/9/1914.
11/6/1915. Serbian
troops invaded Albania and took Tirana, the capital.
9/6/1915, British troops in
France were first issued with hand grenades.
6/6/1915, The Kaiser
promised that in future the German Navy would not attack passenger vessels.
However on 28/6/1915 a German submarine sunk the passenger liner Armenia off Cornwall, and the passenger
liner Arabic was sunk on 19/8/1915.
4/6/1915. Austro-German troops retook
Premsyl from the Russians.
23/5/1915, Italy entered the war on the Allied side, see 25/4/1915.
15/5/1915, Unsuccessful British
and French offensive in NE France.
10/5/1915. Fierce fighting in
the Ypres area.
9-25/5/1915, Battle of Aubers Ridge (second battle of Artois); the French advanced
three miles at great cost.
2/5/1915, German forces
broke through on the Eastern Front at Gorlice.
1/5/1915, (1) The US ship
Gulflight was sunk without warning by a German U-boat.
(2) The Austrian commander Mackensen reversed earlier weaknesses of the
Austrian Army, which in Spring 1915 was on the verge of collapse after repeated
Russian attacks. At Dunajec-San, he
forced the Russians to retreat.
30/4/1915. Germany invaded
the Russian Baltic provinces.
25/4/1915. Italy
signed a secret treaty, the Treaty of London, with Britain, France, and Russia. Italy agreed to enter the war on the Allied side
within one month in return for territorial gains. Italy was to gain the Austrian provinces of
Trentino, South Tyrol, Istria, Gorizia, Gradisca, and Trieste, also a large
stretch of the Dalmatian coast and islands, some Albanian territory around
Valona, full sovereignty over the Turkish-controlled Dodecanese Islands, the
Turkish province of Adalia in Asia Minor, colonial gains in Africa, and a share
of war indemnities. The Allies agreed to
this because they believed that Italian intervention would soon destroy
Austro-Hungary, opening the ‘back door to Germany’. Italy duly entered the war on 24/5/1915, but
the expected breakthrough against Austria never materialised. When
the Bolsheviks took over in 1917 they revealed the terms of this secret treaty,
which ran totally against the ethnic-determination principles of President
Wilson of the USA; he stated he did not consider the treaty terms as binding. At the Paris Peace Conference the UK and
France also opposed implementation of the treaty’s terms, and Italy received
far less than originally specified. This created popular resentment in Italy
and was a factor in the rise of Mussolini and Fascism in Italy.
22/4/1915. (1) The British began a new offensive at Ypres.
(2) The Germans began using poison
gas, chlorine, against the British north of Ypres. 4,000 tons of chlorine
were sent over Allied lines, killing 6,000. Many Germans were also killed
whilst releasing the gas and they did not press forward, losing any advantage
gained from using the gas. The new weapon was used by Britain on 25/9/1915.
19/4/1915, The British captured Hill no.60.
5/4/1915. France
began a broad offensive from the Meuse to the Moselle.
23/3/1915, The Hungarian fortress of Przemysl fell to Russian
forces.
14/3/1915, The German battle cruiser Dresden
was sunk.
11/3/1915. Britain
began a naval blockade of Germany.
10/3/1915, Battle of Neuve-Chapelle began. By 12/3/1915 the Allies had captured
the village and just 4 square miles of
countryside. 40,000
Allied soldiers fought, and of these there were 7,000 British and 4,200 Indian
casualties; the Germans lost a similar number. This amounted to one casualty
per 5,000 square feet of ground won.
1/3/1915. Britain
began blockading German ports.
27/2/1915, In Paris, the Moulin Rouge
burnt down.
18/2/1915. Germany’s blockade of Britain by submarine began.
17/2/1915. Germany
captured the Polish port of Memel.
16/2/1915, France began a bombardment of German forces in the Champagne area.
7/2/1915-15/2/1915. Battle of the Masurian Lakes. The Russian 10th Army was
defeated by the Germans under Otto Von Below.
4/2/1915, (1) British war casualties now stood at
104,000 dead.
(2) Germany began using submarines in warfare to blockade Britain.
(3) The Sarajevo conspirators were executed in Bosnia.
31/1/1915, Battle of Bolimov; German forces attacked Russian positions near the
Polish village of Bolimov, using poison gas.
24/1/1915. Admiral Hipper was intercepted by the British navy off Dogger Bank
after bombardment of UK coastal towns. The superior British force sank the
German battleship, Blucher. After this German naval raids on UK coastal towns
ceased.
23/1/1915, Heavy fighting began in the Carpathian Mountains between Russian and
Austro-Hungarian forces. This continued until mid-April.
8/1/1915, Heavy fighting in the Bassee Canal and Soissons area of France.
3/1/1915, Tear gas was used in warfare for the first time; by Germany against
the Russians, in Poland.
See also Russia
1910s
31/12/1914, By the end of 1914, France alone had seen 900,000 of its
citizens killed or hospitalised.
30/12/1914, First Battle of Champagne. As the French launched a new
assault, the German counterattacked their right flank and took out three lines
of defence and inflicted major casualties.
26/12/1914, The German Government took
control of food supplies and distribution.
25/12/1914. In World War One, an informal truce between the combatants
ended at midnight.
24/12/1914. The first air raid on Britain took place. A single bomb fell in the
grounds of St James Priory, Dover.
22/12/1914, Turkish forces made unsuccessful attacks on Russian forces in the
Caucasus.
17/12/1914. Anzac
(Australia, New Zealand, army corps) troops occupied Samoa and German New
Guinea.
16/12/1914. The German navy
bombarded Hartlepool, Scarborough, and Whitby with over 1,000 shells, killing
102.
14/12/1914, Serbian forces
recaptured Belgrade.
8/12/1914. Battle of the Falklands. Six of the
seven ships in the German Pacific Squadron were sunk. Admiral Sturdee’s victory over Vice-Admiral
von Spee ended German naval activity in the southern Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, allowing the British navy to concentrate on home waters and the
Mediterranean for the remainder of World War One.
6/12/1914 The
Germans captured Lodz, Poland.
5/12/1914, The Austrians
defeated the Russians at Limanova, but failed to break the Russian lines at
Krakow.
2/12/1914, The Austrians
took Belgrade from Serbia.
30/11/1914, The Great War was spreading from the Franco-German
border to encompass the world.
There was fighting in the Dardanelles region of Turkey, Britain has occupied
Cyprus, Russia invaded Armenia and naval battles off Sumatra. There were also
conflicts in various parts of Africa between German and Allied colonies.
23/11/1914. The
British navy bombarded Zeebrugge.
21/11/1914. Indian troops occupied the port of Basra, Persia.
19/11/1914, The Battle of
Kolubara. Austro-Hungarian forces gained a foothold in Serbia as the opposing
armies fell back towards Belgrade.
18/11/1914, On the eastern
front, the Germans broke the Russian line at Kutno.
10/11/1914, The Australian
cruiser Sydney sank the German
cruiser Emden off Sumatra. This
cleared the Indian Ocean of German forces.
3/11/1914. (1) German ships
bombarded Yarmouth.
(2) Britain declared the North Sea to be a military area, dangerous to
merchant shipping, and mined it. Germany responded on 4/2/1915 by making a
similar declaration and also mining, the area of the English Channel and waters
around Ireland. Germany began a submarine blockade of Britain. On 1/3/1915
Britain announced that all ships presumed to be carrying goods of enemy origin,
destination or ownership would be seized, regardless of ownership or
destination of the ship.
1/11/1914. The
British fleet was defeated at the Battle of Coronel, Chile.
31/10/1914, The front line in the Great War had
stabilised into trench warfare,
stretching from the Swiss border to the English Channel (see 30/9/1914). Fierce battle s raged for front-line towns
such as Ypres, and Paris was bombed by Zeppelins.
29/10/1914, (1) Turkish
warships bombarded the Russian ports of Sevastopol, Odessa and Novorossiysk.
This provoked a declaration of war by Russia against Turkey on 4/11/1919; also
by Britain and France on 5/11/1914. In
Turkey the Young Turks, in 1908, had had two aims; to pull together the
disintegrating remains of the Ottoman Empire, and to recover land lost to
Russia. However they found the Turkish Treasury in debt to European banks
by the then-colossal sum of £200 million. They sought an alliance with a
wealthy European nation that could help rebuild the Turkish economy. Britain,
which had helped found Turkey’s National Bank in 1908, was approached, as an
enemy of Germany with whom the former Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid had been friendly.
Britain declined the approach, believing that an alliance with Turkey would
unite Europe against it. Turkey again approached Britain during the Balkan War
(1912-13) and was again rebuffed. In July 1914 France also rejected overtures
by Turkey. Moreover on 1/8/1914 Winston Churchill ordered the requisition of
two warships being built in Britain for the Turkish Navy. Meanwhile the German General Otto
Liman von Sanders was assisting the modernisation of the Turkish
Army. Germany hoped that Turkey, possibly allied with Bulgaria, would threaten
Russia without direct German involvement. The Young Turk, Ismail Enver Pasha,
Minister for War, approached the German Ambassador in Constantinople on 22/7/1914 to propose a formal alliance.
The German Ambassador, Freiherr von Wangenheim, declined; Germany
assessed that an alliance with Turkey would exacerbate tensions with Russia,
and therefore be of advantage to Britain and France, but be of no gain to
Germany because of the weak state of the Turkish Army, and the parlous state of
the Turkish economy that retarded the development of the Turkish military.
However Kaiser
Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany, on learning of Enver’s approach, overruled Wangenheim
and instructed Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann to open negotiations with Turkey. A secret treaty of alliance between
Germany and Turkey was signed on 2/8/1914, essentially a mutual guarantee
of defence against, only, any attack by Russia. The secrecy allowed Enver
to hedge his bets and only intervene against Russia when it suited him.
Therefore although Germany had mobilised against Russia on 1/8/1914 Enver
did not attack immediately. German Admiral Wilhelm von Souchon sailed two
German ships, the SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau, past British ships in the
Mediterranean just hours before Britain declared war on Germany, on 4/8/1914.
Britain chased these ships but did not prevent their arrival at Constantinople,
where they became part of the Turkish navy, replacing the ships confiscated by
Britain. They were renamed the Yavuz
Sultan Selim and the Midilli, and
Turkey also received 20 million marks in gold by train from Germany, to assist
in updating Turkish military capabilities. Once the gold was received, and
Turkey had witnessed German successes against the Russians in East Prussia
(following initial defeats inflicted on Germany at Tannenbirg and the Marne)
the Yavuz Sultan Selim and the Midilli, complete with German crews,
bombarded the Russian ports. Churchill was not too perturbed by Turkey’s
entry into the Great War on the German side. Almost all the Turkish Army’s 43
divisions were only on peacetime strengths of 4,000 men, not the wartime basis
of 10,000. The Turkish divisions based in Mesopotamia (now Iraq), also Arabia
and the Levant, were manned by local recruits of dubious loyalty to the Ottoman
Empire. The British enjoyed easy victories against these divisions in the Basra
area, where the local oilfields were secured. However later in the war the Young Turks reinforced the fighting
capabilities of the army, giving Britain a harder battle.
(2) Near Nieuport, Netherlands, the Yser area was
flooded tactically
17/10/1914. German U-boats
raided Scapa Flow, the main base of the British Fleet. Four German destroyers were sunk.
15/10/1914. The Germans,
having captured Ghent and Bruges, took Ostend.
14/10/1914. British and French
troops occupied Ypres. The Belgian
government fled to France. Canadian troops arrived in Britain.
12/10/1914, The German Army
entered Lille, after several days bombardment.
11/10/1914. Paris was bombed.
10/10/1914. The Germans took Antwerp.
9/10/1914, The Germans took Ghent.
30/9/1914, Paris was saved from occupation as German forces
were driven back (see 31/8/1914).
However |British losses were heavy and Germany
still occupied a strip of northern France, along with almost the whole of Belgium.
and all of The Netherlands. See 31/10/1914.
28/9/1914. German guns began
bombarding Antwerp. Antwerp capitulated on 10/10/1914.
27/9/1914. The
Russians invaded Hungary.
26/9/1914. The
Australians took the German port of Friedrich Wilhelmshafen in German New
Guinea.
23/9/1914. The British
suffered heavy casualties at Mons,
and retreated.
22/9/1914. Three British
cruisers, Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy, were torpedoed by a German
submarine, 1,500 were killed.
20/9/1914, Germany bombarded
Rheims Cathedral.
17/9/1914, The ‘race to the
sea’ between Allied and German forces trying to outflank each other; this
established the Western Front from the North Sea to Switzerland.
16/9/1914, Trench warfare began on the
Aisne salient.
14/9/1914. (1) The Allies
drove back the Germans on the Marne,
relieving the threat to Paris. The Germans retreated to Verdun.
(2) The Russians were forced to retreat from East Prussia, after the
battle of the Masurian Lakes.
13/9/1914, The Battle of the
Aisne began. It lasted until 28/9/1914.
9/9/1914, The first Battle of the Marne ended when the German
advance on Paris under Von Moltke was halted
by the British Expeditionary Force and the French under Joffre and Foch. This marked
Germany’s furthest penetration into France.
8/9/1914, The
French fortress of Maubeuge fell to the Germans.
6/9/1914. Battle of the Marne began. Advances by British and
French forces. The Germans retreated to
Verdun.
5/9/1914. The
Germans took Rheims.
4/9/1914. Britain, France,
and Russia agreed not to make separate peaces.
3/9/1914. Russian forces
took Lvov.
31/8/1914. The German General
Hindenburg had reversed earlier Russian successes (see 24/8/1914), surrounding and beating the
Russians under General
Samsonov, at the Battle of Tannenburg, taking 100,000 Russians
prisoner. In the following week, Russian
General
Rennenkampf was forced to retreat and east Prussia was cleared of
Russian forces. In France the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) initially held
back the German advance but the French retreated, leaving the flank of the BEF
exposed. The allies retreated towards Paris, but then halted the German forces
before they occupied Paris. See 30/9/1914.
30/8/1914. (1) The Germans
took Amiens.
(2) A New Zealand expeditionary force occupied the former German colony of
Samoa.
29/8/1914, Battle of Guise, northern France.
28/8/1914. (1) The Germans
began besieging Antwerp (see
18/8/1914), capturing it on 10/10/1914.
(2) The British sank three German cruisers and two destroyers off Heligoland Bight, opening the war at sea.
26-31/8/1914. Germany defeated
Russia at the Battle of Tannenberg.
26/8/1914, (-11,213) (1) The German
cruiser Magdeburg ran aground in the Baltic whilst on a reconnaissance mission.
Unable to free her, the captain, Richard Habenicht, decided to scuttle his
ship; however the appearance of two Russian cruisers prompted the German crew
to set off the explosives prematurely. Habenicht and 57 of his crew were
captured. Significantly also captured were German code books; Germany did not
realise this had happened and carried on using the same codes for radio
messages, enabling the Allies to track German warship movements.
(2) The Germans
occupied Cambrai. See 8/10/1918.
25/8/1914, The Germans
sacked Louvain.
24/8/1914. Belgian
forces attacked the rear of the German right flank, to ease the pressure on the
British and French left flank. This campaign halted on 25/8/1914 when news
arrived of the Franco-British retreat into France, but the Belgian offensive
had tied down some German forces. On learning, on 7/9/1914, that some of these
forces were to be sent to France, the Belgians launched a fresh offensive on
9/9/1914, a crucial day in the Battle of the Marne. Meanwhile the Russians under General
Alexander Samsonov and General Paul Rennenkampf were advancing into East
Prussia, driving back a numerically inferior German force. See 31/8/1914.
23/8/1914. Battle of Mons, in Belgium near the French frontier. The heavily outnumbered
British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French, in its first important
battle, was forced to retreat after bitter fighting with Germany. This retreat continued until the Marne, where
the tide turned against Germany.
22/8/1914, The Germans took
Namur. The fortress of Namur had been expected to hold out for several
months; its ‘impregnable’ defences were
shattered by new German high explosives.
21/8/1914. (1) German
atrocities were committed in Belgium to deter Belgian civilian resistance. On
21-22 August 384 Belgian civilians were shot in the market square at Tamines,
and from 24 to 30 August the Cathedral city of Louvain was given to looting and
burning by German troops.
(2) The Germans took Brussels.
See 18/11/1918. France and Russia agreed that on Germany’s defeat an
independent Poland would be restored, France would recover Alsace Lorraine and
Denmark would recover Schleswig-Holstein from Germany, Bohemia would have
independence from Austro-Hungary, and all German colonies would be confiscated.
20/8/1914. The German army
was defeated by the Russians at Grumbinnen; Russian forces had mobilised faster
than anticipated. French forces made headway a short distance into Germany but
were turned back this day in battles at Mulhouse and Strasbourg.
18/8/1914. The Belgian
government left Brussels for Antwerp.
See 28/8/1914.
17/8/1914. A British Expeditionary Force of 70,000
men landed in France.
16/8/1914 Liege, Belgium, fell to the Germans. The Battle of Liege had begun on 4/8/1914 and
the resistance here had seriously delayed the German occupation of Belgium.
15/8/1914, Russia
invaded East Prussia.
12/8/1914. Britain
and France declared war on Austria.
9/8/1914. The first British
troops arrived in France. The British Expeditionary force was landed from 9th
to 17th August at Boulogne.
8/8/1914. German troops
entered Liege, Belgium.
7/8/1914. The French counter offensive began. French troops
entered the upper Alsace, partly for political effect and partly to distract
from the main French goal of destroying a German base at Basle and the Rhine
bridges below this. By 19/8/1914 this French force reached the Rhine.
6/8/1914. (1) A major deployment
of German troops westwards began. Between 1870 and 1914 the number of double
German railway lines running towards her western frontier had been raised from
9 to 13, and all German railway development required approval from the Chief of
Staff. Now, 550 trains a day crossed the Rhine, westwards, and by
12//8/1914 seven German armies of a total of 1.5 million men were fully
supplied. The first British casualties of the War occurred when the Royal Navy
cruiser HMS Amphion was damaged by
mines in the North Sea and 150 men died as she sank.
(2) Austro-Hungary declared war on Russia. Serbia declared war on Germany.
4/8/1914. Britain declared war on Germany for violating the Treaty of London. President
Wilson declared the USA neutral. That morning, Germany began the invasion of Belgium (see 2/8/1914, and 6/8/1914). The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia
brought Russia in as Serbia’s ally, and Germany entered as Austria’s ally. Britain might well have stayed neutral had
Germany not invaded Belgium in an attempt to outflank France. Germany began
mining Danish waters and requested Denmark to mine the Great Belt. Denmark,
believing Germany would mine it anyway, said it would do so. Britain believed
the war would be over by Christmas.
3/8/1914. (1) Germany
declared war on France, after false
accusations of French air raids on Nuremberg. Germany had sought assurances
that France would not intervene in a Russo-German war, but France merely said
it would ‘act in its own interests’. Germany was seeking control over Belgium
and the French coast from Dunkirk to Boulogne, cession by France to Germany of
the Briey-Longwy iron basin and the fortress of Belfort, and German control of
the French and Belgian colonies in Africa. France had fewer fighting men, with
a total population of 40 million against 65 million Germans. However Russian
and French forces combined were bigger than Germany plus Austria; Germany
could, though, bank on Russia being slow to mobilise.
(2) Britain warned Germany it would honour the 1839 Treaty of London
guaranteeing Belgian neutrality.
2/8/1914. (1) Britain mobilised the Royal Navy after Germany
declared war on Russia.. The
British Cabinet had finally agreed that a German presence in French Channel
ports could not be tolerated, and so France must be helped against Germany (see
9/8/1914), although at the end of July most of the Cabinet had been for
non-intervention in Europe.
(2) Belgium had failed to
guarantee German troops free passage across its territory, as demanded by a German
ultimatum delivered on the evening of 2/8/1914; Germany occupied
Luxembourg, and invaded Belgium 2 days later, on 4/8/1914. Russian troops
crossed into East Prussia.
1/8/1914. Kaiser Wilhelm II declared war on his cousin Czar
Nicholas II. Italy declared herself
neutral. France ordered the mobilisation of the army, but as a
last-minute gesture had withdrawn its forces to 10 km behind the frontier. Denmark
declared itself neutral, and mobilised an emergency force of 54,000 men.
31/7/1914. Germany ordered a
general mobilisation of the army, rejecting Britain’s offer of mediation in the
Austro-Serbian crisis as ‘insolence’.
30/7/1914. The Czar of Russia
ordered general mobilisation of the army. European stockmarkets began to panic
as war loomed.
29/7/1914, Russia, under
Tsar Nicholas II, ordered a limited mobilisation of its 1.2 million strong army
against Austria. However this move
reassured Serbia in its resistance, and produced a German mobilisation.
28/7/1914. Austria declared war on Serbia. See 23/7/1914. Belgrade was bombarded by Austria on 29/7/1914, the first engagement of
World War One. The Austrians took Belgrade on 30/7/1914, and Russia began to mobilise. The Serbs
initially drove back the invading Austrians and themselves entered southern
Hungary in the autumn of 1914. Russia
attacked Austria and made advances against the Austrians in southern
Galicia. France, as the ally of
Russia, was also drawn in. Germany moved
to help Austria and in early 1915 drove the Russians out of southern Galicia.
Later in 1915 the Germans overran Serbia. On 9/10/1915 Belgrade fell to the
Germans. Italy declared war on Austria
on 23/5/1915, and here too the Germans were needed to help Austria against
Italy.
26/7/1914. Serbia mobilised
its army. Meanwhile in view of the deteriorating international situation, the
British Admiralty ordered the Fleet, which had assembled at Portland for
review, not to disperse. On 29/7/1914 the Fleet was able to set sail for the
North Sea, giving Britain a vital dominance there for the duration of the War.
24/7/1914. The
Russian Council of Ministers began plans for partial mobilisation of the army.
23/7/1914. Austria determined that the government of Serbia was
involved in the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand on 28/6/1914, and sent an ultimatum to the President of Serbia, Narodna Odbrana,
drafted so as to prepare for war with
Serbia. The terms were designed to be too humiliating for Serbia to accept.
In fact Serbia accepted most of the terms, but insisted that an Austro-Serbian
judicial enquiry into the assassination would be subject to Serbian law, and
Austria rejected this condition. See 28/7/1914. Austria’s real issue with
Serbia was that it blocked potential Austrian territorial expansion southwards
into the Balkans, to give Austria domination of the Aegean Sea,
22/7/1914, In Europe
the financial press began to realise a major war might be starting. The first
symptom of crisis was a rise in insurance rates for shipping.
5/7/1914. Germany
promised support to Austria.
28/6/1914. Assassination of Archduke
Francis Ferdinand, nephew of
Franz Joseph,
in the Bosnian town of Sarajevo. Along with his wife he was shot and
killed by the terrorist Gavril Princip, thus precipitating World War
One. Born in Graz, Austria, in 1863, Ferdinand was the eldest son of the Archduke
Charles Louis, who was the brother of the emperor Francis Joseph.
When Francis
Joseph died in 1896 Ferdinand became heir to the throne but
because of his bad health in the 1890s his younger brother Otto was regarded as more likely
to succeed to the throne of Austria. In foreign affairs he tried, without
endangering the alliance with Germany, to restore Austro – Russian
understanding. In 1913 Ferdinand became Inspector General of the
Army. This was just before he was assassinated in June 1914, starting World War One with Austria’s
declaration of war against Serbia. The assassin’s first bullet hit the
archduke in the neck; his second hit his wife, who had flung herself in front
of him. She died almost immediately, he died ten minutes later.
Gavril Princip was born in June or July of 1894
in the village of Obljaj, in what is now Bosnia. His father was a postman and
the Princip
family was very poor, and heavily taxed by local overlords. Bosnia had been
part of the Ottoman Empire until 1878 when it was taken by Austria. Gavril
left Obljaj for Sarajevo in 1907, enrolling in a secondary school where he did
well academically; here he joined other teenagers seeking home rule for the
Slav peoples. Archduke
Ferdinand wanted to balance out competing nationalisms within his
empire by minimising the over-arching influence of Serbia amongst the Slavic
peoples under Austrian rule. Princip wanted Bosnia to become part of a
greater independent Serbia. See 23/7/1914.
Gavril himself, arrested immediately after the shooting,
was just under the 20-year age limit for the death sentence under Hapsburg law;
he received a 20-year prison term, to be denied food one day each month, and
was chained to the wall of his cell. He died in Spring 1918, just before the
end of World War One, of skeletal tuberculosis that had caused the amputation
of his right arm.
16/3/1914, Madame Caillaux, wife of the French Finance
Minister, shot dead the editor of Le Figaro to protect her husband against
libel.
18/12/1913, Willy Brandt, German Chancellor, was born in Lubeck as Karl
Herbert Frahm.
20/11/1913,
The Zabern Incident. A German officer insulted Alsatian recruits, causing
friction between France and Germany.
7/8/1913, France passed an
Army Bill, imposing three year’s compulsory military service.
6/6/1913. Germany passed a
Bill for a large increase in its army.
7/4/1913, Jean Constans, French politician, died in
Paris (born 3/5/1833 in Beziers).
5/3/1913, 71 sailors drowned when the German destroyer S-178
was accidentally rammed by the German cruiser Yorck in the North Sea off of
Helgoland.
24/2/1913, Jules Gabriel Compayre, French educationalist,
died in Paris (born 2/1/1843 in Albi).
21/1/1913, In France, Aristide Briand succeeded Poincare as Prime Minister.
5/1/1913, Gottlieb von Jagow became German Foreign
Minister.
8/12/1912, The German Kaiser
held a secret meeting with his military chiefs. It was agreed that the Schlieffen Plan, to quickly conquer France
before turning east on Russia, should not be delayed much beyond 1914 because
after that swifter Russian mobilisation would cause a collapse of the German
Eastern Front before France fell. The Schlieffen
Plan, named after Graf Schlieffen, Chief of the German General
Staff 1890-1905, was to attack France through Belgium, by-passing the
heavily-fortified Franco-German frontier. German troops defending this frontier
were to be reduced, possibly even allowing for French advances into Germany
here. However the German advance through Belgium would then swing eastwards to
the south west of Paris and come round to hit the French Army in the rear.
Schlieffen allowed for ten German divisions to hold the Russian front until France
could be crushed (six weeks allowed for this task); also for a British
Expeditionary Force of 100,000 to assist the French.
27/11/1912. France and Spain agreed on their respective spheres of
influence in Morocco.
6/2/1912, Eva Braun, mistress of Adolf Hitler, was born.
4/11/1911, Germany
settled the Morocco crisis with France. Germany agreed to allow France a free
hand in Morocco, in exchange for territory in the Congo.
27/8/1911. At Hamburg the
German Kaiser
made his ‘place in the sun’ speech,
foreshadowing a large increase in the German navy. Britain responded by
increasing its navy, although Anglo-German relations remained friendly.
16/8/1911, E F Schumacher, German economist and
statistician, was born (died 1977).
1/8/1911. Germany began to
fortify Heligoland, a small island in the North Sea.
21/7/1911, Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, warned Germany not to
threaten British interests in the western Mediterranean, or Gibraltar. See 1/7/1911.
Germany denied such ambitions, but Britain began preparing for war with
Germany.
10/7/1911, Russia
warned Germany that it supported France in the Morocco crisis.
5/7/1911. Birth of Georges Pompidou, in Montboudif, Auvergne. He
was French President from 1969 until his death in 1974.
1/7/1911, Germany sent the gunboat Panther to Agadir, Morocco, to protect German commercial interests
there from French expansion in Morocco. Britain
was concerned about Germany’s ambitions in Africa so close to Gibraltar. See 21/7/1911.
26/5/1911, The German Reichstag granted the former French
territory of Alsace-Lorraine its own legislature and a large measure of
autonomy.
15/5/1911, King George V
and his cousin the Kaiser reasserted their friendship.
10/3/1911. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time as standard time
across the country.
24/2/1911, The Reichstag
voted to increase the German Army by half a million men.
24/7/1909, Aristide Briant became French PM.
8/7/1909, Gaston Galliffet, French General, died (born
23/1/1830).
7/6/1909. France joined the arms race by
announcing it was to spend £120 million on new naval ships.
8/5/1909, Friedrich von Holstein, German statesman, died
(born 1837)
13/9.1908, In Germany the Social Democrats staged a rally at
Nuremberg.
6/8/1908, The British
Admiralty stated that the new battleships being built by the Germans would be
the most heavily armed in the world.
8/7/1908. The German Navy
was catching up in strength with the British, according to the 'World Navy
List'.
31/8/1907, The UK and Russia agreed an entente, defining
spheres of influence in Persia, Tibet, and Afghanistan. There was an implicit agreement that Britain
would not allow Russia to control the Bosporus, and the entente opened up the
London money markets to Russia, allowing it to recover from the Japanese defeat
of 1904/5. France was also part of this agreement, forming a Triple Entente to contain the newly
unified Prussian-dominated Germany.
3/8/1907, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II met at
Swinemunde to discuss the Baghdad Railway.
2/5/1907, King Edward VII of Britain met the French
President in Paris.
28/1/1907, 164 miners died in a pit explosion at Saarbrucken,
Germany.
11/1/1907, Pierre Mendes-France, French politician, was
born (died 1982)
13/12/1906, A revolt of the Centre Party in the German
Reichstag opposed spending on colonial wars. Von Bulow dissolved the Reichstag;
in subsequent elections the Socialists lost ground.
25/10/1906, Georges Clemenceau became PM in France.
5/6/1906, Germany decided to build more battleships.
24/4/1906, The Nazi collaborator William Joyce, or ‘Lord Haw Haw’, was born in
Brooklyn, New York City.
5/4/1906, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany dismissed Count Friedrich Holstein, a key
advisor in the Foreign Department, ending fears of a German war with France over Morocco.
19/3/1906, Adolf Eichmann, German Nazi responsible for the execution of millions of European
Jews during World War II, was born in Solingen. See Jewish History.
11/3/1906, 1,200 miners died in a pit
explosion in northern France.
10/2/1906, Britain launched the revolutionary new battleship Dreadnought. She made every
other warship obsolete, outgunning and outranging them all. Her new steam
turbine propulsion made her much faster than older ships. This marked the
start of a keen naval arms race between Britain and Germany. Germany now realised that the latest class
of battleships were too big to pass through the Kiel Canal. The
Russo-Japanese War demonstrated the need for such battleship innovation, as naval battles were now fought at long
range, using torpedoes, and torpedo boats therefore had to be destroyed at a
distance with accurate long-range artillery.
4/2/1906, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian who was part of the group who
tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler, was born.
17/1/1906, In France, Clement
Fallieres was elected president, through the influence of Georges
Clemenceau.
1/1/1906, General Von Moltke was made head
of the German armed forces.
29/11/1905, Marcel Lefebvre, French Roman Catholic
Bishop, was born (died 1991)
25/9/1905, Jacques Cavaignac, French
politician, died (born 21/5/1853).
19/9/1905, Britain and Germany held simultaneous war manoeuvres.
13/9/1905, Rene Goblet, French politician,
died (born 26/11/1828).
24/7/1905, Kaiser William of Germany and Czar Nicholas
of Russia signed the Treaty of Bjorko at a meeting in Finland. This proposed a
mutual defence pact between the two countries if either was attacked by another
European power. However the Russian Foreign Office opposed the Treaty because
it threatened Russia’s relationship with France, upon whom Russia was dependent
for aid. The German Chancellor, Von Bulow also opposed the Treaty, and
Franco-German tension over the Morocco crisis left the Treaty dead in the
water.
6/6/1905, Theophile Delcasse, French
Foreign Minister since 1898, resigned under pressure from Germany.
1/5/1905, In talks lasting until the
5th May, Paul
Rouvier, French Prime Minister, failed to settle the Moroccan
Question with Germany.
31/3/1905, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany arrived in Tangier,
Morocco, to give a speech in favour of Moroccan independence. This was intended to humiliate France, who
saw Morocco as their own protectorate, and to test the closeness of the
Franco-British entente. Germany intended to subsequently ‘grant France
limited control in Morocco’, a move supposed to bring France closer to Germany
and away from Britain. However Germany
was surprised by the forcefulness with which British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey backed France; Germany was further
isolated from France, Britain and hence Russia too. This event paved the
way for the Agadir crisis of 1911.
15/10/1904, George,
King of Saxony, died.
12/7/1904, Britain and Germany signed a five-year treaty, to
resolve disputes through arbitration rather than by military means.
28/8/1904. A treaty was concluded
in London whereby France would allow the British freedom of action in Egypt in
return for the British allowing the French a free hand in Morocco. For many
years the nominally independent Sultanate of Morocco had been losing power as
it became increasingly dependent on French, Spanish, and German business and
subsidies for financial security. In October 1904 the French also concluded a
secret treaty with the Spanish. This disturbed Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany who saw his
country being squeezed out of North Africa. Wilhelm II therefore landed at
Tangier on 31 March 1905. The sultan sided with the Germans and serious
friction with the French resulted. On 161/1906 the Algecieras Conference was held. German claims were backed by
Austria whilst French claims were backed by Britain. Germany failed to curb
France’s privileged position in Morocco. See 8/4/1904.
8/4/1904. Entente
Cordiale set up between Britain and France. Each country recognised the
other’s colonial interests. France
agreed not to interfere in Egypt and England agreed not to interfere in
Morocco. Germany, which also wanted
control in Morocco, felt threatened
by this entente. Britain had become unpopular with many countries after the
Boer War, and needed friends; relations with France had been strained since the
Fashoda incident in 1898. Now both
Britain and France felt anxious over the rise of the German economy and
military might, especially its navy. The entente meant Britain’s navy could
concentrate on defending the North Sea whilst France’s monitored the
Mediterranean. See 28/8/2904.
1/2/1904, Britain agreed with France to remain neutral if
there was war between Russia and Japan.
6/7/1903, French President Emile Loubet, and Theophile
Delcasse, visited London to begin the Entente Cordiale.
4/3/1903, King Edward VII of Britain concluded a visit
to Paris, during which Anglo-French relations were strengthened.
1/2/1903, Martin Delbruck, Prussian statesman, died
(born 16/4/1817).
22/11/1902, In Germany, the steel magnate Friedrich Krupp (1854-1902),
head of Germany’s largest manufacturing firm and the richest man in the
country, died unexpectedly of a stroke.
He was aged 48. Friedrich’s father
Alfred
had founded the Krupp Company but Freidrich
had been in charge since the age of 33 when his father died.
8/11/1902, The Kaiser
arrived in London on a 12-day State Visit to try and improve Anglo-German relations.
1/11/1902, France signed the Franco-Italian entente with Italy. Italy
assured France it would remain neutral if France was attacked.
7/8/1902, Rudolf Bennigsen, German politician, died
(born in Luneburg 10/7/1824).
10/6/1902, Frederick Augustus, King of Saxony from 1873
(born 23/4/1828) died.
3/6/1902, In France, Rene Waldbeck-Rousseau resigned, despite
having a majority on the Chamber, over disputes with extremists. He was
succeeded by Emile
Combes, who pursued a strongly anti-clerical policy.
27/10/1901, Negotiations on an Anglo-German alliance broke down, after the British
Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, made an anti-German speech
in Edinburgh.
5/8/1901, Victoria, Empress of Germany, 60, daughter of Queen Victoria
of the UK, sister of King Edward VII, wife of Kaiser Friedrich III, and mother
of Kaiser
Wilhelm II of Germany, died aged 60.
1/7/1901, France enacted its anti-clerical Association Law,
which outlawed all religious institutions not formally registered with the
State.
29/5/1901, Lord Salisbury, in a confidential memo,
decided against developing an alliance between Britain and Germany.
24/4/1901, 200 were killed in an explosion at a chemical
factory in Griesheim, Germany.
6/3/1901, Anarchists attempted to assassinate Kaiser Wilhelm,
who escaped with face wounds.
21/12/1900, Leonhard Blumenthal, Prussian Field-Marshal,
died in Quellendorf (born in Schwedt on Oder 30/7/1810).
16/12/1900, France and Italy agreed to respect
each other’s sphere of influence in North Africa.
10/11/1900, The first World Fair closed in Paris; it had been open since 14/4/1900.
It had included over 70,000 exhibitors, and co-run with the Olympic Games also in Paris this year. The
scale of the event meant that, despite huge numbers of visitors, it was a
financial loss, covered by the French Government, Culturally however the event
was good for France, promoting art-nouveau, and precipitating a rash of
construction projects in France including new boulevards, new Paris rail
termini, and the Paris Metro.
7/10/1900, Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler was born in
Munich. He was leader of the Nazi SS, second in
command to Hitler from 1929, and gained notoriety in 1934 when he masterminded
the assassination of several Nazis whose loyalty to Hitler was in question. He
controlled the concentration camps in which millions of Jews, communists, trade
unionists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others, died.
12/6/1900, A second German
Naval Act proposed a fleet of 38 battleships
within the next 20 years.
14/4/1900, The World Exhibition opened in Paris. See
10/11/1900.
28/3/1900, Vincent Benedetti, French diplomat, died in
Paris (born in Bastia, Corsica 29/4/1817).
1899, The Right-wing French
movement Action Francaise was founded
by the poet and political journalist Charles Maurras (1868-1952). It sought to
rally the defeated opponents of Dreyfus, and was anti-Semitic, nationalistic and
royalist. Its influence peaked in the 1920s. Supporting the Vichy Government of
1940-44, the movement became indistinguishable from fascism.
2/5/1899, Martin Simson, German politician, died (born
10/10/1810)
16/2/1899, Francois Faure, President of France, died
(born 30/1/1841).
6/2/1899, Georg Caprivi, German statesman (born
24/2/1831) died.
28/7/1898,Bismarck died, three
years after his wife, at Friedrichsruh.
He was a Prussian politician and founder
of the modern state of Germany.
28/3/1898, Germany passed an Act allowing for substantial expansion of its navy.
13/2/1898, August Potthast, German
historian (born 13/8/1824), died.
29/10/1897, Joseph Goebbels, Nazi political leader and propagandist, was born in Rheydt, son of a factory foreman.
27/9/1897, Charles Bourbaki, French
General, died (born in Pau 22/4/1816).
15/6/1897, Tirpitz
was appointed German Naval Secretary.
7/5/1897, Henri Aumale,
French statesman, died in Zucco, Sicily (born 16/1/1822 in Paris).
19/2/1897, French tightrope walker Charles Blondin died. He was
born on 28/2/1824.
8/12/1896, Ernst Engel, German political economist, died
(born 21/3/1821).
26/10/1896, Paul Challemel-Lacour, French politician, died
(born 19/5/1827).
18/8/1896, Richard Avenarius, German philosopher, died in
Zurich (born 19/11/1834 in Paris).
18/5/1896, Otto von Camphausen, Prussian statesman, died.
20/1/1896, Henry Prince of Battenberg died (born
5/10/1859).
1895, In France the CGT
(Confederation Generale du Travail) was formed, a Trades Union organisation.
29/12/1895, Leander Starr Jameson, an agent of the British South
Africa Company, invaded the Boer Republic of Transvaal with 470 men. On
2/1/1896 Jameson
surrendered At Doorn Kop after a defeat at Krugersdorp. On 3/1/1896 Kaiser William
II sent a telegram to Paul Kruger
congratulating him on the defeat of Jameson.
This caused outrage in Britain, which saw the telegram as an attempt by Germany
to expand its influence in Africa. Britain mocked the German Navy, saying
it would be ‘child’s play’ for the British Navy to wipe it out. Wilhelm I
now decided on a course of massive expansion of the German Navy, seeing Britain
no longer as an ally but a potential threat.
24/11/1895, Saint Hilaire
Barthelemy, French politician, was born in Paris (died 24/11/1895).
22/7/1895, Heinrich Gneist,
German politician, died (born 13/8/1816)
28/1/1895, Francois Canrobert, French military leader
(born 27/6/1809) died.
12/12/1894, Auguste Burdeau, French politician, died (born
1851).
24/6/1894, The
President of France, Marie Francois Carnot, was stabbed to death at
Lyons by an Italian anarchist.
26/4/1894, Rudolf
Hess, Adolf Hitler’s deputy, was born
in Alexandria, Egypt.
15/3/1894, Germany and France signed a treaty outlining their
spheres of influence in tropical Africa
10/2/1894, Germany signed a commercial treaty with Russia.
4/1/1894, Russia and France signed a treaty of mutual
defence. Despite huge differences between their political systems, both
countries felt threatened by encirclement. France felt threatened by a rare
entente between Germany and Britain. Russia saw itself threatened to the south
and east by the British Empire in central and eastern Asia.
22/8/1893, Ernst II, Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha, died
(born 21/6/1818).
13/7/1893, Germany passed a bill to substantially increase the
size of its army.
30/4/1893, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s foreign minister, was born
17/3/1893, Jules Ferry, French politician, died (born
5/4/1832).
12/1/1893, Hermann
Goering, German Nazi leader and
founder of the Luftwaffe, was born
in Rosenbaum, Bavaria.
17/8/1892, Russia and France signed a military convention.
2/5/1892, Baron Mandred von Richtofen, German air ace of World War One, known as the ‘Red Baron’ because he flew a red
Fokker, was born in Schweidnitz in Prussia, to aristocratic parents.
24/1/1892, Henri Baudrillart, French economist, died in
Paris (born in Paris 28/11/1821).
12/12/1891, Charles Freppel, French politician and Bishop,
died (born 1/6/1827).
15/11/1891, Birth of German Field Marshal
Erwin Rommel,
commander of the Afrika Corps, in Heidenheim, Germany.
30/9/1891, George Boulanger, French General, committed
suicide in Brussels (born in Rennes 29/4/1837).
16/9/1891, Karl Doenitz, German Admiral, was born in
Berlin.
9/9/1891, Francois Grevy, French President 1879-87, died
(born 15/1/1813)
1/5/1891, In a violent clash between striking French workers
and French troops, nine workers, including two children, were killed as troops
opened fire. 60 more workers were injured. The workers were campaigning for an
8 hour day.
24/4/1891, Helmuth von Moltke, Prussian general, died.
8/4/1891, Edmond Dehault de Pressense, French cleric
(born 7/1/1824), died.
22/11/1890, Charles de Gaulle, French President, was born
in Lille (died 1970).
17/9/1890, Jules Joffrin, French politician, died (born
16/3/1846).
9/8/1890, Heligoland
was formally transferred from Britain to Germany.
1/7/1890, Britain and Germany signed the Heligoland Treaty, by which Germany gave up claims in East Africa,
including Zanzibar, in return for the British island of Heligoland in the Elbe
estuary. Germany soon made Helogoland a
major naval base for the defence of the newly constructed Kiel Canal.
18/3/1890, Prince Otto von Bismarck was dismissed from the German Chancellorship by Kaiser Wilhelm
II, after 29 years as Germany’s first Chancellor. Bismarck’s
foremost achievement had been the
unification of Germany under Prussian leadership, but there had been
increasing political dissent between Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm from 1888.
18/3/1890, Prince Otto von Bismarck was dismissed from the German
Chancellorship by Kaiser Wilhelm II, after 29 years as Germany’s
first Chancellor. Bismarck’s foremost achievement had been the
unification of Germany under Prussian leadership. He had held Germany back from
a damaging competitive rush for colonies that would cause conflict with other
European powers, and he negotiated the Reinsurance
Treaty with Russia that limited the possibility for conflict between them.
However when Wilhelm
II succeeded his father Kaiser Frederick III, German policy changed. Bismarck
was replaced by Leo
von Caprivi, who allowed the Reinsurance
Treaty with Russia to lapse. This pushed Russia into closer relations with
France, Germany’s enemy. Meanwhile Germany pursued a fruitless attempt to make
a friendship treaty with Britain.
17/10/1899, Maximilian
Gagern, German politician, died (born 26/3/1810).
29/9/1889, Louis Faidherbe,
French general, died (born 3/6/1818).
20/4/1889. Birth of Adolf Hitler, in Braunau, Austria (died 1945). His father was
a customs official who changed his name from Schicklgruber.
23/9/1888, Achille Bazaine, French Marshal, died in
Madrid (born in Versailles 13/2/1811).
15/6/1888, Frederick III, Emperor of Germany, died. He was succeeded by his 29-year son, Wilhelm II,
who was the last German monarch.
9/3/1888, Death of Kaiser Wilhelm I of Prussia, aged 90. He was succeeded by his 57-year old son, Friedrich
Wilhelm, but he died of cancer later in the year, on 15/6/1888.
27/2/1888, As Italian-French
relations deteriorated, France imposed selective duties against Italian
products. Italy retaliated in kind on 1/3/1888.
2/12/1887, Francois Grevy,
President of France from 30/1/1879, resigned after a scandal involving his son
in law Daniel Wilson
24/11/1887, Erich von Manstein,
military adviser to Adolf Hitler in World War Two, was born in Berlin He died on 9/6/1973, having been imprisoned
by the British in August 1945. His advice on attacking France through the
Ardennes in 1940 was crucial to Nazi success here.
21/10/1887, Jean
Jaureguiberry, French Admiral, died (born 26/8/1815).
18/7/1887, Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian diplomat who turned traitor, was born in
Fyresdal, Telemark province, southern Norway.
14/7/1887, Alfred Krupp, German manufacturer of arms in
Essen, the Ruhr, died.
23/5/1887. The French crown jewels went on sale and raised
six million francs.
29/1/1887,
Construction work began on the Eiffel Tower, Paris.
14/1/1887. Bismarck dissolved
the Reichstag because it refused to vote for the military budget.
11/1/1887, Bismarck proposed
an expansion of the German Army.
29/6/1886, Robert Schuman,
French politician and Prime Minister, was born in Luxembourg.
16/9/1886, Louis Decazes,
French politician, died (born 1819).
13/6/1886, Ludwig II, King of Bavaria, drowned, probably
suicide.
16/1/1886, Frederic Falloux, French politician died (born
11/5/1811). He organised the Loi Falloux (Education-Schools, France, 15/3/1850).
20/11/1885, Albert Kesselring, German Air Force Commander, was born in Markstedt.
1/2/1885, Stanislas Dupuy, French naval architect, died
(born 15/10/1816).
24/8/1883, Henri Chambord, contender for the French
throne, died (born 29/9/1820).
29/4/1883, Franz Schulze-Delitzsch, German economist,
died in Potsdam (born 29/8/1808 in Delitzsch).
4/1/1883, Antoine Chanzy, French General, died (born
18/3/1823).
28/2/1883, Louis Bertillon, French anthropologist, died
in Neuilly (born in Paris 1/4/1821).
31/12/1882, Leon Gambetta, French statesman, died (born
2/4/1838).
6/12/1882, Louis Blanc, French politician, died in Cannes
(born in Madrid 29/10/1811).
15/6/1882, Ernest Cissey, French general, died (born
23/9/1810).
25/9/1881,
Franz Ahrens,
German scholar (born 6/6/1809) died.
28/6/1881, Jules Dufaure, French politician, died (born
4//12/1798).
19/5/1881, Harry Arnim, German diplomat, died (born
3/10/1824).
12/5/1881, Tunisia became a French Protectorate. The French
invaded in April 1881 when the Tunisian first minister made various reforms
taking away French economic privileges. This
French move was disturbing to Italy, who had believed that Britain would never
permit an extension of French power in North Africa.
22/5/1880, Heinrich Gagern, German politician, died
(20/8/1799).
102/1880, Isaac Cremieux, French statesman, died (born
1796).
20/1/1880, Jules Favre, French statesman, died (born
21/3/1809).
18/1/1880, Antoine Gramont, French statesman died (born
14/8/1819).
29/10/1879, Franz von Papen, German politician and ambassador, was born in Werl,
Westphalia.
20/10/1879, Bernhardt von
Bulow, German statesman, died (born 2/8/1815).
1/10/1879, An Austro-German alliance was signed.
2/6/1879, Louis, Prince Imperial of France and
prospective Napoleon IV, was killed by a Zulu assegai. The French suspected
British connivance.
23/2/1879, Albrecht Roon, Prussian Field-Marshall, died
(born 30/4/1803).
19/11/1878, Theresa Essler, wife of Prince Adalbert of
Prussia, died (widowed 1873).
31/10/1878, Louis Garnier-Pages, French politician, died
(born 1803).
19/10/1878, Bismarck passed an
anti-Socialist law, placing many restraints on socialist meetings and banning
trade union activities.
1/3/1878, Johann Baptist Alzog, German
theologian, died (born 29/6/1808 in Ohlau, Silesia).
17/12/1877, Aurelle de Paladines, French
General, died in Versailles (born 9/1/1804 in Malzieu, Lozere).
14/2/1877, Nicolas Changarnier, French
General, died (born 26/4/1793)
5/1/1877, Hermann Brockhaus, Professor of
ancient Semitic at Leipzig, died.
7/8/1876, Dutch spy, Mata Hari
(Margarete
Gertrude Zelle), who passed secrets to the Germans in World War One,
was born in Leeuwarden. The French arrested her in 1917 and she was executed by
firing squad.
2/7/1876, Wilhelm Cuno, German statesman, was born at
Suhl.
5/1/1876, Konrad
Adenauer, West German Chancellor, was born in Cologne.
20/10/1874, Karl
Homeyer, German jurist, died (born 13/8/1795).
12/9/1874, Francois
Guizot, French statesman, died (born 4/10/1787).
29/10/1873, John, King of Saxony, died (born 12/12/1801). King Albert of
Saxony succeeded his father to the throne. He was born on 23/4/1828,
and died on 10/6/1902.
16/9/1873, The last German troops left France. An
economic recovery of France had taken place, which was to enable it to build up
its military forces. However a recession
began in France from 1873 onwards.
6/8/1873, Camille Barrot, French politician, died in
Bougival (born in Villefort, Lozere 19/9/1791).
24/5/1873, M Thiers ceased to be President of France.
9/1/1873, Napoleon III of France, nephew of Bonaparte, died in exile at
Chislehurst, Kent, to where he had withdrawn following his defeat by the
Prussians and his imprisonment at Wilhelshohe Castle.
29/11/1872, Johann Baehr, German scholar, died in
Heidelberg, 29/11/1872 (born in Darmstadt 13/6/1798).
30/9/1872, The last date for the inhabitants of Alsace,
conquered by Germany in 1870, to opt for either German nationality and remain
or French nationality and leave for France. Around 45,000 opted to leave for
France.
20/6/1872, Elie Forey, Marshal of France, died (born
5/1/1804).
23/1/1872, Gustav Hindersin, Prussian General, died (born
18/7/1804).
29/8/1871, Albert Lebrun, French President, was born.
7/6/1871, August Bekker, German philosopher, died in
Berlin (born 21/5/1785).
Paris Commune set up, suppressed.
28/5/1871, The Paris Commune, set up on 28/3/1871, was brutally
suppressed by French government troops. Urban warfare in Paris had killed
33,000 and left sections of the city in ruins. Other Communes in Lyons and
Marseilles had also collapsed. The Paris Communards had failed to adequately
man a fort defending the west of Paris.
21/5/1871, The Treaty of
Frankfurt was ratified.
17/5/1871, Georges Darboy, Bishop of Paris, died (born
16/1/1813).
10/5/1871, Germany and France signed a peace treaty at
Frankfurt. France surrendered
all of Alsace and most of Lorraine to Germany. France also had to pay an
indemnity of 5 billion francs to Germany, the equivalent amount that Napoleon I
imposed on Prussia in 1807; a German army was to remain in France till this is
paid. The British Prime Minister, Gladstone, protested that Alsace and Lorraine
should not be handed over without a vote by the people living there. Prussia’s
Prime Minister, Bismarck,
placed no limit in the treaty on the size of France’s future army, gambling
that France was already isolated and humbled by her defeat at Sedan.
28/3/1871, French proletarian radicals proclaimed a ‘Paris Commune’,
backed by intellectuals and workers, hoping to exploit popular discontent at
France’s humiliating loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. The French Government fled to Versailles. See 28/5/1871.
18/3/1871, The Commune
insurrection against the French Government began in Paris.
1/3/1871, In
France, Napoleon
III was deposed and the Paris Commune set up.
End of Franco-Prussian War; France totally
defeated.
26/2/1871. Prussia and France signed a preliminary peace
treaty at Versailles.
17/2/1871, The Pact of
Bordeaux was signed.
16/2/1871The French fortress of Belfort
capitulated to the Germans.
28/1/1871. Starving and surrounded by Prussian troops, Paris surrendered
to Germany. During the 5-month siege, balloons were used to maintain
contact with the rest of France. Finally, a 3-week artillery bombardment
destroyed all resistance. All the
animals at Paris Zoo had been eaten (which one was eaten last?)
Seige of Paris, 9/1870 – 1/1871. Defeat of France
by Prussia.
27/1/1871, German forces grew
impatient with the length of the siege of Belfort and on this day General von
Tresckow launched an attack on the city which was repulsed and the siege
operations resumed.
22/1/1871, The Moselle
railway bridge at Fontenoy was blown up.
19/1/1871, Germany defeated the French at the Battle of St Quentin.
18/1/1871, William I,
King of Prussia, was declared Emperor of Germany at Versailles.
15/1/1871, Battle of Lisaine, near Belfort; Germany defeated France.
10/1/1871, The Battle of Le Mans began; Germany defeated France.
9/1/1871, The Battle of Beaugency, near Orleans; Germany defeated France.
Germany advanced towards Tours.
8/1/1871. Prussian troops
bombarded Paris.
2/1/1871, Germany defeated France at the Battle of Baupame.
23/12/1870, Germany defeated France at the Battle of Hallue, near
Amiens. German forces now advanced south west towards Rouen.
2/12/1870, Germany defeated France at the Battle of Loigny, near
Orleans.
28/11/1870. The Germans in the
Franco-Prussian War took Amiens.
9/11/1870, The Battle of Coulmiers, near Orleans; France defeated
Germany.
3/11/1870. The Prussians besieged
Belfort, 275 miles ESE of Paris. The siege continued until the
armistice of 15/2/1871.
27/10/1870. The French at Metz, 140,000 troops, surrendered to
Prussia after a two-month seige. In November 1870 the southern
German states of Wurttemberg and Bavaria joined with the North German
Confederation, ensuring Prussian political hegemony. Francois-Achille
Bazaine (1811-88), Marshall
of France and commander of the 180,000 men besieged at Metz, was accused of
treachery and after a court martial at Versdailles in 1873 was sentenced to
death. This was commuted by President Macmahon to 20 years imprisonment. In
August 1874 Bazaine escaped from the island fortress of Ste Narguerite and fled
to Madrid. His supporters maintained that Bazaine was a scapegoat for general
French military inefficiency and for the failures of other Field Commmanders
from more distinguished families.
7/10/1870, Gambetta, French Minister of the
Interior, escaped the siege of Paris
in a balloon. Reaching the safety of
Tours, he encouraged the French troops.
28/9/1870. Strasbourg, under siege by Prussia
since August 1870, was surrendered by the French.
19/9/1870. Siege of Paris by the Germans began.
Franco-Prussian War, 7/1870 – 2/1871.
Prussia defeated France.
4/9/1870. France
formed a Republic (The Third Republic) and a government of national defence was
formed.
2/9/1870. Napoleon III of France capitulated to Prussia at Sedan. Fighting
had lasted 44 days, and the 380,000 strong Prussian army had triumphed over the
235,0000 strong French army. Only a hastily assembled French National Guard
stood between the Prussians and Paris. Empress
Eugenie and the prince imperial fled to England. Napoleon III was held as prisoner in the
comfortable royal apartments of Wilhelmshohe Castle. The French had sent a
force to relieve their main Army besieged at Metz but this army, 84,000 men,
2,700 officers, 39 generals, surrendered to Prussia.
1/9/1870, (1) The Battle of Sedan;
the Germans defeated the French.
(2) The siege
of Metz began.
30/8/1870, Battle of
Beaumont; Germany defeated France.
18/8/1870. Prussian forces defeated the French at the
Battle of Gravelotte.
16/8/1870,The French lost to the Prussians at the
Battle of Vionville.
13/8/1870, Germany defeated France at the Battle of Noisseville.
6/8/1870, Battle of Froeschwiller, in NE France; Germany
defeated France.
4/8/1870. Germany
defeated France at the Battle of Wissembourg, in NE France.
2/8/1870, Prussia had mobilised rapidly and now had 380,000
troops on the French border.
19/7/1870, France declared war on Prussia. The
origins of this war lay in the vacancy of the Spanish throne, which the French
regarded as their sphere of influence. There was a Hohenzollern (German)
candidate for the Spanish throne, and Napoleon III demanded, not only the withdrawal
of the Hozenhollern claim to the Spanish throne, but the guarantee from Germany
never again to claim this position. In the Ems telegram of
13/7/1870 the Prussian King, in Ems, wrote to Bismarck declining to give such a
guarantee.
France
was unprepared for war and its army disorganised, and within a month the main French Army was
besieged at Metz. See 2/9/1870. See also French Railways 11/6/1842.
25/1/1870, Achille Duc de Broglie, French
statesman, died (born 28/11/1785).