Chronography of �World War One in Europe
Page last
modified 17 July 2023
Last stages of World War One
11 November 1918. Armistice Day. World War One ended. Fighting ceased on the Western Front, and
Austro-Hungary signed an armistice with the Allies. See 29 September 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 August 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 November
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 November 1918. �Kaiser William II abdicated and fled to Holland, and a German
Republic was founded. On 11
November 1918 the Emperor of Austria, Karl, abdicated and a Republic was founded.
8 November 1918, Abdication of the King of
Wurttemberg and Duke Ernest of Brunswick.
3 November 1918.. Austria
signed an armistice with the Allies.
30 October 1918. Austria completed the evacuation of its troops from Italian
territory. Austria became an
independent German speaking state.� See
23 October 1918,
28 October 1918, Mutiny
broke out amongst German sailors at Kiel, spreading rapidly to Hamburg and
Bremen. On 7 November 1918 insurrection broke out at Munich.
23 October 1918, Italian
forces counterattacked against the Austrians near Vittorio Veneto, reaching the
Piave River on 27 October 1918,� By
30/10.1918 the Italians, with the aid of British forces, had the Austrians in
full retreat.
20 October 1918. Germany stopped U-boat warfare.
19 October 1918, Belgian forces recaptured Zeebrugge and Brugges.
18 October 1918. Lille was recaptured from the Germans.
12 October 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 October 1918, British forces took Le Cateau.
8 October 1918, The French retook Cambrai, see 26 August 1914.
29 September 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 October 1918 but fighting continued
till 11 November 1918.
(2) Bulgaria signed an armistice with the
Allies.
26 September 1918, General Allied offensive on the Western Front; the Germans were fighting now only to cover their retreat.
14 September 1918, Austria-Hungary attempted to negotiate a separate peace deal with the
Allies, which was refused.
13 September 1918. In the USA, 14 million men had registered for conscription.
12 September 1918, At the Battle of St Mihel, the US 1st Army under Pershing captured the
St Mihel salient.
4 September 1918. The Germans retreated to
the Siegfried Line.
30 August 1918. British troops crossed the Somme.
8 August 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 November 1918.
The lessons of The Somme (see 13 November 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 April 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 � 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.
Last
major German offensive on the Western Front, 1918. Hope for major gains after
exit of Russia and before US troops could be effective
20 July 1918, Ludendorff postponed his
Flanders offensive.
18 July 1918. Allied forces launched a counter offensive on the Marne, capturing
Soissons (see 9 April 1918).
15 July 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.
24 June 1918, A large
German howitzer called Big Bertha began firing shells on Paris.
10 June 1918, The
Battle of Belleau Wood ended.
9 June 1918, Germany
opened an offensive near Compeigne.
6 June 1918, Battle of
Belleau Wood began. The first
major US-German conflict; the USA under General Bundy gained a hrd-won victory
over Ludendorff.
27 May 1918, The
Germans took Soissons in a thrust towards Paris.
9 May 1918, British
troops averted a German attack on Ostend, Belgium.
30 April 1918, US troops
were now arriving in France at the rate of 30,000 a month.
29 April 1918. The last
big German offensive on the Western Front petered out.
24 April 1918, One of
the first tank-to-tank battles occurred near Amiens, northern France.
23 April 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.
13 April 1918, Battle of
the Lys. The First Australian Division halted the German Sixth Army advance
towards Hazebrouck, France.
12 April 1918, Battle of
the Lys. The German Sixth Army pushed towards Hazebrouck, France, and captured
Merville.
11 April 1918, Austria
formally recognised French sovereignty over Alsace and Lorraine.
9 April 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 May 1918 and west of Reims on 15 July 1918. The Allied line held and a
major counter offensive was launched on 18 July 1918,
28 March 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 March 1918, The Battle of Rosieres, northern France,
began.
24 March 1918, The Battle of Baupame, northern France,
began.
23 March 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 March 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.
15 June 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 October 1918.
7 May 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 November 1919.
5 April 1918, Allied troops landed in Murmansk, Russia.
4 April 1918, Battle of Rautu. A force of 2,000
Finnish White Guards launched a second offensive against the Finnish Red
Guards, who were running low on ammunition and supplies.
31 March 1918, Easter Sunday. Battle of Rautu, The Finnish Red
Guards were able to beat back the Finnish White Guard offensive.
15 April 1918, 14 German ships were sunk in the Kattegat.
Revolutionary
Bolshevik Russia quits the War against Germany
3 March 1918. The Bolshevik government in Russia signed 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 April 1918.� Turkey regained
territories lost to Russia even in 1877.
25 February 1918. Minsk was
occupied by the Germans.
18 February 1918, Germany
launched a big offensive on the Russian Front.
9 February 1918. Ukraine
signed a separate peace treaty with Germany.
22 December 1917. The
Bolsheviks opened peace talks with Germany and Austria. The Allies accused
|Russia of betrayal.
5 December 1917. Russia signed
an armistice with Germany, at Brest-Litovsk.
3 December 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 March 1918.
17 September 1917, German
forces took Riga.
1 September 1917, German
offensive against Russia; Riga fell to the Germans.
16 July 1917, The War was going badly for the Russians, with low morale and mass
desertions, as the Russian revolution progressed.
For
events of 1917 Russian Revolution see Russia
27 February 1918, The British hospital ship Glenart Castle
was sunk by a U-boat.
1 February 1918, German air raid on Paris killed 45.
28 January� 1918. A general workers strike
began in Berlin.
20 January� 1918, The German naval base at Ostend was bombarded by Allied ships.
31 December 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.
10 December 1917, Italy torpedoed
the Austrian warship Wien in Trieste.
1 December 1917. German
East Africa
cleared of German forces.
30 November 1917, German counter-attack at Cambria.
29 November 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 November 1917. Major
British tank offensive at Cambrai.� The
Battle of Cambrai ended on 3 December 1917.
12 November 1917, Austrian
forces established a bridgehead at Zenson, 20 miles north-east of Venice.
Paschendaele,
Ypres, July-November 1917
10 November 1917, The Third Battle of Ypres
ended, see 31 July 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 November 1917. Canadian
troops captured the village of Paschendaele,
during the Third Battle of Ypres.
4 October 1917, British
victory on Passchendaele Ridge.
3 October 1917, The
Battle of Polygon Wood (Ypres) ended.
5 August 1917, Battle of
Passchendaele. German troops launched a surprise attack against British units
near Hollebeke, Belgium, capturing the village, although it was later
abandoned.
31 July 1917. The Third
Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele)
began, see 10 November 1917.
5 November 1917. American
troops under General Pershing went into action for the first time on the
Western Front.
1 November 1917, In Germany, Count von Hertling was appointed
Chancellor.
31 October 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 October 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 October 1917, The Battle
of Caporetto began.
7 October 1917, Uruguay broke off diplomatic relations with
Germany.
1 October 1917. �Air raids on London.
25 September 1917, Argentina
broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.
20 August 1917 The French broke through
the Verdun front on an 11 mile wide
offensive.
17 August 1917, Eleventh
Battle of the Isonzo; Italy made minor gains.
16 August 1917, British forces began a new offensive in
Flanders.
3 August 1917, German sailors
mutinied at Wilhelmshaven.
Mata Hari
captured, tried, executed, 1917
15 October 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 for
the Germans.
25 July 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.
13 February 1917, The Dutch
spy Mata
Hari was arrested by the French.
19 July 1917. Mutinies
broke out in the German Navy. The German Reichstag passed a
motion to end the war.
14 July 1917, General Pershing, 57,
arrived in Paris to set up the headquarters of the American Expeditionary Force
(AEF).
27 June 1917. 14,000 American troops arrived in France to fight
with the Allies.� The American
expeditionary force was commanded by General John Pershing.
8 June 1917. Haig launched a new Flanders offensive.
7 June 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 June 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 May 1917. Henri Petain became French Commander in Chief.
9 May 1917, A French initiative to capture the strategic
Chemin des Dames ended in failure.
5 May 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 May 1917. Widespread mutiny amongst French
units on the Front.
3 May 1917, US destroyers
arrived to join the British navy.
30 April 1917, Britain had lost 196 ships during the month of
April 1917 alone.
29 April 1917, Mutinies broke out in the French Army.
28 April 1917, Petain was appointed French Chief of Staff.
19 April 1917, Battle of
the Hills. French forces captured the commune of Aub�rive, France from the
Germans.
Middle
East, 1916-18
24 September 1918, British
forces took Haifa.
30 March 1918, First Battle of Amman. A British night
attack on Amman, Jordan failed, forcing the Egyptian Expeditionary Force to
retreat back to the Jordan River.
21 February 1918.
Australian cavalry captured Jericho from the Turks.
15 November 1917, General Allenby
advanced to within three miles of Jaffa.
1 October 1917.� Damascus fell to General Allenby.
25 August 1917, Lawrence
and the Arab forces took Aqaba.
18 April 1917, The Second Battle of Gaza; Turkish forces,
with German support, forced back British forces.
11 April 1917, ��British General Sir Edmund Allenby, commander of
the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, occupied Jerusalem
following his victory in Palestine over the Turks.
26 March 1917. Britain
attacked the Turks at Gaza (First Battle of Gaza).
20 December 1916, British
forces took El Arish.
13 December 1916. New British
offensive in Mesopotamia.
16 April 1917, Nivelle�s Champagne offensive failed.
11 April 1917. (1) Brazil
broke off relations with Germany after the steamer Parana was torpedoed off
France. On 1 June 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 October 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.
10 April 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 April 1917, The Canadians
stormed Vimy Ridge, see 10 April 1917.
8 April 1917, Easter Sunday. Panama declared war on Germany.
7 April 1917. Cuba declared war on Germany.
6 April 1917. The USA declared
war against Germany, with a
declaration signed by President Woodrow Wilson. This followed the
revealing by the British on 1 March 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�.
20 March 1917. A German U-boat sank a fully-lit hospital ship.
19 March 1917, French Prime Minister
Briand resigned. Alexandre Ribot
formed a Cabinet.
2/1917, The �Turnip Winter� in central Europe; food shortages caused many
deaths.
26 February 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 February 1917. The Germans
retreated on the Ancre, and on 28 February 1917 the British captured Gommecourt.
12 February 1917, US President Wilson refused to reopen negotiations with Germany until
it abandoned its policy of unrestricted naval warfare; on 3 February 1917 the
US liner Housatonic had been sunk by a German U-boat.
1/1917, Germans were enduring the
�turnip winter�, so called because
exceptionally wet weather in Autumn 1916 across Germany had destroyed the
potato crop, leaving just turnips to eat. Fuel shortages amd a Britisah maval
blockade also disrupted distribution of what food was available.
31 January� 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 May 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 January� 1917, Britain
and Germany agreed to exchange all internees aged over 45.
31 December 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.
12 December 1916, Robert Nivelle was appointed Commander in Chief of French armies
in N and NE France.
11 December 1916, Allied Salonika offensive ended.
6 December 1916, The
Central Powers occupied Bucharest.
3 December 1916, Nivelle succeeded Joffre as French Commander In
Chief.
18 November 1916, Allied War Conference was held at
Chantilly.
10 November 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 November 1916, French
forces recaptured Fort Vaux, which the Germans had taken on 7 June 1916.
Battle of
the Somme, July � November 1916
13 November 1916, The Battle of the Somme ended.� It had begun
on 1 July 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.
25 September 1916, British
forces took Thiepval (Somme).
14 July 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 July 1916. Battle
of the Somme began. Britain and France launched a major offensive.
This offensive lasted until 8 November 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.
Verdun,
February � December 1916
15 December 1916. The Battle of Verdun, which began on 21 February 1916, ended. 364,000 Allied
soldiers and 338,000 German soldiers, had died in this battle.
24 October 1916. French
troops broke open a four mile stretch of the German lines at Verdun, and another offensive started
there.
24 June 1916. A new
German offensive began at Verdun.
20 June 1916, Germans
first used diphosgene gas shells at Verdun.
21 February 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 December 1916. The
previous commander, General Joseph Joffre, had ignored
intelligence reports and, believing the German attack would come at Champagne,
failed to reinforce Verdun.
26 September 1916, Battle of Morval. British forces captured
the French villages of Combles and Gueudecourt from the Germans.
24 September 1916, The French
bombed the Krupp works at Essen.� A
second Zeppelin was shot down in England.
17 September 1916, Manfred von Richtofen, the �Red Baron�, Germany�s greatest air ace,
won the first of his 80 confirmed kills over Cambrai, France.
14 September 1916, Seventh
Battle of Isonzo; Italian forces made small gains.
12 September 1916, British
and Serbian forces mounted an attack from Salonika, but were unable to help
Romania.
9 September 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.
5 September 1916, Mackensen
invaded Dobruja.
4 September 1916. British
troops took Dar Es Salaam in east Africa.
30 August 1916. Paul Von Hindenburg became Chief of General Staff in
Germany. He became Commander in Chief on the Western Front on 29 November 1916.
28 August 1916. Italy declared war on Germany.
27 August 1916. Rumania
declared war on Germany, see 6 December 1916. Austria
declared war on Rumania.
26 August 1916, Battle of Delville Wood. After a week�s
delay due to rain, the British attacked and captured the German trenches.
22 August 1916, Romania
declared war on Austro-Hungary.� Its
troops crossed the passes into Transylvania but were expelled again by
mid-November.
19 August 1916. German
warships bombarded the east coast of England.
17 August 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.
2 August 1916, Demonstrations demanding peace in several German
cities.
27 July 1916, Russian forces defeated the Turks at Erzinjan.
19 July 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 exceeded 7,000 with only minor and temporary
territorial gains.
23 June 1916. A Russian
offensive captured most of Galicia.
22 June 1916, The Germans
gassed French artillery positions around Verdun, France, causing 1,600
casualties.
18 June 1916, Russian forces
took Czernowitz (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine).
14 June 1916, Allied economic
conference in Paris.
7 June 1916, German forces captured Fort Vaux. Recaptured by
the French on 2 November 1916.
6 June 1916, Allied forces
blockaded Greece.
5 June 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 June 1916, Russia began the Brusilov Offensive, pushing back
Austrian forces south of the Pripet Marshes. German reinforcements halted the
Russian advance.
2 June 1916. Second Battle of Ypres.
1 June 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 May 1916. Battle of Jutland. On 31 May 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.
26 May 1916, Bulgarian forces captured Fort Rupel from Greece.
16 May 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 October 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.
15 May 1916, Austrian forces began a new offensive at Trentino.
8 May 1916. Australian and New Zealand troops
arrived in France.
18 April 1916, Russian forces
captured Trebizond, Turkey.
17 April 1916. The Boer leader Jan Smuts led an
anti-German drive from Kenya.
27 March 1916, Allied War Conference began in Paris.
24 March 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 January� 1917.
21 March 1916. Austrian soldiers killed 10,000
Serbian civilians.
20 March 1916. Food
scarcities in Germany caused rationing to begin.
13 March 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 March 1916. Germany declared war on� Portugal.
8 March 1916, French forces regained Corbeaux (Verdun).
27 February 1916, Battle of Verdun. The spring thaw turned
the ground to swamp and slowed German advances, allowing French time to
regroup. German soldiers began suffering from exhaustion and lost 500 soldiers
to one day of fighting around the village of Douaumont, France.
25 February 1916, Petain took command of the French forces at
Verdun.
15 February 1916, Fifth
Battle of Isonzo, between Italy and Austria
German food
problems, retaliation
11 February 1916, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered an escalation of the U-boat warfare.
8 February 1916. Food shortages caused riots in Berlin. Food rationing began in Germany on 20 March 1916.� The British blockade deprived Germany of food
imports.
28 January� 1916. British and Belgian troops took Yaounde, capital of the German colony
of Cameroon.
27 January� 1916. In Berlin, the German
Communist Party, Spartacus, was formed.
31 December 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.
30 December 1915, The liner
Persia was sunk by a U-boat, 400
drowned.
21 December 1915, William Robertson became British Chief of Staff.
19 December 1915, Douglas Haig replaced
John French
as British Commander in Chief for France and Flanders.
19 November 1915, The
Allies asked China to join the entente.
12 November 1915, Roland Barthes,
French philosopher, was born (died 1980).
8 December 1915, Turkish
forces began a siege of Kut.
8 November 1915, The
Italian liner Ancona was torpedoed
off Sardinia, over 200 died.
30 October 1915, Gallieni
became the French Minister of War.
11 October 1915, Henri Jean
Fabre, French entomologist, died in Serignan, France (born 21
December 1823 in St Leons, France).
21 October 1915, The
Battle of Isonzo began; Italian forces made small territorial gains.
9 October 1915. The Serbian capital, Belgrade, fell to the Austro-German
army.
26 September 1915. British and
French troops began two big offensives, in Champagne and Flanders.
25 September 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 April 1915.
19 September 1915. The
Germans took Vilna (Vilnius), capital of Lithuania.
18 September 1915, (1) The Kaiser gave renewed assurances
that passenger ships would not be attacked.
(2) German forces entered Vilnius, Lithuania.
30 August 1915. The great
Russian fortress of Brest-Litovsk fell to the Germans.
19 August 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 August 1915, The
Germans took the fortress of Novo Georgievsk.
17 August 1915,� The Germans took Kovno.
5 August 1915. Austro-German forces took Warsaw as the Russian abandoned it.
4 August 1915, Nurse Edith Cavell was
arrested in Brussels, see 12 October 1915.
12 July 1915, The
German Government took control of the coal industry.
23 June 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 June 1915. The Austrians
retook Lemberg (Lvov), capital of Galicia, which they had lost to Russia on 3
September 1914.
11 June 1915. Serbian
troops invaded Albania and took Tirana, the capital.
9 June 1915, British troops in
France were first issued with hand grenades.
6 June 1915, The Kaiser
promised that in future the German Navy would not attack passenger vessels.
However on 28 June 1915 a German submarine sunk the passenger liner Armenia off Cornwall, and the passenger
liner Arabic was sunk on 19 August 1915.
4 June 1915. Austro-German troops retook
Premsyl from the Russians.
23 May 1915, Italy entered the war on the Allied side, see 25
April 1915.
15 May 1915, Unsuccessful
British and French offensive in NE France.
10 May 1915. Fierce fighting in
the Ypres area.
9-25 May 1915, Battle of
Aubers Ridge (second battle of Artois); the French advanced three miles at
great cost.
2 May 1915, German forces
broke through on the Eastern Front at Gorlice.
1 May 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 April 1915. Germany
invaded the Russian Baltic provinces.
25 April 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 May 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 April 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 September 1915.
19 April 1915, The British
captured Hill no.60.
5 April 1915. France began a broad offensive
from the Meuse to the Moselle.
23 March 1915, The
Hungarian fortress of Przemysl fell to Russian forces.
18 March 1915, Allied
warships tried to force open the Dardanelles.
14 March 1915, The German battle
cruiser Dresden was sunk.
11 March 1915. Britain began a naval blockade of
Germany.
10 March 1915, Battle of
Neuve-Chapelle began. By 12 March 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.
9 March 1915,
Austro-German forces defeated the Russians at Grodno.
1 March 1915. Britain began blockading German ports.
18 February 1915. Germany�s
blockade of Britain by submarine began.
17 February 1915. Germany
captured the Polish port of Memel.
16 February 1915, Bombardment of the Dardanelles defences
began.
12 February 1915, The French began an offensive in the
Champagne region.
7 February 1915-15 February 1915. Battle of the Masurian Lakes. The Russian 10th Army was
defeated by the Germans under Otto Von Below.
4 February 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 January� 1915, Battle of Bolimov; German forces attacked Russian positions near the
Polish village of Bolimov, using poison gas. They used liquid xylyl
bromide, tear gas, known as T-Stoff. However the chemical froze instead of
vaporising and had no impact.
24 January� 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 January� 1915, Heavy fighting began in the Carpathian Mountains between Russian and
Austro-Hungarian forces. This continued until mid-April.
8 January� 1915, Heavy fighting in the Bassee Canal and Soissons area of France.
4 January 1915, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
became the first Canadian troops sent to the Western Front.
3 January� 1915, Tear gas was used in warfare for the first time; by Germany against
the Russians, in Poland.
See also Russia
1910s
31 December 1914, By the end of 1914, France alone had
seen 900,000 of its citizens killed or hospitalised.
30 December 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 December 1914, The
German Government took control of food supplies and distribution.
25 December 1914. In World
War One, an informal truce between the combatants ended at midnight.
24 December 1914. The first air
raid on Britain took place. A single bomb fell in the grounds of St James
Priory, Dover.
22 December 1914, Turkish
forces made unsuccessful attacks on Russian forces in the Caucasus.
17 December 1914. Anzac
(Australia, New Zealand, army corps) troops occupied Samoa and German New
Guinea.
16 December 1914. The German
navy bombarded Hartlepool, Scarborough, and Whitby with over 1,000 shells,
killing 102.
14 December 1914, Serbian
forces recaptured Belgrade.
8 December 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 December 1914 The
Germans captured Lodz, Poland.
5 December 1914, The
Austrians defeated the Russians at Limanova, but failed to break the Russian
lines at Krakow.
2 December 1914, The
Austrians took Belgrade from Serbia.
30 November 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 November 1914. The
British navy bombarded Zeebrugge.
21 November 1914. Indian troops occupied the port of Basra, Persia.
19 November 1914, The Battle
of Kolubara. Austro-Hungarian forces gained a foothold in Serbia as the
opposing armies fell back towards Belgrade.
18 November 1914, On the
eastern front, the Germans broke the Russian line at Kutno.
10 November 1914, The
Australian cruiser Sydney sank the
German cruiser Emden off Sumatra.
This cleared the Indian Ocean of German forces.
8 November 1914, Admiral Sturdee
sank a German squadron off the Falklands.
3 November 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 February 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
March 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 November 1914. The
British fleet was defeated at the Battle of Coronel, Chile.
29 October 1914, Turkish
warships bombarded the Russian ports of Sevastopol, Odessa and Novorossiysk.
This provoked a declaration of war by Russia against Turkey on 4 November 1919;
also by Britain and France on 5 November 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 August 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 July 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 August 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 August 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 August 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.
17 October 1914. German
U-boats raided Scapa Flow, the main base of the British Fleet.�
16 October 1914, Four German destroyers were sunk off the
Belgian coast.
11 October 1914. Paris was bombed.
30 September 1914, Paris was saved from occupation as German forces
were driven back (see 31 August 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 October 1914.
27 September 1914. The
Russians invaded Hungary.
26 September 1914. The
Australians took the German port of Friedrich Wilhelmshafen in German New
Guinea.
22 September 1914. Three
British cruisers, Aboukir, Hogue, and
Cressy, were torpedoed by a German
submarine, 1,500 were killed.
The �Race
to the Sea�, September-October 1914. Both sides tried to secure as much
territory as possible westwards to the Channel Coast.
31 October 1914, The front line in the Great
War had stabilised into trench warfare,
stretching from the Swiss border to the English Channel (see 30 September 1914).� Fierce battle s raged for front-line towns
such as Ypres, and Paris was bombed by Zeppelins.
29 October 1914, �Near Nieuport, Netherlands, the Yser area was
flooded tactically
15 October 1914. The
Germans, having captured Ghent and Bruges, took Ostend.
14 October 1914. British
and French troops occupied Ypres. The
Belgian government fled to France. Canadian troops arrived in Britain.
12 October 1914, The
German Army entered Lille, after several days bombardment.
10 October 1914. The
Germans took Antwerp.
9 October 1914, The
Germans took Ghent.
28 September 1914. German
guns began bombarding Antwerp. Antwerp capitulated on 10 October 1914.
25 September 1914, Battle of
Buggenhout. The Belgians launched a major offensive against German forces at
Buggenhout between Antwerp and Brussels.
23 September 1914. The
British suffered heavy casualties at Mons,
and retreated.
21 September 1914, First
Battle of Picardy. German forces marched from Rheims, France, and engaged
French forces the following day.
20 September 1914, Germany
bombarded Rheims Cathedral.
17 September 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.
12 September 1914, Ghent and Lille fell to
German forces.
Battle of
the Aisne, September 1914. Trench warfare begins
16 September 1914, Trench warfare began on the Aisne
salient.
15 September 1914, The first trenches
of the Western Front were dug at the First Battle of the Aisne, as
the conflict ended indecisively.
13 September 1914, The Battle of the Aisne began. It lasted
until 28 September 1914.
Battle of
the Masurian Lakes, September 1914. Russians retreat from East Prussia
29 September 1914, Battle of the Vistula River. The German Ninth Army advanced on
Vistula River where Russian forces regrouped following their defeat at the
First Battle of the Masurian Lakes.
15 September 1914, �The Russians
were forced to retreat from East Prussia, after the battle of the Masurian
Lakes.
11 September 1914, First Battle of the Masurian Lakes.
Reinforcements bolstered the German Eighth Army, allowed them to push the
Russian First Army back to a line running from Insterburg to Angerburg in East
Prussia.
Battle of
the Marne, September 1914. German advance halted, Trench
warfare stalemate about to begin
14 September 1914. The Allies drove back the Germans on the Marne, relieving the threat to Paris. The Germans retreated to Verdun. The Germans now dug in with defensive trenches, where they could
repel further Allied advances. The
situation of static trench warfare had begun; s stalemate that would not be
broken until 1918.
9 September 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. The Allies had retreated,
and the German advance had left their right flank dangerously exposed, and this
was where the Allies now attacked.
6 September 1914. Battle of
the Marne began. Advances by British
and French forces.� The Germans retreated
to Verdun.
8 September 1914, The
French fortress of Maubeuge fell to the Germans.
5 September 1914. The
Germans took Rheims.
4 September 1914. Britain,
France, and Russia agreed not to make separate peaces.
3 September 1914. Russian
forces took Lvov.
31 August 1914. The German General
Hindenburg had reversed earlier Russian successes (see 24 August 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 September 1914.
30 August 1914. (1) The Germans
took Amiens.
(2) A New Zealand expeditionary force occupied the former German colony of
Samoa.
29 August 1914, Battle of Guise, northern France.
28 August 1914. (1) The Germans
began besieging Antwerp (see 18
August 1914), capturing it on 10 October 1914.
(2) The British sank three German cruisers and two destroyers off Heligoland Bight, opening the war at
sea.
26-31 August 1914. Germany
defeated Russia at the Battle of Tannenberg.
26 August 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 October 1918.
25 August 1914, The
Germans sacked Louvain.
24 August 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 August 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 September 1914, that some
of these forces were to be sent to France, the Belgians launched a fresh
offensive on 9 September 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 August 1914.
23 August 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 August 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 August 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 November 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 August 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 August 1914. The Belgian
government left Brussels for Antwerp.
See 28 August 1914.
17 August 1914. A British Expeditionary Force of 70,000
men landed in France.
16 August 1914 Liege, Belgium, fell to the Germans.� The Battle of Liege had begun on 4 August 1914
and the resistance here had seriously delayed the German occupation of Belgium.
15 August 1914, Russia
invaded East Prussia.
12 August 1914. Britain
and France declared war on Austria.
9 August 1914. The first British
troops arrived in France. The British Expeditionary force was landed from 9th
to 17th August at Boulogne.
8 August 1914. German
troops entered Liege, Belgium.�
7 August 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 August 1914 this French force reached the Rhine.
6 August 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/
August 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 August 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 August 1914, and 6 August 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 August 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 August 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 August 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 August 1914; Germany occupied
Luxembourg, and invaded Belgium 2 days later, on 4 August 1914. Russian troops
crossed into East Prussia.
1 August 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 July 1914. Germany ordered a
general mobilisation of the army, rejecting Britain�s offer of mediation in the
Austro-Serbian crisis as �insolence�.
30 July 1914. The Czar of Russia
ordered general mobilisation of the army. European stockmarkets began to panic
as war loomed.
29 July 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 July 1914. Austria declared war on Serbia. See 23 July 1914. Belgrade was bombarded by Austria on 29 July 1914, the first engagement
of World War One. The Austrians took Belgrade on 30 July 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 October 1915 Belgrade
fell to the Germans. Italy declared war
on Austria on 23 May 1915, and here too the Germans were needed to help
Austria against Italy.
26 July 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 July 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 July 1914. The
Russian Council of Ministers began plans for partial mobilisation of the army.
23 July 1914. Austria determined that the government of Serbia was
involved in the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand on 28 June 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 July 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 July 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 July 1914. Germany
promised support to Austria.
28 June 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 July 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.