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WWI
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1913 |
The MV Liemba, a 220-foot steamer, began its life in a shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, where it was named the Graf von Goetzen after German East Africa's former governor. It was dismantled, packed into 5,000 numbered crates, and shipped to Dar es Salaam and then taken by railway and porter to the shore of Lake Tanganyika where it was reassembled in 1915, armed with cannon, and put to work defending the waters against Belgian and British soldiers. It was scuttled and then dredged up by the Belgians but sank in a storm soon after. In 1921 Churchill ordered it recovered. In 1924 it was fished up and renamed MV Liemba, after the local name for the lake. It was put into service as a cargo and passenger ferry in 1927. It later inspired C.S. Forester’s novel "The African Queen” (1935). Links: Germany, Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ship, WWI 
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1914 Jun 28 |
Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to Austria-Hungary, and his wife, Sofia, were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by a Serb nationalist. As the royal couple rode through the streets of Sarajevo in an open touring car, seven young radicals from an obscure Serbian-Bosnian nationalist group, called the Black Hand, lay in wait. An initial assassination attempt failed, but a wrong turn brought the car near Gavrilo Princip, who fired two shots at point-blank range into the couple's bodies. Within minutes, both the Archduke and Sophia were dead. Princip was arrested, but political tensions were so high between Austria-Hungary and Serbia that war broke out as a result. Like falling dominoes, international alliances brought one country after another into the conflict. The event triggered World War I. In 2011 Adam Hochschild authored “To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion.” Links: Austria, Bosnia, Hungary, Serbia, WWI
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1914 Jul 28 |
The SMS Bodrog was one of two Austro-Hungarian heavy gunboats that sailed into the confluence of the rivers Sava and Danube around midnight. Its two canons hurled shells at Serbian positions in Belgrade, marking the start of the four-year war in which around 20 million people died. In 2021 Serbia recalled the ship to service as a floating museum. Links: Austria, Hungary, Serbia, WWI, Major Event
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1914 Aug 2 |
In Joncherey, northeastern France, French corporal Jules-Andre Peugeot and German lieutenant Albert Mayer died in a firefight, the first official casualties of World War I. Links: France, Germany, WWI
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1914 Aug 3 |
Germany invaded Belgium and declared war on France at the onset of World War I. The German plan for victory in France was known as the Schlieffen Plan, and was based on a quick strike and the capture of Paris. Links: Belarus, France, Germany, WWI
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1914 Aug 3 |
German Admiral Souchon, commander of the battle cruisers Goeben and Breslau, received an unexpected change in his orders. After attacking the Algerian coast he was no longer to sail west to the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, he was now ordered to turn around and sail east to Turkey. His new mission was to persuade the neutral Turkish government to enter the war on the side of Germany. The 2 ships were sold to Turkey and Souchon was made commander of the Turkish navy. He took the ships into the Black Sea, where he bombarded the Russian cities of Odessa, Sebastopol and Novorossiysk without the knowledge or consent of the Turkish government. Links: Algeria, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, WWI
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1914 Aug 4 |
Britain and Belgium declared war after German troops entered Belgium. The United States proclaimed its neutrality. Britain’s entry also committed its dominions of Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand and South Africa. AS WWI started the financial press helped to cover up news of a run on the Bank of England. Links: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Britain, USA, Germany, South Africa, New Zealand, WWI
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1914 Aug 5 |
The British Expeditionary Force mobilized for World War I. Links: Britain, WWI
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1914 Aug 6 |
Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia and Serbia declared war against Germany. Links: Austria, Russia, Germany, Hungary, Serbia, WWI
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1914 Aug 13 |
The British purchased 3 fast cross-channel packets: Empress, Riviera and Engadine. The ships were converted into seaplane tenders for reconnaissance. Links: Britain, WWI
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1914 Aug 16 |
Liege, Belgium, fell to the German army. Links: Belgium, Germany, WWI
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1914 Aug 18 |
President Wilson issued his Proclamation of Neutrality, aimed at keeping the United States out of World War I. Links: USA, WilsonW, WWI
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1914 Aug 18 |
Germany declared war on Russia. Links: Russia, Germany, WWI
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1914 Aug 19 |
The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) landed in France. Links: Britain, France, WWI
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1914 Aug 20 |
German forces occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I. Links: Belgium, Germany, WWI
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1914 Aug 20 |
Russia won an early victory over Germany at Gumbinnen. Links: Russia, Germany, WWI
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1914 Aug 22 |
In France some 27,000 soldiers died in the bloodiest battle of French history. Links: France, Germany, WWI
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1914 Aug 23 |
The Emperor of Japan sided with the Allies and declared war on Germany in World War I. Links: Germany, Japan, WWI
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1914 Aug 26 |
The French government appointed Gen. Joseph Simon Gallieni (65) as military governor of Paris. He had been called out of retirement at the onset of war to serve in the Ministry of War in Paris. Links: France, WWI
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1914 Aug 28 |
Three German cruisers were sunk by ships of the Royal Navy in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, the first major naval battle of World War I. The Germans lost four ships and 1,000 sailors; British casualties were 33 killed. Links: Britain, Germany, WWI
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1914 Aug |
Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), Brazilian aviation pioneer, burned his aeronautical papers after French neighbors labeled him a German spy. Links: Brazil, France, Germany, Espionage, WWI
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1914 Sep 3 |
The French capital was moved from Paris to Bordeaux as the Battle of the Marne began. The British expeditionary army under general Lanrezacs army attacked the Marne. French troops vacated Reims. Links: Britain, France, Germany, WWI
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1914 Sep 3 |
The air defense of Great Britain was assigned to Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Winston Churchill, the new first lord of the Admiralty, and the RNAS were assigned the task of stopping the Zeppelins. Links: Britain, WWI
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1914 Sep 5 |
The First Battle of the Marne began during World War I. The German First Army was led by Gen. Alexander von Kluck. Links: France, Germany, WWI
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1914 Sep 6 |
In the Battle of Marne German forces bypassed Paris to chase retreating allied forces. French Gen. Gallieni orchestrated an attack using the British Expeditionary Force along with the French 3rd, 5th and 6th armies. Links: Britain, France, Germany, WWI
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1914 Sep 7 |
In the Battle of Marne French Gen. Gallieni commandeered some 600 hundred Paris taxicabs to deliver overnight 6,000 men of the 3rd army to reinforce the 6th Army at the Battle of the Marne, which allowed the French army to hold. Links: France, Germany, WWI
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1914 Sep 8 |
Pvt. Thomas Highgate (18) was the first British soldier in the war to be shot for desertion. He had become separated from his unit, but said he was trying to rejoin it when he was detained. In 2006 the British government prepared to pardon 305 men who were hauled before firing squads in World War I for desertion or cowardice after summary trials. Links: Britain, WWI
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1914 Sep 9 |
In the Battle of Marne the German advance stalled and a retreat began back to the Aisne River. Links: France, Germany, WWI
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1914 1918 |
The German campaign in East Africa was directed by General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. German looting and raiding caused at least 300,000 civilian deaths. By attacking Northern Rhodesia they invaded British territory. Of 1 million porters recruited by the British, 95,000 died. In 2007 Edward Paice authored “Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa. In 2008 Edward Paice authored “World War I: The African Front. Links: Britain, Germany, Africa, Zimbabwe, WWI
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1914 1916 |
Margot Asquith, the wife of British PM Herbert Asquith, kept a war diary. In 2014 a version edited by Michael and Eleanor Brock was published as “Margot Asquith’s Great War Diary: 1914-1916: The View from Downing Street.” Links: Britain, Books, WWI
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1914 1949 |
This period in Europe was covered by Ian Kershaw in his 2015 book “To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949.” Links: Historian, Books, WWII, WWI
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1915 Jan |
French and German soldiers faced off at the Hartmannswillerkopf peak in eastern France. Over the next year some 25,000 soldiers from both sides perished in the fighting there. In 2017 a museum was inaugurated at the peak. Links: France, Germany, Museum, WWI
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1915 Apr 25 |
Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli in Turkey in hopes of attacking the Central Powers from below. Allied soldiers, ANZAC, invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Turkish Empire out of the war. The allies were defeated in one of the deadliest battles of the war. In 1965 Sir Robert Rhodes James authored "Gallipoli," a definitive account of the Allied expedition. About 44,000 Allied troops and 86,000 Ottoman soldiers died in the fighting. Links: Australia, Turkey, New Zealand, WWI
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1915 May 7 |
In the 2nd year of WWI, the British Cunard ocean liner Lusitania, on a voyage from New York to Liverpool, sank off the coast of Ireland in only 18-21 minutes after being struck by a torpedo fired by the German U-boat U-20. Of 1,962 passengers and crew, 1,198 died. Of the fatalities, 128 were Americans. Even though the Germans maintained the liner was carrying arms purchased in America to Britain, the sinking of a passenger ship aroused intense anger against the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and hastened America's entrance into the war. In 2002 Diana Preston authored "Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy" and David Ramsay authored "Lusitania: Saga and Myth." Links: Britain, Germany, Ship, WWI
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1915 May 15 |
In Germany Clara Immerwahr, chemist and wife of chemist Fritz Haber, shot herself in the heart with her husband’s service weapon in their garden, possibly in response to his having personally overseen the first successful use of chlorine at the Second Battle of Ypres on April 22, 1915. That same morning, Haber left for the Eastern Front to oversee gas release against the Russians. Links: Germany, Suicide, Chemistry, WWI
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1915 Oct 12 |
British nurse Edith Cavell (47), despite international protests, was shot as a spy by a German firing squad in Brussels, Belgium. Cavell, the matron of a Brussels training school for nurses, was known for her compassion and sense of duty. As WWI broke out in Europe, Cavell helped 60 British student nurses return home but she remained in Belgium. Even though she knew that helping soldiers escape from German-occupied territory meant the death penalty, Cavell agreed when asked to participate in an escape ring that helped more than 200 fugitive Allied soldiers return home after the British Expeditionary Force's retreat from Mons. Such a large conspiracy could not long remain a secret and in August 1915, Cavell and 35 other members of her organization were arrested. At her hasty trial, she was condemned to death for "conducting soldiers to the enemy." Although their action may have been justified under the rules of war, the Germans seriously blundered when they shot Edith Cavell. Within days of her death, the selfless nurse was elevated to martyr status and the Germans were internationally condemned as "murdering monsters." A statue in St. Martin's Place, just off London's Trafalgar Square, is dedicated to Cavell. In 2010 Diana Souhami authored “Edith Cavell.” Links: Belgium, Britain, Germany, WWI
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1915 |
The British Women’s Institute movement was formed with two clear aims: to revitalise rural communities and to encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War. In 2013 Julie summers authored “Jambusters: The Story of Women’s Institute in the Second World War. Links: Britain, Women, WWII, WWI
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1915 1919 |
More than 50,000 Lithuanian-Americans fought for the USA in World War I. This remarkable number was later leveraged to lobby US President Woodrow Wilson to recognize the newly independent Lithuanian state that emerged from the War’s aftermath. Links: USA, Lithuania, WWI
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1915 |
Car maker Henry Ford took a ship of leading business people and peace activists to Europe to try to end WWI. Links: USA, WWI
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1916 May 22 |
French troops occupied parts of Fort Douaumont, Verdun. They surrendered to German forces after two days of fighting. Links: France, Germany, WWI
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1916 May 27 |
French Gen. Joseph Simon Gallieni (b.1849) died. He had been called out of retirement at the onset of war to serve in the Ministry of War in Paris and orchestrated the allied victory at the Battle of the Marne (1914). Links: France, WWI
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1916 May 31 |
During World War I, British and German fleets fought the Battle of Skagerrak at Jutland off Denmark and 10,000 were left dead. There was no clear-cut victor, although the British suffered heavier losses. Links: Britain, Germany, Denmark, WWI
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1916 Jul 1 |
In France at 7:30AM, a 5 day, continuous, British artillery bombardment of German lines stopped, and 11 British divisions (100,000 men) went "over the top" toward the Germans. By 9AM 22,000 were dead & another 40,000 were wounded in what became known as the Battle of the Somme. Some 57,500 British soldiers were killed or wounded on the first day of the battle. These attacks continued for another five months, costing the British over one million killed & wounded. Field Marshal Douglas Haig commanded the British forces. 4 months of stalemate cost 420,00 British casualties. In 2014 Joe Sacco authored “The Great War: July 1, 1916 – The First Day of the Battle of the Somme. Links: Britain, France, Germany, WWI
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1916 Jul 15 |
A series of engagements in the Battle of the Somme began at Delville Wood and continued to September 3 between the armies of the German Empire and the British Empire. A brigade of South Africans held the wood until 19 July at a cost of four-fifths of its men injured or killed. Links: Britain, France, Germany, South Africa, WWI
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1916 Jul 19 |
In the WWI Battle at Fromelles, France, German machine guns and artillery left over 5,500 Australians and over 1,500 British killed, wounded or missing in less than 24 hours. Links: Australia, Britain, France, Germany, WWI
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1916 Jul 30 |
German saboteurs blew up a munitions pier on Black Tom Island, Jersey City, NJ. 7 people were killed. The explosion shattered windows in downtown Manhattan and the noise was heard as far away as Maryland. Damages totaled about $20-25 million. After much legal maneuvering a commission in 1939 ruled that Germany was guilty of sabotaging Black Tom and another plant in Kingsland, NJ, and awarded$50 million to the claimants. In 1953 the new Federal Republic of Germany began making payments. The last payment was made in 1979. Links: USA, Germany, New Jersey, WWI
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1916 Nov 21 |
The HMHS Britannic, the sister ship of the Titanic, sank in the Kea Channel off Greece after being hit by a mine or a torpedo. 30 people in lifeboats died from the suction of the sinking ship. The Britannic, launched in 1914 from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, included an additional expansion joint due to design update following the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Links: Britain, Tragedy, Ship, WWI
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1916 Nov 27 |
The German submarine UB-29 departed on its final mission with 22 sailors and soon went missing. In 2017 Belgian divers investigated the submarine's wreck off the coast of Belgium. Officials were able to identify it after finding the tag of the U-boat. Links: Belgium, Germany, Submarine, WWI
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1916 Dec 18 |
The French defeated the Germans in the World War I Battle of Verdun. The 302-day Battle of Verdun ended with the French and Germans each having suffered more than 330,000 killed and wounded in 10 months. Links: France, Germany, WWI
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1917 Feb 8 |
The British steamship Mantola was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland. All but seven crew members, who drowned when their lifeboat overturned, were rescued by the HMS Laburnum. The ship sank the next day. The British Ministry of War Transport paid a War Risk Insurance Claim for £110,000 (in 1917 value) for silver that was on board when the ship sank. In 2011 Odyssey Marine Exploration discovered the ship. Links: Britain, Germany, Submarine, WWI
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1917 Feb 21 |
The SS Mendi steamship sank after being accidentally rammed in the British Channel by the SS Darro, an empty meat ship bound for Argentina. 607 members of the South African Labour Corps, 9 officers and 33 crew lost their lives. The crew of the Darro made no attempt to rescue survivors. Links: Britain, South Africa, Tragedy, WWI
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1917 Feb 26 |
President Wilson publicly asked congress for the power to arm merchant ships. When the United States entered World War I, propagandist George Creel set out to stifle anti-war sentiment. Pres. Wilson, following his 1916 re-election, had asked the NY publicist to design a public relations campaign to swing the country’s interests to support Britain and France. Links: USA, WilsonW, WWI
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1917 Mar 6 |
Dr. Chandra Chakraverty was arrested in NYC for violating US neautrality laws. He had been by Berlin to arrange for arms sales to India in the Annie Larsen affair. German military attache Franz von Papen had arranged for 10,000 rifles to be loaded on a chartered ship called the Annie Larsen. The plot failed when US federal agents seized office files of German official Wolf Von Igel in NYC. The files contained information about the entire conspiracy. Links: USA, India, Germany, NYC, WWI
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1917 Apr 9 |
Battle of Arras began as Canadian troops launched a massive assault on Vimy Ridge in France. The assault brought four Canadian divisions fought together for the first time and cost 10,600 lives. The Canadians succeeded in battling through snow and sleet to push out the Germans who had long held the strategic post. Links: Canada, Britain, France, Germany, WWI
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1917 May 26 |
The Spanish boat Carlos de Eizaguirre hit a German mine that had been part of a naval blockade near Cape Town. 25 survivors reached the harbor. Links: Germany, South Africa, WWI
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1917 Jul 31 |
The third Battle of Ypres commenced as the British attacked the German lines. Links: Belgium, Britain, Germany, WWI
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1917 Aug 6 |
The battle of Marasesti began and continued to Sep 8. This was the last major battle between the German Empire and the Kingdom of Romania on the Romanian front during World War I. Links: Romania, Germany, WWI
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1917 Aug 14 |
The Chinese Parliament declared war on the Central Powers, Germany and Austria, during World War I. Some 100,000 Chinese laborers ended up serving near the front lines in Flanders as the “Chinese Labor Corps,” which endured military discipline under British officers. Hundreds died in the influenza that swept post-war Europe and the last were shipped home in 1920. Links: Austria, China, Germany, Flanders, WWI
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1917 Aug 14 |
The US War Department said Filipinos may be enlisted in all branches of the military as white troops, provided it is established that applicants have no Negro blood. Links: USA, Philippines, Black History, WWI
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1917 Aug 29 |
Canada’s PM Robert Borden introduced the Military Service Act. The Act was passed: allowing the government to conscript men across the country if the PM felt that it was necessary. Links: Canada, WWI
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