First World War Timeline: 1918

1918 was, of course, the year that the carnage and the bloodshed at last came to an end. After the guns stopped firing at 11am on November 11th, those men who had been fortunate enough to survive found themselves in a world totally different to the one their predecessors occupied when they marched off to war in 1914. This new world was a world left in a state of shock at the scale of the slaughter and facing an uncertain future, a world of democracy and political ideologies without many of the Kings and Emperors that had kept the old order ticking over for centuries.

Before all this could happen, however, there was still the matter of bringing an end to the war, which in early 1918 still showed little sign of breaking free from the trench stalemate that had held the two sides in place almost since the beginning. The Western Front would prove to be the decisive theater in these final struggles, with the Germans gambling everything on a series of all-out offensives that they hoped would smash their British and French foes and achieve that elusive final victory. Despite having crucial extra manpower freed up by the ending of the war in the east, the Germans were seriously struggling to meet the demands of their war effort and had little choice but to act quickly and decisively in the west. With American troops now flooding into France and soon to take up their positions in the Allied frontline, the balance of military power was set to swing permanently against the Central Powers.

The German Spring Offensives caught the Allies off balance, penetrating deep into their territory and finally resuming a degree of mobile warfare on the Western Front after more than three years of stalemate. The Germans did not break through completely, however, and the Allies held on. By August it was clear that the German attacks had run out of steam and from then on it was all downhill for the Kaiser's reich. The Allies, now reinforced by large numbers of American troops, began to push the Germans out of France and back into Belgium. As Austria-Hungary collapsed, the Ottomans sued for peace and their own country was consumed by revolutionary chaos Germany's military and political leaders at last agreed that the war had to be ended.

January 1st 1918

• Politics, Finland: The Bolshevik government in Russia recognises the Finnish declaration of independence which had been issued the previous month.

January 8th 1918

• Politics, United States: In a speech before a joint session of the United States Congress, President Woodrow Wilson outlines his vision for post-war Europe, a vision known as the Fourteen Points. It aims to avoid destructive wars in the future and is based upon the principles of national self-determination and collective security, with disputes to be settled by an international body.

January 20th 1918

• Naval War, Aegean Sea: The former German warships Goeben and Breslau, which have been under Ottoman control since 1914, attempt to sortie into the Aegean Sea but end up running into an enemy minefield. Breslau sinks after hitting a mine and the Goeben is forced to run itself aground in order to avoid the same fate. She is later towed away to safety by the Ottomans. 

January 24th 1918

• Home Front, Germany: Some 200,000 workers in Berlin and other German cities go out on strike, protesting against the worsening conditions on Germany's home front. The demands of the war effort and the debilitating effects of the British naval blockade mean that many Germans are starving and both economy and society are reaching breaking point.

February 18th 1918

• Eastern Front, Russia: Fighting on the Eastern Front resumes after Russia's armistice with the Central Powers, signed on December 23rd 1917, breaks down.

February 21st 1918

• Middle East, Palestine: British forces advancing northwards through the Ottoman province of Palestine capture the city of Jericho.

March 3rd 1918

• Politics, Russia: Leon Trotsky, representing the new Bolshevik regime in Russia, signs the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This peace treaty takes Russia out of the war against the Central Powers for good. Although the terms of the peace are very harsh on Russia, requiring them to hand over all Polish, Ukrainian and Baltic territories to Germany, it relieves a great deal of pressure on the Bolsheviks and allows them to focus on the civil war against anti-Communist "White" forces. The ending of the war in the east also allows Germany to transfer massive amounts of men and equipment to the Western Front, giving her a crucial numerical advantage over the Allies there.

March 21st 1918

• Western Front, France: The Germans on the Western Front, their numbers bolstered by troops transferred from the east, begin a series of massive attacks against the Allies that become known collectively as the Spring Offensive. The attacks are the brainchild of Germany's Chief Quartermaster General and co-Commander-in-Chief, Erich Ludendorff. Ludendorff knows that this is the last chance to achieve a German victory before American manpower tips the balance irreversibly in favour of the Allies so he and the German high command have decided to risk everything in an all-or-nothing gamble to win the war.
• Western Front, France: The first attack of Ludendorff's Spring Offensive, Operation Michael, is launched against the British Fifth Army on the River Somme, near the town of Saint Quentin. The aim of this attack is to break through the Allied frontline at the crucial weak point where the British and French armies meet, splitting the British from the French and capturing the city of Amiens, a key strategic transportation hub for the Allies.Within two days of the beginning of the assault, spearheaded by a concentrated artillery bombardment and elite stormtrooper units, the Germans have broken through in several places and the British are in full retreat.
• Western Front, Paris: The French capital, Paris comes under fire from the German "Paris Gun", a massive long-range heavy siege gun built by the German munitions manufacturer, Krupp. The gun allows the Germans to shell Paris from 75 miles away.

March 26th 1918

• Politics, Western Front: m French general Ferdinand Foch is appointed as Supreme Commander of all Allied forces on the Western Front, giving some much-needed uniformity and coordination to an Allied command that had been previously divided between General Philippe Pétain (France), Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (United Kingdom) and General John Pershing (United States), with no one person in overall control. Foch's authority is later extended to include the Italian Front as well.

March 29th 1918

• Western Front, Paris: 88 French civilians are killed and another 68 are injured when a shell fired by the Paris Gun hits the St-Gervais-et-St-Protais Church, causing its roof to collapse in on the congregation during the Good Friday service.

April 1st 1918

• Air War, United Kingdom: The British army's Royal Flying Corps is merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force.

April 5th 1918

• Western Front, France: Ludendorff calls off Operation Michael after the British on the Somme manage to re-establish and hold the line, halting the German advance at the village of Villers-Bretonneux, just eleven miles east of Amiens. The German troops are exhausted having advanced such a long distance in just a few days. Bringing supplies and artillery forward across the shell-blasted 1916 Somme battlefields, which the Germans have recaptured, is turning out to be a major logistical headache, Sapping the Germans' momentum and making it difficult for them to consolidate their gains.

April 9th 1918

• Western Front, France/Belgium: Germany launches the second assault of Ludendorff's Spring Offensive, Operation Georgette, also known as the Battle of the Lys and the Fourth Battle of Ypres. The aim of this operation is to break through the Allied line in the area around Ypres and Arras, which has been left vulnerable by the transfer of British forces to the Amiens sector, and cut off the British army's main supply routes by capturing the French Channel ports. Two Portuguese divisions collapse in the face of the German onslaught and the Allies are forced to fall back, giving up all the land around Ypres that they had gained in 1917, including the Messines and Passchendaele Ridges. Ypres itself, however, still remains in Allied hands.

April 11th 1918

• Western Front, Belgium: As his troops are pushed back by the Germans in the Ypres sector, the British commander, Sir Douglas Haig, issues his famous order of the day: "With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end." It is feared that the Germans will be able to reach Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne within a week if the British are not immediately reinforced with French forces. Fortunately for the Allies, the British are managing to hold a line on the River Lys and the German advance is runing out of steam.

April 21st 1918

• Air War, Western Front: Germany's leading fighter ace, Manfred "The Red Baron" von Richthofen is fatally wounded by Allied anti-aircraft fire during a dogfight near Amiens. He is able to land his plane on the Allied side of the lines before dying and is buried with full military honours by the British. Richthofen is replaced as commander of the Jagdgeschwader 1 fighter unit by Wilhelm Reinhard. After his own death in a flying accident on July 3rd, Reinhard is replaced as commander by the future Nazi Air Minister, Hermann Göring.

April 29th 1918

• Western Front, France/Belgium: Ludendorff calls a halt to Operation Georgette as it becomes clear that the Germans are not going to break through to the Channel ports. Despite having gained significant territory in the Ypres salient and around the Franco-Belgian border, the Germans have failed to capture either Ypres or the important rail hub of Hazebrouck.

May 7th 1918

• Politics, Romania: Romania is forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest as the withdrawal of Russia from the war has left the Romanians powerless to resist the Central Powers. The treaty is never ratified.

May 27th 1918

• Western Front, France: The Germans launch the third phase of the Spring Offensive, Operation Blücher-Yorck. The German attack takes place on the River Aisne between Soissons and Rheims, the objective being to push southwest towards Paris and draw in French forces to defend the capital. Ludendorff hopes that this diversion of French reinforcements will leave the struggling British vulnerable in their sectors to the north, allowing for a possible resumption of the Michael and Georgette offensives at some later date.

June 1st 1918

• Western Front, France: The United States Army sees its first significant action of the war as two American divisions, including a brigade from the Marine Corps, fight alongside the French Sixth Army for control of Belleau Wood near the town of Château-Thierry. Belleau Wood is just forty miles northeast of Paris and marks the furthest point of the German advance during the Blücher-Yorck offensive. The battle ends on June 26th.

June 6th 1918

• Western Front, France: Ludendorff calls a halt to Operation Blücher-Yorck. Yet again the Germans have gained a large amount of territory, reaching the River Marne for the first time since 1914, but have failed to achieve a breakthrough. Germany has also lost many of her best assault troops in the offensive, incurring 130,000 casualties in all (roughly the same figure as the Allies). German manpower is now stretched to the absolute limit, with the high command finding it increasingly difficult to make up the losses.

June 9th 1918

• Western Front, France: The final phase of Ludendorff's Spring Offensive, Operation Gneisenau, is launched. The attack yields token territorial gains for the Germans but the German army is fast reaching the limits of its endurance. The Allies have also regrouped since the early shocks of the Spring Offensive and are now soaking up the pressure effectively. A surprise French counter-attack at Compiègne on June 11th leads to the calling-off of the German offensive after just three days.

June 10th 1918

• Naval War, Adriatic Sea: An attempt by the Austro-Hungarian navy to break the Italian naval blockade of the Adriatic Sea is abandoned after the dreadnought battleship Szent István is sunk by Italian torpedo boats.

June 13th 1918

• Italian Front, Italy: Austro-Hungarian forces in Italy attempt to cross the Piave River and break the Allied defensive line but are repelled by the Italians and their Anglo-French reinforcements. The attack, which ends on June 23rd, is a total disaster for the Austro-Hungarians, who suffer more than 100,000 casualties.

July 15th 1918

• Western Front, France: The German army on the Western Front launches what will turn out to be its final offensive action of the war, the Second Battle of the Marne. The Germans attempt to break out of the salient created by Blücher-Yorck but are thwarted by an effective French defence and total Allied air superiority.

July 17th 1918

• Politics, Russia: Russia's former Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, their five children and several members of their household are executed by the Bolsheviks in the cellar of the Ipatiev House, the secure compound where they were being held in the Siberian town of Ekaterinburg. The decision to kill the Imperial Family was made in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of approaching anti-Bolshevik White forces.

July 18th 1918

• Western Front, France: As the Second Battle of the Marne rages on, French and American forces launch a major counter-attack against the west side of the Blücher-Yorck salient that threatens to roll up the Germans from the rear. Ludendorff orders an evacuation of the salient and by August 7th the Germans have pulled back to their starting positions on the River Aisne. The Second Battle of the Marne is a crucial victory for the Allies, who inflict 168,000 casualties on the Germans and take 30,000 prisoners. More importantly, the German army has now lost all offensive capability and its reserves are all but used up. The initiative is now firmly in the hands of the Allies.

August 6th 1918

• Politics, France: The Allied supreme commander, General Ferdinand Foch is promoted to Marshal of France.

August 8th - 11th 1918

• Western Front, France: British and Commonwealth forces launch the Battle of Amiens, attacking the German salient created by Operation Michael. The Allied attack, which involves a well-coordinated use of artillery, aircraft and tanks to support the advancing infantry, is a resounding success and the Germans are forced to withdraw. Ludendorff famously refers to August 8th as "the black day of the German army".

August 17th 1918

• Western Front, France: The Allied attack front is widened even further as the French Tenth Army attacks the Germans south of the Somme, around the town of Noyon.

August 21st 1918

• Western Front, France: British forces on the Somme recapture the town of Albert from the Germans.

August 26th 1918

• Western Front, France: The British First Army, stationed north of the Somme sector, launches the Second Battle of Arras, further widening the Allied front of attack.

August 29th 1918

• Western Front, France: The French capture Noyon from the Germans.
• Western Front, France: British forces cross the old Somme battlefields of 1916 and capture Bapaume from the Germans.

September 12th 1918

• Western Front, France: The German military situation on the Western Front becomes critcal as the British achieve another victory at the Battle of Havrincourt. The German high command decides to abandon what remains of their 1918 gains and withdraw to the Hindenburg Line, the strong defensive positions from which they launched the Spring Offensive.

September 15th 1918

• Balkan Front, Serbia: British, French and Greek forces in the southern Balkans attack and break through the Bulgarian lines at Dobro Pole in the former Serbian province of Macedonia. The defeat triggers a revolt in the Bulgarian army but they and their German allies are able to halt the Allies at Dorian on September 19th. Tough military pressure remains on Bulgaria, however, and soon its forces begin to crumble.

September 21st 1918

• Middle East, Palestine: The British complete the conquest of Palestine and are now poised to attack further north into Syria.

September 26th 1918

• Western Front, France: Marshal Foch orders an offensive against the southern sector of the Hindenburg Line west of Verdun. The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, conducted by French and American forces, continues until the end of the war and brings further significant, albeit costly, successes for the Allies.

September 28th 1918

• Western Front, Belgium: The northern Allied army group commanded by King Albert I of Belgium attacks the German positions around Ypres, quickly penetrating enemy lines and advancing over six miles on the first day. The offensive ends on October 2nd due to logisical problems, with the Allies having advanced up to eighteen miles in some places.

September 30th 1918

• Politics, Bulgaria: Following the collapse of its forces in the Balkans, Bulgaria becomes the first of the Central Powers to sign an armistice with the Allies.

October 1st 1918

• Middle East, Syria: British forces capture the city of Damascus, the capital of the Ottomans' Syria province..

October 8th 1918

• Western Front, France: Canadian forces break through the Hindenburg Line at the Second Battle of Cambrai. With all its reserves exhausted and its final key defensive position breached, the German army has no choice but to fall back.

October 14th 1918

• Western Front, Belgium: King Albert's Allied forces in the north resume their offensive with the Battle of Courtrai, penetrating deep into Belgium. By October 19th, Oostend, Lille, Douai, Zeebrugge and Bruges had been recaptured from the Germans. The entire Belgian coastline is now in Allied hands, with the Western Front now ending at the Belgian-Dutch border.

October 15th 1918

• Western Front, Belgium: Adolf Hitler, an Austrian-born corporal serving in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment of the German Army, is caught along with several colleagues in a mustard gas attack. Hitler is left temporarily blinded and spends the rest of the war in a field hospital.

October 20th 1918

• Naval War, Germany: Germany suspends its submarine campaign.

October 24th 1918

• Naval War, Germany: Germany's Imperial Naval Command under Admiral Reinhard Scheer and Admiral Franz von Hipper, based at the port of Kiel, issues orders for the High Seas Fleet to set sail for a final battle against the British Royal Navy.
• Italian Front, Italy: The Italians and their Anglo-French allies launch a major series of attacks against the Austro-Hungarian forces in the Trentino and northeastern Italy. The offensive, knows as the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, continues for ten days with the Italians making excellent progress in all areas against disintegrating enemy resistance.
• Politics, Austria-Hungary: The autonomous government of Hungary, which now believes the war to be a lost cause, defies Imperial authority by ordering all Hungarian elements of the Austro-Hungarian army to abandon the fighting on the Italian Front and return home.

October 29th 1918

• Politics, Germany: German sailors at the port of Wilhelmshaven refuse the Naval Command's orders to put to sea, believing that there is little point in risking their lives when the end of the war is so obviously close and that a naval attack would jeopardise peace negotiations. The mutinies are brought under control after two days but the attack against the British is called off as it is felt that the crews' loyalty can no longer be relied upon.
• Politics, Germany: As the German military situation on the Western Front continues to collapse, Erich Ludendorff resigns as Chief Quartermaster General and is replaced by Wilhelm Groener. Both Groener and the army Chief-of-Staff, Paul von Hindenburg are now of the opinion that the war must be ended.

October 30th 1918

• Middle East, Mesopotamia: As British troops enter the vital oil town of Mosul in northern Mesopotamia, the Ottoman Empire signs the Armistice of Moudros with the Allies, bringing an end to the fighting in the Middle East.

October 31st 1918

• Politics, Hungary: Hungary terminates its personal union with Austria, officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian state. There is now nothing left of the former Habsburg realm except for the majority-German Alpine and Danubian provinces.

November 3rd 1918

• Politics, Italy: The Austrians sign a general armistice with Italy and the rest of the Allies. It comes into effect the following day.
• Politics, Germany: A second more widespread German naval mutiny breaks out, this time in Kiel itself. Within a few days the mutinous sailors are in control of the city and several other uprisings break out all over Germany, bringing the country to the brink of revolution.

November 7th 1918

• Politics, Germany: As the revolutions triggered by the sailors' mutiny reach Bavaria, King Ludwig III and his family leave the capital Munich and flee over the Austrian border to Salzburg. The socialist politician Kurt Eisner declares the foundation of a Bavarian Republic the following day, making Ludwig the first of the German monarchs to be deposed.

November 8th 1918

• Politics, Germany: Duke Ernst August III of Brunswick abdicates.

November 9th 1918

• Politics, Germany: Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates as both German Emperor and King of Prussia before going into exile in the Netherlands, where he will remain until his death in 1941. The remaining German monarchs that haven't already abdicated quickly follow in his footsteps as the various revolutionary upheavals overwhelm them; all will be gone by the end of November.
• Politics, Germany: Prince Max of Baden resigns as Chancellor of Germany and is replaced by the Social Democratic Party leader, Friedrich Ebert.
• Politics, Germany: Shortly after the Kaiser's abdication is announced, the Social Democrat politician Philipp Scheidemann, hoping to prevent the Communists from seizing the initiative, proclaims the creation of a German Republic from a balcony of the Reichstag Building in Berlin. The co-leader of the Spartacist League, Karl Liebknecht proclaims a Communist Republic at almost the same time.
• Politics, Germany: Grand Duke William Ernest of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach abdicates.
• Politics, Germany: Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse and by Rhine abdicates.

November 10th 1918

• Politics, Germany: Duke Bernhard III of Saxe-Meiningen abdicates. 

November 11th 1918

• Western Front, Belgium: Canadian forces in Belgium recapture the city of Mons, the site of the British Expeditionary Force's first battle against the Germans in August 1914.
• Politics, France: A German delegation led by the politician Matthias Erzberger signs an armistice with the Allies in Marshal Foch's railway carriage at the forest of Compiègne, northeast of Paris. The armistice is set to come into effect six hours later at 11am.
• Western Front, France/Belgium: The Armistice of Compiègne comes into effect at 11am and the fighting on the Western Front ceases, finally bringing an end to the war. The last soldier to die in the conflict is believed to be the American Henry Gunther, who was killed less than a minute before the cease-fire.
• Politics, Austria: The Habsburg Emperor Charles I renounces his right to participate in Austria's affairs-of-state and relieves all Austrian state officials of their oath of loyalty to him. He issues a similar proclamation for Hungary on November 13th but does not officially abdicate either throne.
• Politics, Poland: The Second Polish Republic is founded, making Poland an independent state for the first time since 1795. Marshal Józef Klemens Piłsudski becomes the country's first "Chief of State" as all German troops are expelled from Polish territory.
• Politics, Germany: Grand Duke Frederick Augustus II of Oldenburg abdicates.

November 12th 1918

• Politics, Austria: The Republic of German Austria is proclaimed, ending nearly six-and-a-half centuries of rule by the House of Habsburg. The new state does not include the German-populated border regions of neighbouring Bohemia (the Sudetenland) as those areas have been occupied by Czech forces.
• Politics, Germany: The exiled former King of Bavaria, Ludwig III issues the Anif Declaration from his new residence at the Anif Palace in Austria, releasing all Bavarian officials and soldiers from their oath of loyalty to him. The new republican government in Bavaria interprets the declaration as an abdication and proclaims a formal end to the 738-year rule of the Wittelsbach dynasty.
• Politics, Germany: Prince Leopold IV of Lippe abdicates.
• Politics, Germany: Duke Joachim Ernst of Anhalt abdicates.

November 13th 1918

• Politics, Germany: King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony abdicates.
• Politics, Germany: Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Altenburg abdicates.
• Politics, Germany: Prince Friedrich of Waldeck and Pyrmont abdicates.

November 14th 1918

• Politics, Czechoslovakia: The Republic of Czechoslovakia is proclaimed as new state which consists of the former Austro-Hungarian provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, areas which contain sizeable German and Hungarian minority populations. The Hungarians had hoped to retain the Slovak lands following the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire but their plans were blocked by the Allies.
• Politics, Germany: Duke Charles Edward of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha abdicates.
• Politics, Germany: Grand Duke Frederick Francis IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who was also serving as regent of Mecklenburg-Strelitz pending the resolution of a succession crisis there, abdicates.
• Naval War, United Kingdom: As per the terms of the November 11th armistice, Germany's submarine fleet is interned by the British.
• Africa, Mozambique: General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, commmander of the colonial German army in East Africa which has evaded defeat since the beginning of the war, agrees to a cease-fire with the British after learning of the armistice in Europe.

November 15th 1918

• Politics, Germany: Prince Adolf II of Schaumburg-Lippe abdicates.

November 16th 1918

• Politics, Hungary: The Hungarian Democratic Republic is proclaimed with Mihály Károlyi as its first President.

November 17th 1918

• Western Front, France/Belgium: As per the terms of the armistice agreement, German forces begin to withdraw from the areas of France and Belgium that they still occupy.
• Caucasus Front, Russia: Ottoman forces withdraw from Baku and cede control to the British.

November 21st 1918

• Naval War, United Kingdom: British Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty accepts the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet. The German vessels are later escorted to the British naval base at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys where they are kept at anchor, awaiting a decision on their future. They are eventually scuttled by their own crews on June 21st 1919 in order to prevent them from being divided up among the victorious allies.

November 22nd 1918

• Politics, Germany: Grand Duke Frederick II of Baden abdicates. 

November 23rd 1918

• Africa, Northern Rhodesia: General Lettow-Vorbeck's undefeated African army surrenders honourably to the British at Abercorn in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia. Lettow-Vorbeck later returns home to a hero's welcome and is honoured with a victory parade in Berlin.
• Politics, Germany: Prince Günther Victor of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and Schwarzburg-Sonderhausen abdicates.

November 30th 1918

• Politics, Germany: King Wilhelm II of Württemberg abdicates.

December 1st 1918

• Politics, Serbia/Montenegro: Serbia and Montenegro unite with the former Austro-Hungarian Slavic territories to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which will later become known as Yugoslavia.

First World War Timeline: 1917

Following on from the immense losses of the previous year, 1917 turned out to be a major crisis year for the Allies. The strain of the war began to really take its toll as the French army mutinied and Russia collapsed amid a revolution that would change the course of its history. With the French demoralised and Russia's involvement in the war all but over, it was left to the British and their empire to carry the full burden of the Allied war effort for much of 1917. Despite the slaughter of the Somme still being fresh in the memory, Britain and the dominions demonstrated their continuing commitment to the war with more costly offensives at Vimy, Messines, Arras, Passchendaele and Cambrai. The critical nature of the Allies' situation in 1917 was further compounded by the collapse of the Italian Front in the face of a major Central Powers offensive, an attack which almost knocked Italy out of the war.

The only glimmers of hope for the Allies at this point were the British successes against the Ottomans in the Middle East and, crucially, the entry of the United States of America into the war on their side. The presence of fresh American troops on the Western Front would tip the balance decisively against the Germans, who by this stage were running desparately short of manpower, but getting those newly-recruited "doughboys" across the Atlantic and training them up for an active combat role would take time. The embattled British and French would have to hold the line on their own for a little while longer.

January 9th 1917

• The British in Egypt drive the Ottomans out of the Sinai peninsula.

January 16th 1917

• The German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmerman sends a telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico, instructing him to propose an alliance between Mexico and Germany to the Mexican government should the United States enter the war on the side of the Allies. Relations between Mexico and the United States are currently tense following raids by Mexican bandits on American border towns and a subsequent US military incursion into Mexican territory.

February 1st 1917

• Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare, hoping to starve Britain out of the war once and for all despite the risk of further aggravating the United States.

February 3rd 1917

• The United States officially breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany.

February 23rd 1917

• The British, advancing north through Ottoman-controlled Mespotamia, recapture Kut-al-Amara.
• The German forces on the Western Front begin making a strategic withdrawal to the newly-built defences of the Hindenburg Line.

March 1st 1917

• Arz von Straussenberg replaces Conrad von Hötzendorf as Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff.
• The contents of Arthur Zimmerman's telegram, having been intercepted and decoded by the British intelligence services, are made public in the United States, triggering a wave of negative American public opinion towards Germany.

March 7th 1917

• Workers go on strike at the Putilov industrial plant in Russia's captial, Petrograd (St Petersburg). The walkouts and demonstrations escalate and by March 10th, the entire city is more or less shut down and the population is in uproar. There are some 180,000 troops available in Petrograd but most are untrained and unreliable conscripts who are reluctant to take action against the rioters, many of whom are women.

March 8th - 11th 1917

• The British in Mesopotamia capture Baghdad from the Ottomans.

March 11th 1917

• Tsar Nicholas II of Russia orders the army to quell the rioting and demonstrations in Petrograd but the situation there is already out of the government's control. The troops in the capital mutiny and many even join the rioters. As the Tsar's authority collapses, socialist organisations establish the Petrograd Soviet to represent the interests of workers and soldiers.

March 15th 1917

• Under pressure from army chiefs government ministers, Tsar Nicholas II abdicates the Russian throne on behalf of both himself and his son Alexei. Nicholas nominates his brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich to succeed him but Michael declines the throne, effectively ending the monarchy in Russia. A Provisional Government under the liberal aristocrat, Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov is formed to fill the power vacuum and continue the war but it is soon locked in a tense competition for power with the Petrograd Soviet. Nicholas and his family are placed under house arrest at Tsarskoye Selo, a royal palace complex south of Petrograd.

March 26th 1917

• A British attempt to capture the town of Gaza in southern Palestine is repulsed by the Ottomans.

April 2nd 1917

• President Woodrow Wilson goes before a joint session of the United States Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Germany.

April 5th 1917

• The Germans complete their withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, shortening the length of the Western Front by some thirty miles. This strategic retreat hands considerable territory in France to the Allies but the German army is now in a far stronger position defensively.

April 6th 1917

• The American declaration of war against Germany passes through Congress, with the Senate voting 82-6 in favour and the House of Representatives voting 373-50 in favour. President Wilson signs the declaration, thereby making it official. The United States is now in the war.

April 9th 1917

• The British on the Western Front launch the Battle of Arras, attacking the northernmost section of the Hindenburg Line near the towns of Arras and Lens.

April 9th - 12th 1917

• As part of the ongoing Arras offensive, Canadian forces stationed south of the Belgian border gain a significant victory against the Germans at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

April 16th 1917

• The French Commander-in-Chief, Robert Nivelle orders a major offensive against the Germans occupying the Chemin des Dames, a plateau of high ground north of the River Aisne. The French plan, disrupted somewhat by the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, is soon shown to have serious shortcomings and the French attackers are slaughtered in their thousands.
• The Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov, better known by the pseudonym Lenin, arrives in Petrograd by train, having returned to Russia from exile in Switzerland. The Germans allowed for Lenin's safe passage, hoping that his presence in Russia will help to destablise the Provisional Government and hinder its efforts to continue the war against the Central Powers.

April 19th 1917

• A second British incursion into Palestine is repelled by the Ottomans.

April 29th 1917

• The first cases of desertion and indiscipline are reported among French troops at Chemin des Dames. These incidents quickly evolve into a widespread mutiny involving almost half of the French army on the Western Front.

May 3rd 1917

• The men of the French 2nd Division outright refuse their orders to attack the German positions at Chemin des Dames.

May 5th - 15th 1917

• The Allies in Greece carry out a limited offensive against the Central Powers in the southern Balkans.

May 9th 1917

• The Chemin des Dames offensive ends in complete failure with the French having got virtually nowhere whilst incurring nearly 120,000 casualties. The French army is now in the middle of a full-blown mutiny and Nivelle's reputation and career are in tatters.

May 12th 1917

• Italy launches the Tenth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on June 6th.

May 15th 1917

• Robert Nivelle is removed as French Commander-in-Chief and is replaced by Philippe Pétain. The highly popular Pétain immediately takes steps to quell the mutinies, arresting and executing ringleaders but at the same time meeting the troops in person and promising to redress their more serious grievances. Order in the French army is largely restored by May 20th.

May 16th 1917

• The Battle of Arras comes to an end. The British have gained some ground and inflicted 125,000 casualties on the Germans but they themselves have suffered nearly 160,000 casualties and failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough. A number of new experimental tactics, such as the creeping barrage, have been tried and tested during the offensive.

June 7th 1917

• The British in Belgium detonate 19 of the 21 mines laid beneath the German frontline on the Messines Ridge south of Ypres. The explosions, reportedly large enough to be felt and heard in London, are immediately followed by an infantry assault which quickly overruns the shattered German defences. The capture of the Messines Ridge is completed on the 8th.

June 10th - 25th 1917

• Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops fight for control of Mount Ortigara, a major strategic point on the Trentino border between the two countries. Men from the Italian 52nd Alpine Division capture the summit on June 10th only to lose it to an Austro-Hungarian counter-attack on the 25th.

June 12th 1917

• The pro-German King Constantine I of Greece abdicates in favour of his son Alexander and leaves the country, removing the main obstacle to Greece joining the Allies.

June 25th 1917

• The first troops of the American Expeditionary Force, commanded by General John Pershing, arrive in France.

June 29th 1917

• Greece declares war on the Central Powers.

July 1st - 19th 1917

• The Russian provisional government launches what turns out to be the final Russian initiative of the war. The Kerensky Offensive, named after the provisional government's Minister for War, Alexander Kerensky, is a total disaster and the Russian army actually ends up losing more ground than it gains due to fierce German and Austro-Hungarian counter-attacks.

July 6th 1917

• Arab rebels led by the British liason officer T.E. Lawrence ("of Arabia") capture the Jordanian port of Arqaba from the Ottomans.

July 17th 1917

• Responding to the virulent anti-German feeling that has run rampant in his country since the start of the war, King George V of the United Kingdom issues a royal proclamation officially changing the name of the British Royal Family from Saxe-Coburg Gotha to Windsor. George will further distances his family from their German lineage by giving up his German titles and stripping many of his German relatives of their British titles and honours.

July 20th 1917

• Representatives of Serbia and the Slavic peoples of Austria-Hungary sign the Corfu Declaration in Greece. This Anglo-French-sponsored agreement displays the intention of the Slavs to unite and form their own single state in the Balkans should the Allies win the war.

July 31st 1917

• Following on from the successful attack on the Messines Ridge, the British launch the Third Battle of Ypres. The British commander on the Western Front, Sir Douglas Haig, hopes this major offensive will achieve a decisive breakthrough and lead to the capture of the Belgian ports of Oostend and Zeebrugge, where the Germans have based more than a third of their submarine fleet. The offensive soon bogs down, however, due to stiff German resistance and unseasonable wet weather turning the shell-blasted, low-lying Flanders countryside into a sea of knee-deep mud and water-filled craters. The first phase of the fighting is focused on the northeastern sector of the Ypres salient, where the Allies make significant gains during August but fail to break through.

August 6th - 20th 1917

• Romanian forces achieve a major victory over the Central Powers at the Battle of Mărăşeşti.

August 18th 1917

• Italy launches the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on August 28th.

August 20th 1917

• The rejuvinated French army launches a limited offensive at Verdun, capturing 10,000 German prisoners by September 9th. Fighting continues sporadically into October.

September 1st 1917

• The Germans on the Eastern Front capture the Baltic port of Riga from the Russians, who are now on the verge of total collapse.

September 8th 1917

• The Russian Commander-in-Chief, Lavr Kornilov is dismissed from his post and arrested following his attempt to seize power in a coup against the Provisional Government. Alexander Kerensky accuses Kornilov of trying to set up a military dictatorship whilst Kornilov alleges that he had recieved authorisation to restore order in Petrograd and restructure the Provisional Government.

September 20th 1917

• The second phase of the Third Battle of Ypres begins. As conditions on the muddy battlefield continue to deteriorate, the British have given up any hope of a breakthrough and now aim to capture the German-held Passchendaele Ridge, several miles east of Ypres.

September 26th 1917

• British and Australian forces at Ypres capture Polygon Wood following heavy fighting and reach the foot of Passchendaele Ridge.

October 24th 1917

• Austro-Hungarian forces on the Italian Front, now backed up by substantial numbers of German troops, launch a major offensive against the Italians on the River Isonzo, which has been the scene of several insignificant Italian attacks since 1915. The Central Powers' offensive, known as the Battle of Caporetto, succeeds in achieving a breakthrough and the Italian army is routed.

October 31st 1917

• The British launch a third Gaza offensive against the Ottomans in southern Palestine. This attack is more successful than the first two and the British break through the Ottoman lines by November 7th, paving the way for a general advance north through Palestine.

November 6th 1917

• Canadian forces at Ypres reach the crest of Passchendaele Ridge and capture the village of Passchendaele itself from the Germans.

November 7th 1917

• The October Revolution begins in Russia. Lenin and the Bolsheviks seize power from the ineffective Provisional Government and establish a Communist state. The revolution immediately triggers a civil war, with liberals and monarchists joining forces to fight the new regime.

November 8th 1917

• Armando Diaz replaces Luigi Cadorna as Commander-in-Chief of the Italian army.

November 10th 1917

• The Third Battle of Ypres concludes as the new Allied frontline is established for the Winter. The British and their Commonwealth allies have succeeded in pushing the Germans off the high ground surrounding Ypres but losses on both sides are very high. The exact casualty figures for the offensive are disputed, with Allied losses anywhere between 200,000 and 450,000 men killed or wounded. German losses are roughly similar.
• The Battle of Caporetto comes to an end as the retreating Italians manage to establish and hold a new frontline along the Piave River. The offensive has been a major success for the Central Powers, who have advanced some sixty miles into Italy and are now barely ten miles away from Venice. Six British and French divisions are quickly transferred from the Western Front in order to reinforce the battered Italians. The Allies are able to hold off the German and Austro-Hungarian attempts to cross the Piave, which continue until the end of the year.

November 13th 1917

• Paul Painlevé is replaced by Georges Clemenceau as Prime Minister of France.

November 17th 1917

• British and German naval squadrons fight a brief and indecisive engagement in the North Sea, known as the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight. The clash began when German minesweepers were engaged by two British light cruisers, sucking in battleships and battlecruisers from both sides.

November 20th 1917

• General Julian Byng's British Third Army launches an offensive against the Hindenburg Line near the French town of Cambrai, using large numbers of Mark IV tanks to spearhead the assault.

November 25th 1917

• Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck's colonial German army, running low on supplies and under constant pressure from the British, abandons German East Africa and undertakes a strategic retreat south into the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

December 6th 1917

• The Grand Duchy of Finland declares its independence from Russia.

December 7th 1917

• The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.

December 8th 1917

• The Battle of Cambrai ends with neither side gaining an advantage. Initial British successes, while proving that the Hindenburg Line is not impregnable, were quickly rendered moot by swift and effective German counter-attacks that won back lost territory. The British tanks are still suffering from teething problems, namely reliability issues, and are yet to become a truly effective addition to the military arsenal.

December 11th 1917

• British forces in Palestine capture the city of Jerusalem from the Ottomans during a bitter struggle that lasts for most of December.

December 23rd 1917

• The new Bolshevik government in Russia signs an armistice with Germany, bringing an end to Russian involvement in the war.

First World War Timeline: 1916

1916 was a tough year for all the participating nations of World War I. After a year and a half of near-constant stalemate, bringing huge losses for little gain, the countries of Europe were beginning to feel the pain of war and its various unpleasant side-effects. Germany's home front began to struggle, starved of food and supplies by the Allied naval blockade. In Britain, the government introduced military conscription to replace the enthusiastic volunteers of 1914. During the second half of 1916 many thousands of those volunteer soldiers, drawn from all corners of British society, would be killed and maimed in the Battle of the Somme, the greatest and bloodiest British offensive of the war. The United Kingdom would also face internal strife as Irish demands for home rule spilled over into armed rebellion.

The Somme was just one of several great offensives to take place in 1916. Italy would continue its persistant but fruitless attacks against Austria-Hungary whilst the Russian army, battered and bruised after a year of setbacks, would launch its most successful attack of the war on the Eastern Front. In the west, the Germans would attempt to "bleed the French army white" at the Battle of Verdun, exploiting French national pride in order to inflict irreplaceble losses on their enemy and force an attrition victory. This year would also see the greatest sea battle of the war as the capital ships of Britain and Germany fought it out for naval supremacy.  By the end of the year, morale on all sides was badly shaken and there was still no end to the fighting in sight, paving the way for major unrest and further bloodshed in 1917.

January 8th - 16th 1916

• Balkan Front, Montenegro: Austria-Hungary follows up the Central Powers' successful invasion of Serbia by attacking Serbia's Balkan ally Montenegro, which quickly capitulates.

January 9th 1916

• Middle East, Gallipoli: The last British troops on the Gallipoli peninsula are evacuated from Cape Helles, concluding the unsuccessful Dardanelles campaign. Despite prior predictions of a 50% casualty rate for the evacuation, only two men are wounded and nobody is killed, making it by far the most successful aspect of the entire campaign for the Allies.

January 11th 1916

• Balkan Front, Greece: The Greek Island of Corfu is occupied by the Allies.

January 24th 1916

• Naval War, Germany: Reinhard Scheer is appointed commander of the German High Seas Fleet.

January 27th 1916

• Politics, United Kingdom: The Military Service Act is passed by the British government, providing for the conscription of single men aged 18-41. This would be extended to married men in May. Ireland is exempted from conscription in an effort to avoid antagonising Irish nationalist groups.

February 13th - 16th 1916

• Caucasus Front, Armenia: The Russians launch a major offensive against the Ottomans in the Caucasus region. The Battle is a decisive Russian success and the city of Erzurum is captured.

February 21st 1916

• Western Front, Verdun: On the Western Front, German forces under the command of Kaiser Wilhelm II's son Crown Prince Wilhelm launch a massive offensive against the salient surrounding the fortress city of Verdun in eastern France. The Germans know that the French, for reasons of strategy and national pride, will do everything possible to prevent the fall of Verdun. Their plan therefore is to attack the city and draw more and more French troops into the fighting, gradually sapping the strength of the French army until it can no longer continue the war.

February 23rd 1916

• Politics, Portugal: The government of Portugal, following a British request, interns 36 German and Austro-Hungarian ships in Lisbon and ignores German demands for their release. Relations between Portugal and Germany are already strained due to the latter's submarine campaign stifling Portuguese trade with Britain (Portugal's ally since 1386). There have also been several German incursions into the Portuguese African colony of Angola.

February 24th 1916

• Western Front, Verdun: German troops from the 24th Brandenburg Regiment capture Fort Douaumont, the centrepiece of the network of French defences around Verdun. The small French garrison of just 68 men surrenders without firing a shot.

February 25th 1916

• Western Front, Verdun: The French high command places General Philippe Pétain in charge of the French forces at Verdun.

February 28th 1916

• Africa, Cameroon: German forces in Cameroon surrender to the British and French. The only German forces left in Africa are Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck's colonial troops in East Africa. Lettow-Vorbeck orchestrates an effective guerilla campaign for the remainder of the war, tying down a significant number of British and Empire troops.

March 1st 1916

• Naval War, Germany: Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare.
• Italian Front, Isonzo: Italy launches the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on March 15th.

March 2nd 1916

• Western Front, Verdun: The future Free French leader and President of France, Captain Charles de Gaulle, is captured by the Germans near Verdun after being gassed and stabbed in the leg with a bayonet. The French high command initially believes him to be dead, with Pétain writing in the regimental journal that de Gaulle had been "an outstanding officer in all respects". He will spend the rest of the war in captivity, making five unsuccessful escape attempts.

March 8th 1916

• Middle East, Mesopotamia: In Mesopotamia, a British attempt to relieve the besieged garrison at Kut-al-Amara is repelled by the Ottomans at the Battle of Dujaila.

March 9th 1916

• Politics, Portugal/Germany: Portugal and Germany declare war against each-other.

March 18th 1916

• Eastern Front, Russia: The Russian Second Army attempts to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun by attacking the German Tenth Army on the Eastern Front around Lake Naroch. The offensive peters out in April with the Russians having achieved nothing.

April 24th - 30th 1916

• Politics, Ireland: The Easter Rising breaks out in Ireland, started by Irish republican groups fighting for an end to British rule. The armed uprising is centred on Dublin, with other minor skirmishes in Wexford, Meath, Louth and Galway. The week-long uprising is supressed by British troops and the leaders are court-martialled and executed.

April 25th 1916

• Middle East, Mesopotamia: The besieged British garrison at Kut-al-Amara surrenders to the Ottomans.

April 26th 1916

• Air War, Western Front: German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, soon to be known as the "Red Baron", scores his first kill by shooting down a French Nieuport fighter over Verdun. He will go on to chalk up eighty kills in all, making him the leading fighter ace of the war.

May 1st 1916

• Western Front, Verdun: General Pétain is promoted to commander of the French Centre Army Group on the Western Front. He is succeeded as commander of the Verdun sector by the attack-minded General Robert Nivelle.

May 10th 1916

• Naval War, Germany: Germany suspends unrestricted submarine warfare.

May 15th 1916

• Italian Front, Trentino: Austria-Hungary launches a major offensive against the Italians near Asiago in the mountainous Trentino region of northern Italy. The attack catches the Italians by surprise and the Austro-Hungarian troops break through onto the Venetian plain. The hasty transfer of troops from the Isonzo front prevents a total Italian collapse and the attack ends on June 10th.

May 31st 1916

• Naval War, North Sea: The British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet clashes with the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea off the west coast of Denmark. The Battle of Jutland lasts for two days and is the only full-scale naval battle of the war, involving the main battleship fleets from both nations. The result of the encounter is inconclusive but the Germans claim victory as they have lost fewer ships and men than the British. The reality is that Britain maintains her naval dominance and the German fleet remains bottled up in its home ports for the remainder of the war.

June 4th 1916

• Eastern Front, Russia: The Russians launch the Brusilov Offensive against the Austro-Hungarians in Poland and Galicia. The offensive is named after the Russian commander of the southwestern sector of the Eastern Front, Aleksei Brusilov.

June 5th 1916

• Middle East, Arabia: An Arab revolt against the Ottomans, conceived by the Arab bureau of the British Foreign Office, begins in the Hejaz region of the Arabian peninsula.
• Naval War, Atlantic Ocean: The British cruiser HMS Hampshire sinks en-route to Russia after hitting a German mine west of the Orkney Islands. Among the dead is the British Minister for War and face of the 1914 recruitment campaign, Lord Kitchener.

June 7th 1916

• Western Front, Verdun: As fierce fighting around Verdun continues, the Germans capture another key defensive position, Fort Vaux from the French.

June 21st 1916

• Western Front, Verdun: German assault troops continue the Verdun offensive by capturing the Thiaumont Redoubt and the village of Fleury. The only remaining French defensive position between the Germans and Verdun itself is Fort Souville.

June 24th 1916

• Western Front, Somme: British artillery begins a week-long bombardment of the German positions on both sides of the River Somme in Picardy, France. It is hoped that the bombardment will soften up the enemy in preparation for a major British offensive intended to divert German resources away from Verdun and take the pressure off the embattled French army.

July 1st 1916

• Western Front, Somme: The Battle of the Somme begins with the explosion of a 40,000-pound mine beneath the German-held Hawthorne Ridge Redoubt at 7:20am. The first British troops go over the top ten minutes later and are immediately mown down in their thousands by gunfire from the intact German defences, which the preliminary bombardment had failed to destroy. With over 19,000 men killed and more than 57,000 casualties overall, it is the worst single day of fighting in the entire history of the British army

July 2nd - 25th 1916

• Caucasus Front, Armenia: Ottoman forces in the Caucasus are defeated by the Russians at the Battle of Erzincan.

July 12th 1916

• Western Front, Verdun: The German attempt to capture Fort Souville is beaten off by its French garrison. The attack marks the high-point of the German offensive at Verdun as the German high command soon orders a scaling-back of operations and begins transferring troops and equipment to the Somme.

July 30th 1916

• Home Front, United States: A massive explosion takes place at an American munitions depot on Black Tom Island, New Jersey. The explosion, caused by German saboteurs, kills seven people and causes extensive damage across Jersey and New York City.

August 3rd 1916

• Italian Front, Isonzo: Italy launches the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on August 17th, with the Italians having captured Gorizia from the Austro-Hungarians.
• Middle East, Palestine: Ottoman forces launch a second offensive into the British-controlled Sinai peninsula from Palestine. British forces in Egypt repel the assault, which ends on August 5th.

August 17th 1916

• Romania signs a treaty with the Allies and agrees to join the war on their side. The Romanian government hopes to seize to the Romanian-majority province of Transylvania from Austria-Hungary.

August 27th 1916

• Italy declares war on Germany.
• Romania declares war on the Central Powers. Three Romanian armies immediately invade Transylvania through the Carpathian mountains, pushing the Austro-Hungarian First Army back towards Hungary.

August 29th 1916

• Paul von Hindenburg replaces Erich von Falkenhayn as Chief of the German General Staff. From this point onwards, Germany is effectively a military dictatorship ruled by Hindenburg and his co-commander, Erich Ludendorff. Kaiser Wilhelm II and his ministers are left virtually powerless, with the Kaiser reduced to performing ceremonial duties.

September 1st 1916

• A multinational force of Germans, Ottomans and Bulgarians commanded by August von Mackensen attacks Romania from the south. The Romanian garrison at Turtucaia is besiged and surrenders on September 6th.

September 12th 1916

• The Allied forces stationed in Salonika, Greece launch an offensive against the Central Powers forces in southern Serbia which lasts until November 19th. There is much soul-searching amongst the Greek leadership about how best to respond to the Allied military presence on their soil. Greece is officially still neutral but King Constantine I is pro-German. His Prime Minister and government, on the other hand, are sympathetic to the Allied cause.

September 14th 1916

• Italy launches the Seventh Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends three days later.

September 15th 1916

• The British offensive on the Somme continues with the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. This battle sees the debut of the tank as a weapon of war, with the British able to deploy 21 of their 49 machines against the German defenders. These early tanks, while able to overcome trenches and barbed-wire, are unable to break the deadlock on the Western Front at this stage due to being very slow, too few in number, notoriously unreliable and prone to getting bogged-down on the churned-up battlefields.
• The Romanian war council suspends the Transylvanian offensive and orders a counter-attack against Mackensen's army in the south but neither they nor their Russian allies achieve much success. The Romanian offensive is called off on October 3rd.

September 18th 1916

• The new German commander in the Balkans, ex-Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, orders a renewed Central Powers offensive against the Romania. By October 25th it had succeeded in pushing all Romanian forces out of Transylvania and back inside their own borders.

September 20th 1916

• The Russian Brusilov Offensive ends with the Russians having gained several miles of ground along a wide front in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. The offensive was the most successful Russian attack of the war and it has brought the Austro-Hungarian armies to the brink of collapse, further increasing their reliance on German support. Russian losses resulting from the offensive are high, however, and morale on the Russian home front is at an all-time low.

September 23rd 1916

• As part of Hindenburg and Ludendorff's plan to adopt a more defensive strategy on the Western Front, German forces begin construction of the Hindenburg Line behind their current positions in France.

October 9th 1916

• Italy launches the Eighth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends three days later.

October 24th 1916

• The French at Verdun, having launched a counter-offensive against the Germans earlier in the month, recapture Fort Douaumont.

October 28th 1916

• German fighter ace Oswald Boelcke is killed in a crash-landing following a mid-air collision with colleague Erwin Böhme. Boelcke had notched up forty kills prior to his death.

November 1st 1916

• Italy launches the Ninth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends three days later.

November 2nd 1916

• The French recapture Fort Vaux from the Germans. This action effectively marks the end of the Battle of Verdun although the fighting in that sector drags on until mid-December, by which stage the Germans will have been driven back almost to their February starting lines. French battlefield deaths at Verdun number 163,000 whilst the number of German dead is 143,000.

November 18th 1916

• The Battle of the Somme draws to a close. The British have suffered some 624,000 casualties since the start of the offensive while German casualties amount to some 465,000 men. The British have managed to penatrate no further than six miles into German-held territory and many of their first-day objectives, such as the town of Bapaume, remain firmly in German hands.

November 21st 1916

• The British hospital ship HMHS Britannic, sister ship to the Olympic and Titanic, sinks after hitting a German mine in the Aegean Sea close to the Greek island of Kea. 30 men lose their lives.
• Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary dies, concluding a reign of 68 years. He is succeeded by his grandnephew, Archduke Charles.

November 25th 1916

• Vice-Admiral David Beatty replaces Admiral Sir John Jellicoe as commander of the British Grand Fleet. Jellicoe, who took much of the blame for the losses at Jutland, is promoted away from active command, becoming First Sea Lord.

December 5th 1916

• Herbert Asquith resigns as British Prime Minister. He is replaced by the Minister for Munitions, David Lloyd George.

December 6th 1916

• Central Powers forces in Romania occupy the capital, Bucharest. King Ferdinand and his government have already fled to the northeastern city of Iaşi, behind the Russian lines on the Eastern Front.

December 13th 1916

• Robert Nivelle replaces Joseph Joffre as Commander-in-Chief of the French army.

December 27th 1916

• The former German colony of Togoland in West Africa, conquered by the Allies in 1914, is formally divided into British and French administrative zones.

December 29th 1916

• A clique of Russian nobles, led by Prince Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, murder Grigori Rasputin at Yusupov's house in Petrograd (St Petersburg), dumping his body in the frozen River Neva. Rasputin, a monk and mystic of questionable character, had gained an immense and potentially damaging influence over the Russian royal family due to his apparent ability to heal Tsar Nicholas II's son Alexei, who is severely afflicted with haemophilia.

First World War Timeline: 1915

When World War I broke out in the golden Summer of 1914, nobody expected that the hosilities would go on for more than six months at the most. Unfortunately for the troops on both sides, the promise that it would all be over by Christmas was rendered hollow as many of them saw out the year in frozen trenches just yards away from the enemy. Thousands of men had already died and it didn't look like the fighting was going to end anytime soon.

1915 began largely as 1914 had ended. The Western Front saw the continuation of costly and hardly-beneficial offensives as tactically bankrupt commanders struggled to adapt to the limitations of trench warfare. New ideas and inventions were utilised in an effort to break the deadlock. Aircraft began to come into their own as a weapon of war whilst chemical weapons were used for the first time as the Germans deployed poison gas on both the Western and Eastern Fronts. The fighting in the east had retained some degree of mobile warfare, with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians gaining the initiative and forcing the Russians out of Galicia and Poland.

This year of the war also saw more nations join the fighting, expanding the two warring factions and earning them the nicknames that would stick for the rest of the war and beyond. The British/French/Russian led coalition became known as the Allies while Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire became the Central Powers. The Allies, bolstered by Italy's defection, hoped to extend the conflict to other areas around Europe in order to grind down enemy resources and avoid the deadlock of the Western Front, opening up new fronts in Ottoman Turkey and the Italian/Austrian Alps. These new ventures, however, would turn out to be just as frustrating.

January 2nd 1915

• Russia launches an offensive against the Austro-Hungarians in the Carpathian mountains. It will continue until April 12th.

January 19th 1915

• The first air raid on Britain by Zeppelin airships takes place. Two Zeppelins, blown off-course by strong winds, drop bombs on several coastal towns in Norfolk, killing four people.

January 24th 1915

• Elements of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet face off at the Battle of Dogger Bank in the North Sea. As the German battlecruiser SMS Blücher is sunk with the loss of most of her crew, the encounter is considered a victory for the British.

January 28th 1915

• The Ottomans attack from Palestine into British-controlled Egypt, hoping to capture the Suez Canal and deprive the British of the quickest route to India. The attack fails and the Ottomans withdraw by February 3rd.

January 31st 1915

• The Germans use poison gas for the first time, deploying chlorine gas against the Russians at the Battle of Bolimov.

February 4th 1915

• Germany begins a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied and neutral merchant shipping, intending to starve Britain out of the war and deprive the Allies of American war material.

February 7th - 22nd 1915

• The Russian Tenth Army is defeated by the Germans at the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes. The Russian position in Poland is left greatly weakened as a result.

February 19th 1915

• The Allies launch the Dardanelles campaign against the Ottoman Empire. British and French ships bombard the Ottoman defenses around the Dardanelles Straits in preparation for a land assault which is hoped will capture the Ottoman capital, Constantinople, and reopen access to the Black Sea.

March 10th - 13th 1915

• On the Western Front, a British attempt to take the offensive at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle is halted.

March 22nd 1915

• The siege of Przemyśl ends with the Russians capturing the Galician fortress city from the Austro-Hungarians.

April 22nd 1915

• The Germans in Flanders launch the Second Battle of Ypres. The German assault begins with a chlorine gas attack on the Moroccan and Algerian colonial troops of the French 45th and 78th Divisions at Gravenstafel. The gas kills over 6000 men in less than ten minutes and opens a four-mile wide gap in the Allied line as the survivors flee. A lack of reinforcements and concerns about what the lingering gas might do to their own troops prevent the Germans from fully exploiting this success and the gap is quickly refilled by Canadian troops.

April 24th 1915

• The fighting at Ypres continues with a second German gas attack on the Canadian frontline near the village of St Julien. Improvised countermeasures against the gas fail and the Allied line cracks once again, allowing the Germans to capture St Julien and much of the northern sector of the Ypres salient. The Allies pull back and hastily reform their frontline much closer to Ypres itself.

April 25th 1915

• Italy secretly signs the London Pact, thereby agreeing to join the Allies.
• The first Allied forces land on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, beginning the land phase of the Dardanelles campaign. It turns out that the naval bombardment was not as effective as had been hoped and the disembarking British, French, Australian and New Zealand troops immediately encounter stiff Ottoman resistance.

April 28th 1915

• An Allied offensive at Gallipoli, the First Battle of Krithia, is repelled by the Ottomans.

May 1st - 3rd 1915

• August von Mackensen's German forces break through the Russian lines at the Battle of Gorlice-Tarnów, paving the way for a reconquest of Galicia by the Central Powers.

May 6th - 8th 1915

• The Second Battle of Krithia at Gallipoli produces exactly the same outcome as the first.

May 7th 1915

• The British ocean liner RMS Lusitania is sunk off the coast of Ireland by the German submarine U-20. Among the 1198 dead are 128 American citizens. The sinking triggers outrage in the United States despite the German embassy having warned in advance that passengers sailing under British colours in British waters do so at their own risk.

May 12th 1915

• Troops from South Africa capture Windhoek, the capital of German South West Africa.

May 23rd 1915

• Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.

May 25th 1915

• The Second Battle of Ypres draws to a close. The Germans have not broken through but they have managed to considerably reduce the size of the Ypres salient. Ypres itself is now well within range of German artillery and the old town, having already suffered considerable damage, is gradually shelled to destruction over the remainder of the war. 

June 4th 1915

• The Ottomans repel another Allied offensive at the Third Battle of Krithia.
• The Russians abandon Przemyśl as their positions in Galicia continue to collapse.

June 23rd 1915

• The Italian Front sees its first action of the war as the Italians launch the first of a series of offensives against the Austro-Hungarians along the River Isonzo, which straddles the border between the two countries. The First Battle of the Isonzo rumbles on indecisively until July 7th.

June 27th 1915

• The Germans and Austro-Hungarians recapture the Galician provincial captial, Lemberg from the Russians.

July 9th 1915

• The remaining German forces in South West Africa surrender to the South Africans.

July 18th 1915

• Italy launches the Second Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on August 3rd.

August 5th 1915

• German forces advancing in Poland capture Warsaw from the Russians.

August 6th - 29th 1915

• The British in Gallipoli launch the August Offensive, also known as the Battle of Sari Bair. This is the final attempt to dislodge the Ottomans from the peninsula and ends in failure.

September 1st 1915

• Germany suspends its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in response to the American outcry that followed the sinking of the Lusitania.

September 8th 1915

• Tsar Nicholas II of Russia removes Grand Duke Nicholas as Commander-in-Chief and assumes personal command of the Russian armed forces.

September 19th 1915

• German forces advancing eastwards from East Prussia capture the Russian city of Vilnius.

September 25th - 28th 1915

• A major British offensive on the Western Front, the Battle of Loos, ends in failure.

October 6th 1915

• Bulgaria joins the Central Powers.
• Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, backed up by substantial German forces, launch a major invasion of Serbia.

October 11th 1915

• The prospect of abandoning the Dardanelles campaign and evacuating the Allied forces from Gallipoli is raised for the first time. The British commander in Gallipoli, Sir Ian Hamilton, resists the proposal and is subsequently replaced by Sir Charles Monro. The decision to evacuate is made later in the month.

October 14th 1915

• Bulgaria declares war on Serbia.

October 15th 1915

• The United Kingdom declares war on Bulgaria.

October 16th 1915

• France declares war on Bulgaria.

October 18th 1915

• Italy launches the Third Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on November 4th.

October 19th 1915

• Italy and Russia declare war on Bulgaria.

October 27th 1915

• A French army lands at the Greek port of Salonika. Together with British and Italian support, it sets up a stationary Balkan Front to protect neutral Greece from the German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian forces advancing south through Serbia.

November 10th 1915

• Italy launches the Fourth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on December 2nd.

November 15th 1915

• Winston Churchill, having already lost his position as First Lord of the Admiralty over his role in the Gallipoli fiasco, resigns from Britain's coalition government and goes off to fight on the Western Front, commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in Belgium.

November 22nd - 25th 1915

• A British-Indian force campaigning in the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) is repulsed by the Ottomans at the Battle of Ctestiphon. The British commander, Major-General Charles Townshend, orders a retreat to the south.

November 27th 1915

• The Serbian army collapses in the face of the Central Powers' invasion. Many Serbian troops head southwest through neighbouring Albania and are evacuated from the Adriatic coast by Allied ships.

December 7th 1915

• Charles Townshend's 8000-strong British-Indian army, along with the reinforcements sent by the British from Basra, is besiged by the Ottomans at the town of Kut-al-Amara, 100 miles south of Baghdad.

December 19th 1915

• Douglas Haig replaces Sir John French as commander of the British and Commonwealth forces on the Western Front.

December 20th 1915

• The last Allied troops leave the Sulva and ANZAC beachheads at Gallipoli, completing the first phase of the Allied evacuation that had been decided upon in October. British troops remain stationed at Cape Helles on the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula.

First World War Timeline: 1914

It all began, rather fittingly, with an act of violence, a few gunshots fired in what was a seemingly unimportant corner of Europe far away from the hustle and bustle of Berlin, London and Paris. Those gunshots, however, would trigger a chain of events that sent Europe spinning headlong into the bloodiest conflict it had ever known. The outbreak of war in 1914 was greeted with relief and even celebration amongst the people of the participating nations. It was the culmination of years of international tension fuelled by military buildups, colonial scrambling and the establishing of alliances that split Europe into two armed camps. On one side, dominating central Europe, was the young, powerful and ambitious German Empire and the old decrepit multi-ethnic empire of Austria-Hungary. Surrounding them was the intimidating alliance of Russia, France and the United Kingdom.

The killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 provided the spark that ignited this unstable powder keg. Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia triggered the system of European alliances, sucking in the great powers one-by-one until all of them (and their colonies) were participating in a Europe-wide conflict. It was then, for the first time, that the worst form of modern industrialised warfare was unleashed. The great European powers had used modern weapons to great effect on the poorly-armed natives of Asia and Africa but when those weapons were turned on other European powers, who also possessed them, the result was futile and bloody stalemate.

As the fighting got underway and the troops began marching off to battle, it was believed on both sides that the war would be over by Christmas. The reality was that nobody had really anticipated anything beyond their own unrealistic ambitions for a quick victory. Both Germany and France had developed strategies to that effect in the years before the war but their grand visions failed to achieve the decisive victory they had intended due to a combination of bad luck, poor planning and determined opposition. By the end of the year the Germans were deep into Belgium and France but their advance had been halted by the British and French, whose counter-attacks had also been fought off. The Western Front, as it became known, had solidified into a continuous line of trenches and fortifications stretching uninterrupted for hundreds of miles from the North Sea coast to Switzerland. With little chance of a breakthrough against heavily dug-in opposition. Both sides settled down and prepared for a long stay.

June 28th 1914

• Politics, Bosnia: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie are assassinated during a visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, a Slavic-populated province of Austria-Hungary. The killer is a Bosnian-Serb student named Gavrilo Princip who is found to be a member of the Black Hand, a Serbian nationalist group. Austria-Hungary directly accuses the government of neighbouring Serbia as being involved in the murders.

July 23rd 1914

• Politics, Austria-Hungary: The leaders of Austria-Hungary, after consulting with their German allies, send Serbia an ultimatum, the terms of which would effectively destroy Serbia as an independant state. Austria-Hungary demands a reply within 48 hours.

July 25th 1914

• Politics, Serbia: Serbia begins to mobilise its armed forces. The government also responds to the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum, agreeing to all but one of its ten demands. The Austro-Hungarians judge this to be unacceptable and Emperor Franz Josef I orders a general mobilisation to begin on the following day.

July 28th 1914

• Politics, Austria-Hungary: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia at noon.
• Politics, United Kingdom: The government of the United Kingdom, led by the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, orders the ships of the Royal Navy to return to their various home bases. Britain's main battleship force, the Grand Fleet begins to assemble at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland.

July 29th 1914

• Politics, Russia: Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, an ally of Serbia, puts his signiture to a general mobilisation order. It comes into force on August 4th.
• Politics, Germany: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany orders his navy to mobilise, with the High Seas Fleet assembling along the Jade River near the port of Wilhelmshaven. Wilhelm also warns his cousin-in-law Nicholas II that Russia's decision to mobilise could trigger a wider war.
• Balkan Front, Serbia: Austro-Hungarian warships on the River Danube open the first hostilities of the war with a bombardment of Belgrade, the Serbian capital.

July 30th 1914

• Politics, Netherlands: The government of the Netherlands declares Dutch neutrality in the upcoming conflict.

July 31st 1914

• Politics, Germany: The Germans warn Russia to cease all preparations for war and must do so by noon on August 1st. The Russians respond by claiming that their mobilisation is against Austria-Hungary only.

August 1st 1914

• Politics, Germany: Germany declares war on Russia and begins to mobilise military forces on the frontier between the two countries.
• Politics, France: President Raymond Poincaré of France, an ally of Russia, agrees to issue a general mobilisation order.
• Politics, Belgium: The government of Belgium proclaims that it will maintain its position of armed neutrality, a position guaranteed by Britain and France.

August 2nd 1914

• Politics, Ottoman Empire: Germany signs a secret treaty with the Ottoman Empire. The treaty is orchestrated by the nationalist Ottoman War Minister, Enver Pasha, who hopes to restore the declining empire as a major power and protect it from possible Russian attack.
• Western Front, Luxembourg: German troops occupy Luxembourg.
• Politics, Germany: Germany delivers an ultimatum to Belgium demanding that German troops be allowed to move freely through Belgian territory in order to pre-empt a French attack against Germany. Obtaining safe passage through Belgium is essential to the German war strategy, the Schlieffen Plan, which hopes to avoid a war on two fronts by quickly invading France through Belgium and defeating the French before Russia is able to fully mobilise.
• Western Front, France/Germany: Small-scale skirmishes between French and German troops are reported to be taking place on the border between the two countries.

August 3rd 1914

• Politics, Belgium: Belgium rejects the German ultimatum demanding free passage through its territory. Britain and France confirm that they will provide armed support for Belgium against any German attack.
• Politics, United Kingdom: King George V of the United Kingdom signs a general mobilisation order.
• Politics, Germany: Germany declares war on France.
• Politics, Italy: Italy, a pre-war ally of Germany and Austria-Hungary, declares that it will remain neutral because Austria-Hungary's attack on Serbia was an act of aggression not covered by the provisions of their defensive alliance.
• Politics, Ottoman Empire: The Ottoman Empire declares a state of armed neutrality and begins to mobilise its armed forces.
• Politics, Romania: The government of Romania decides to adopt a position of armed neutrality despite the German-born King Carol I's desire to join the war alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary. Romanian public opinion is more sympathetic towards Russia and its allies.

August 4th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: Germany declares war on Belgium and its armies begin to cross the frontier, with General Alexander von Kluck's First Army and General Karl von Bülow's Second Army spearheading the invasion. The British government sends an ultimatum to Germany, demanding that all German troops immediately leave Belgian soil.
• Naval War, Mediterranean: Official hostilities between France and Germany open with a ten-minute bombardment of two ports in French Algeria by two German warships, the battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau. The ships then head east across the Mediterranean until they encounter two British battlecruisers, HMS Indefatigable and HMS Indomitable. The British ultimatum to Germany has not yet expired so the British ships do not open fire, allowing Goeben and Breslau to continue on to Turkey, where they are later presented to the Ottoman Empire as a gift.
• Politics, United Kingdom: Having not received a response to their ultimatum within the alotted time, the British government declares war on Germany at 11pm. Britain's declaration of war automatically commits the British Empire and the dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) to the conflict.
• Politics, United States: The United States of America declares neutrality.

August 5th 1914

• Politics, Ottoman Empire: The Ottoman Empire closes the Dardanelles Straits, preventing Russian ships from leaving, and any other ships from entering, the Black Sea.
• Politics, Austria-Hungary: Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.

August 6th 1914

• Naval War, Indian Ocean: The German light cruiser SMS Königsberg sinks the British light cruiser HMS Pegasus near the Kenyan port of Mombasa. Königsberg continues to disrupt British commerce in the Indian Ocean util the end of October, when the arrival of British naval reinforcements forces her to take refuge on the Rufiji River in German East Africa.
• Politics, Serbia: Serbia declares war on Germany.

August 7th 1914

• Western Front, France: The first troops of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), under the command of Field Marshal Sir John French, begin arriving in France.
• Western Front, France/Germany: The French army launches their own war strategy, Plan XVII, with the aim of recapturing the Alsace and Lorraine provinces that had been lost to Germany after the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71). It begins with an advance by General Pau Pau's French Army of Alsace into southern Alsace. The city of Mulhouse on the River Rhine is captured on the 8th, triggering mass celebrations in France, but the Germans recapture it a day later.

August 8th 1914

• Politics, United Kingdom: Britain's Minister of War, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum calls for 100,000 volunteers to join the British army. 175,000 people join up within a week of the recruitment campaign launch on September 5th.

August 10th 1914

• Politics, France: France declares war on Austria-Hungary.

August 12th 1914

• Politics, United Kingdom: Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary.
• Balkan Front, Serbia: 200,000 Austro-Hungarian troops under General Oskar Potiorek invade Serbia. The outnumbered Serbs, commanded by Field Marshal Radomir Putnik, put up a stronger-than-expected resistance the Battle of the Jadar River, forcing the invaders to withdraw from Serbia on August 16th.

August 14th 1914

• Home Front, United Kingdom: The phrase "War to end all wars." is used for the first time by the British science-fiction novelist H.G. Wells.

August 14th - 24th 1914

• Western Front, France/Germany: The main French offensive of Plan XVII is launched as the First and Second Armies, commanded by General Auguste Dubail and General Noël de Castelnau, begin attacking into Lorraine southeast of Metz. The advancing French troops, still wearing their brightly-coloured 19th Century uniforms, incur massive losses at the hands of German machine-gunners and are repulsed by Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria's Sixth Army and General Josias von Heeringen's Seventh Army, which then counter-attack and push the French back. Only a determined stand on the high ground outside Nancy by General Ferdinand Foch's XX Corps prevents a major French defeat. By August 22nd the French in Alsace and Lorraine are back in their starting positions and Plan XVII is effectively a failure.

August 16th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: The garrison of the Belgian fortress city of Liège surrenders to German General Erich Ludendorff after an eleven-day siege and artillery bombardment. The German First and Second Armies are now able to cross the River Meuse and resume their advance through Belgium, which has been delayed considerably. The Belgian field army begins an orderly withdrawal, destroying bridges as it retreats.
• Home Front, Germany: An 25-year-old Austrian-born artist named Adolf Hitler, having petitioned King Ludwig III of Bavaria directly, is granted permission to serve in the German army. Hitler joins the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment and serves throughout the war as a messenger runner, earning several medals for valour.

August 17th - 19th 1914

• Eastern Front, East Prussia: Russia launches an invasion of Germany, having mobilised its forces much faster than German military planners had anticipated. General Pavel Rennenkampf's First Army and General Alexander Samsonov's Second Army invade the sparsely-defended German province of East Prussia from the east and southeast. The thinly-spread German Eighth Army under General Max von Prittwitz achieves a minor success against Rennenkempf's advance guard at the Battle of Stallupönen but is unable to stop what British propaganda is already lauding as "the Russian Steamroller".

August 18th 1918

• Western Front, Belgium: King Albert I of Belgium orders the 75,000-strong Belgian army to retreat to the port of Antwerp. The move is completed two days later, with the Germans pulling some 60,000 men from their advancing armies to keep the Belgians bottled up in the city.

August 19th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: German troops in the town of Aerschot shoot 150 civilians, one of many confirmed or suspected atrocities committed by the German army in Belgium during the war.

August 20th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: German forces occupy Brussels, the Belgian capital.
• Eastern Front, East Prussia: A German attempt to block the Russian invasion of East Prussia is defeated, prompting a rush by the German high command to transfer men and material eastwards. As a result many German units are pulled from the armies in the west. Prittwitz is removed from his Eighth Army command and is replaced by Paul von Hindenburg, who is called out of retirement to take up the post. Erich Ludendorff, fresh from his exploits in Belgium, is appointed as Hindenburg's chief-of-staff.
• Africa, Cameroon: A small British expedition, consisting of some 400 men, enters the German colony of Cameroon from neighbouring Nigeria.
• Air War, Germany: The German high command is asked to consider launching aerial attacks on British cities, ports and bases using Zeppelin airships.

August 20th - 25th 1914

• Western Front, Ardennes: The French Third and Fourth Armies, commanded by General Pierre Ruffey and General Fernand de Langle de Cary, move to counter an advance through Luxembourg and the Ardennes by two German armies: the Fourth under Duke Albrecht of Württemberg and the Fifth under the Kaiser's son Crown Prince Wilhelm. The two sides come into contact on the 22nd, triggering three days of bitter fighting. The French, lacking supporting artillery, are badly mauled, with the Third Army being almost totally destroyed. The two French armies fall back to the River Meuse and hold a line between Sedan and Verdun.

August 22nd 1914

• Western Front, Belgium/France: North of the Ardennes, the German First, Second and Third Armies continue their advance through Belgium and begin to turn south towards the French border. The French Commander-in-Chief, General Joseph Joffre, orders General Charles Lanzerac's Fifth Army to hold the line of the River Sambre between Charleroi and Namur against Bülow's Second Army and Max von Hausen's Third Army (formerly the Royal Saxon Army). The French fight stubbornly to halt the German advance once it arrives but casualty figures for the defenders are appalingly high. Lanzerac seeks permission from Joffre to withdraw and it is granted. he French Third and Fourth Armies on the River Meuse also begin to pull back but keep their right flank anchored firmly on the fortifications of Verdun.

August 23rd 1914

• Politics, Japan: Japan, which has been an ally of the United Kingdom since 1902, declares war on Germany with the intention of seizing the German colony of Tsingtao in China.
• Western Front, Belgium/France: The BEF, stationed on the left flank of Lanzerac's French Fifth Army, sees its first action of the war when it encounters Kluck's German First Army at the Belgian town of Mons. The outnumbered British troops hold the line of the Mons Canal for several hours, inflicting massive casualties on the Germans with accurate and high-volume rifle fire. Despite their best efforts the British are soon overwhelmed and forced to pull back. The withdrawal of Lanzarac's forces from Charleroi leaves the British right flank exposed, forcing them to conduct a full retreat into France. In the aftermath of the Battle of Mons, Kaiser Wilhelm II famously refers to the BEF as a "contemptible little army", leading to them being nicknamed "The Old Contemptibles".
• Eastern Front, Galicia/Poland: Austria-Hungary launches an offensive from its northeastern province of Galicia into Russian-controlled Poland. The Austro-Hungarian forces move forward along a 200-mile front, looking to destroy the four armies of General Nikolai Ivanov's Russian Southwest Army Group. The advance begins well, with the Austro-Hungarian First Army pushing the Russian Fourth Army back at Krasnik.

August 25th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: The Belgian fortress city of Namur surrenders to the Germans.
• Western Front, Belgium: German troops sack and burn the Belgian city of Leuven as part of their general campaign of terror intended to subjugate the Belgian population. The university's 14th Century library is among the buildings deliberately destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and documents are lost, including many original Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.

August 25th - 27th 1914

• Western Front, France: The BEF continues its retreat south across northeast France, fighting desperate rearguard actions against the pursuing German First Army. The British II Corps under General Horace Smith-Dorrien turns to fight at Le Cateau, beating off the German attempts to surround its 40,000 men. The corps is able to break free and resume the retreat, having suffered nearly 8000 casualties.

August 26th 1914

• Africa, Togoland: British and French troops invade and quickly conquer the German colony of Togoland in West Africa, winning a decisive victory at the Battle of Kamina.

August 26th - 31st 1914

• Eastern Front, East Prussia: Alexander Samsonov's Russian Second Army in East Prussia is smashed by Hindenburg's Eighth Army at the Battle of Tannenberg. Attempts by Rennenkamp's First Army to reinforce Samsonov from the north are beaten off and Samsonov himself is surrounded by August 29th. He later commits suicide. The Germans have achieved a major victory, stopping Russia's invasion dead in its tracks, and British and French faith in Russia's military ability is badly shaken. The only good news for Russia's western allies is that German reinforcements from the Western Front are still in transit at the time of Hindenburg's victory, meaning that the advance into France has been weakened without benefit to Germany.
• Eastern Front, Galicia: The Austro-Hungarian offensive into Poland begins to stutter as Ivanov's Russian Southwest Army Group organises an effective defence and prepares to launch a counter-attack. That counter-attack comes when when the Russian Third and Eighth Armies fall upon the Austro-Hungarian Third Army, pushing it back towards the Galician provincial capital, Lemberg.

August 28th 1914

• Naval War, North Sea: A squadron of light cruisers and destroyers from the British Royal Navy inflicts a minor defeat on the Germans at the battle of Heligoland Bight off Germany's North Sea coast. The Germans lose four small vessels and over 700 men before the arrival of their main fighting ships prompts a British withdrawal. The impact on German morale is far more significant, with the Kaiser informing his naval commanders that they cannot afford to risk losing more ships. This leads to the shelving of all planned large-scale operations involving the High Seas Fleet.

August 29th 1914

• Western Front, France: As the Anglo-French retreat into France continues in the face of the German advance, Genral Joffre orders Lanzerac's French Fifth Army to cover the BEF's retreat by attacking the flank of the German First Army near Guise and Saint Quentin. The main attack makes little progress but the French I Corps, commanded by General Louis Franchet d'Espery, is able to temporarily block the advance of the German Second Army in a supporting action. This turn of events prompts General Bülow to request support from General Kluck, commander of the German First Army. Kluck is unable to reach the German high command for clarification so, on his own initiative, he moves the First Army eastwards to support Bülow and the Second Army, believing there to be no serious threat to his exposed right flank. This move takes the French capital, Paris out of the path of the invading German armies. 

August 30th 1914

• Pacific, Samoa: Troops from New Zealand occupy German Samoa in the Pacific Ocean.
• Air War, France: Paris becomes the first capital city to suffer aerial bombing as a lone German Taube monoplane drops four small bombs and propaganda leaflets.

September 2nd 1914

• Western Front, France: The German First and Second Armies, which are by now seriously overstretched, reach the River Marne less than forty miles from Paris. The Germans are able to cross the river and get even closer to the French capital, within twenty miles, before General Joffre orders a major French counter-attack on September 4th.

September 3rd - 11th 1914

• Eastern Front, Galicia: The Austro-Hungarian offensive against the Russians crumbles as the Russian Fifth Army drives a wedge between the Austro-Hungarian First and Fourth Armies at the Battle of Rava Ruska. The Austro-Hungarians are routed and forced to retreat some 100 miles to the Carpathian Mountains, allowing the Russians to capture Lemberg and take control of the entire Galicia province. The failure of the Galician campaign, which has cost Austria-Hungary some 350,000 casualties, convinces the German high command that their ally is not up to the task of fighting a modern industrial war. As more Russian attacks are planned, Austria-Hungary becomes increasingly dependant on German military assistance.

September 5th - 9th 1914

• Western Front, France: The Schlieffen Plan fails as the German advance into France is halted at the First Battle of the Marne, in which the French and British attack the advancing German armies right along the front from Paris to Verdun. The first phase of the battle, known as the Battle of the Ourcq, sees the newly-formed French Sixth Army under General Joseph Gallieni attack the open right flank of the German First Army. General Kluck is able to avoid a collapse of that flank thanks to the aggressive response of his local commander, General Hans von Gronau, to the French attacks. Kluck believes that Gallieni's assault is a diversion and refuses Gronau's requests for reinforcement, preferring instead to keep pushing forward against the BEF. It is not until September 7th that Kluck realises that a genuine French offensive is underway, pulling his forces back over the Marne to face the attacking Sixth Army, which is now under the command of General Michel Maunoury. Gallieni returns to Paris to resume his role as military governor, organinsing the transport of reinforcements to the frontline using the city's fleet of taxicabs.

September 6th - 10th 1914

• Western Front, France: As the Battle of the Ourcq continues to rage to the west. The BEF opens the second crucial phase of the First Battle of the Marne by attacking into a widening gap that has opened up between the German First and Second Armies. The French Fifth Army, now led by General Franchet d'Esperey, also exploits the gap and then swings east to attack the right flank of the German Second Army. General Bülow responds to this attack, known as the Battle of the Two Morins, by pulling back this flank and realigning it to face westwards, further widening the gap. The BEF crosses the Marne on September 9th and is soon in a position where it can threaten the German First Army's rear. 
• Western Front, France: The French Ninth Army under General Ferdinand Foch launches the third phase of the Marne offensive by attacking the left flank of the German Second Army. The Saxon troops of Hausen's German Third Army attack Foch's right wing at the same time, causing him to break off his attack and pull the Ninth Army back to defensive positions which, despite their best efforts, the Germans are unable to crack. Foch telegraphs his situation to Joffre with the message: "My centre is falling back. My right retreats. Situation excellent. I attack!".
• Western Front, France: To the east of Foch, General Langle de Cary's French Fourth Army opens the next phase of the Marne offensive by attacking Duke Albrecht's German Fourth Army, an engagement known as the Battle of Vitry-le-François. The French are quickly counter-attacked but hold the front successfully against Albrecht's vicious assaults for three days.
• Western Front, France: The final phase of Joffre's Marne offensive opens with an attack by the rejuvinated French Third Army, now commanded by General Maurice Sarrail, against Crown Prince Wilhelm's German Fifth Army at the eastern extreme of the Marne front, around Verdun and the Argonne Forest. The Crown Prince launches his own attack at the same time, however, resulting in fierce fighting and very nearly a German breakthrough. Sarrail is only just able to hold the French line.
• Western Front, France/Germany: As the First Battle of the Marne plays out to the west, fierce fighting continues along the Franco-German border in Alsace and Lorraine. The German Sixth and Seventh Armies launch powerful attacks against the French First and Second Armies on September 4th but the French are able to hold them back and prevent a breakthrough. The German attacks are called off on September 10th and the frontline between Verdun and the Swiss border begins to settle down.

September 7th - 17th 1914

• Balkan Front, Serbia: General Oskar Potiorek commands a second Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia. His troops are able to cross the Drina River and hold off the counter-attacks launched by Marshal Putnik's Serbian forces. After ten days of fighting the Serbs are short of supplies so Putnik pulls them back to positions around Belgrade.

September 8th 1914

• Western Front, France: The Chief of the German General Staff, General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger sends a subordinate officer, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hentsch, to assess Germany's military situation at the ongoing First Battle of the Marne, particularly the state of the First and Second Armies, which risk being rolled up from the flanks by the BEF and French Fifth Army. General Bülow is already planning to withdraw the Second Army from the Marne.

September 9th 1914

• Western Front, France: Moltke concurs with General Bülow and Lieutenant Colonel Hentsch that the German Second Army should retreat from the Marne and set up a better defensive position further north. General Kluck is ordered to do the same with the First Army, which soon begins to fall back from its positions east of Paris. Soon the Third, Fourth and Fifth Armies are ordered to withdraw as well, with all five German armies digging in along a new line stretching from Noyon, a town of the River Oise some fifty miles north of Paris, along the valley of the River Aisne to Verdun. The German retreat to the Aisne is greeted as a major victory in Britain and France. Although the German army remains far from defeated, its invasion of France has ended in failure and Germany must now face the situation it was trying to avoid: a war on two fronts.
• Western Front, Belgium: King Albert launches a brief Belgian attack against the German forces around Antwerp, prompting the Kaiser to order the immediate capture of the city. Extra German reinforcements and heavy artillery pieces are brought in over the next month while British naval infantry arrives in Antwerp's port to support the Belgian garrison.

September 9th - 14th 1914

• Eastern Front, East Prussia: Hindenburg's German Eighth Army in East Prussia inflicts a decisive defeat on Rennenkampf's Russian First Army at the Battle of the Masurian Lakes, forcing the Russians to withdraw from German territory altogether. The Russians have lost 150 artillery pieces and suffered 125,000 casualties. German losses are at around 40,000.

September 11th 1914

• Pacific, New Guinea: Australian forces invade the German colony in New Guinea. The conquest is completed ten days later.

September 14th 1914

• Politics, Germany: Erich von Falkenhayn replaces Helmuth von Moltke as Chief of the German General Staff after the latter suffers a nervous breakdown.

September 15th - 18th 1914

• Western Front, France: General Joffre is keen to keep up the pressure on the Germans following the successes of the Marne and orders the British and French armies to attack the new German defensive line on the River Aisne, with the BEF leading the charge against the German-held Chemin des Dames Ridge between Soissons and Craonne. The Battle of the Aisne results in deadlock as the attackers find themselves unable to dislodge the entrenched Germans from their positions. Joffre calls off the offensive on September 18th and the British and French begin to dig in themselves, sowing the seeds for what will soon evolve into trench warfare.

September 17th 1914

• Politics, Australia: During an election campaign speech. Prime Minister Andrew Fisher of Australia proclaims that his country will support Britain "to the last man and the last shilling".

September 17th - 27th 1914

• Eastern Front, Galicia: With the Russian threat to East Prussia eliminated, the German commanders in the east, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, begin transporting forces by rail to support the Austro-Hungarians, who are still reeling from the loss of Galicia. The Germans also correctly believe that the Russians are planning to launch an attack from Galicia into Silesia, one of Germany's key mining and industrial regions. The German troop transfer is both quick and efficient, allowing for the formation of the Ninth Army under Hindenburg's command near Cracow to guard against any further encroachment upon German territory by Russian forces.

September 18th 1914

• Western Front, France: As the Battle of the Aisne degenerates into stalemate, the opposing armies on the Western Front give up frontal assaults and instead attempt a series of manoeuvres to find each-other's open flank. Over the following month, the French will attempt to exploit the German right flank whilst the Germans try to do the same on the French left. Neither side gains any advantage and the flanking moves only serve to extend the front northwards through Picardy and Artois towards the Belgian border and the coast beyond, a process which becomes known as the "Race to the Sea".

September 19th - 20th 1914

• Western Front, France: Artillery from the German Third Army bombards the cathedral city of Rheims, which the French have recently recaptured following the German retreat to the Aisne. The shelling causes extensive damage to the ancient city and its Medieval cathedral, the former coronation venue for the Kings of France. British and French propagandists quickly seize upon this perceived act of cultural vandalism, claiming that the Germans are out to destroy all traces of western civilization and must be stopped.

September 22nd 1914

• Naval War, North Sea: The German submarine U-9 sinks the British cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy in quick succession off the Dutch coast, resulting in the loss of 1400 British sailors and a major blow to British naval prestige.
• Naval War, Indian Ocean: The German light cruiser SMS Emden, which has been operating in the Indian Ocean since August 22nd, bombards British oil facilities at the Indian port of Madras.
• Air War, Germany: Four Tabloid aircraft from the Royal Naval Air Service launch the first British air raid on Germany, dropping bombs on the Zeppelin facilities at Cologne and Düsseldorf.

September 22nd - 26th 1914

• Western Front, France: The French manage to repel a series of German attacks against Verdun but are forced to withdraw from St Mihiel to the south, creating the St Mihiel salient which the Germans will hold until 1918.
• Western Front, France: The Race to the Sea continues with bloody fighting at the Battle of Picardy. Casualties are severe on both sides but neither is able to gain an advantage. As a result of this battle, the Western Front is extended northwards from Noyon, with the frontline crossing the River Somme between the towns of Péronne and Albert, east of Amiens.

September 27th 1918

• Western Front, France: General Falkenhayn opens the next phase of the Race to the Sea by ordering his commanders to attack the left flank of the French front north of the Somme. The Battle of Artois results in yet another stalemate due to the quick transfer of French reinforcements to the left flank by Joffre, which block the German attacks. The battle ends on October 10th, with the Western Front having been extended even further north to the River Lys near the Belgian border.

September 28th 1914

• Eastern Front, Poland: Despite being outnumbered by sixty divisions to nineteen, Hindenburg's German Ninth Army on the Eastern Front launches an offensive towards the River Vistula into Russian-controlled Poland with the aim of capturing Warsaw.

October 6th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: The British and Belgian forces defending Antwerp are now close to being cut off by the surrounding Germans, who began siege operations against the city on September 28th. It is decided to evacuate the Belgian field army from the city so that it can be better used elsewhere. The evacuation is completed by October 8th, with King Albert and his government being taken out by sea and dropped off further down the Belgian coast between the ports of Oostend and Zeebrugge. The Belgian army leaves by land and heads westwards along the coast, hoping to meet the Western Front as it continues to extend north.

October 9th 1914

• Eastern Front, Poland: Hindenburg's German Ninth Army reaches the River Vistula south of Warsaw, the provincial capital of Russian Poland. The German offensive loses momentum and comes to a stop three days later, having been met by increasingly stiff Russian resistance.

October 10th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: The remnants of the Antwerp garrison surrender themselves and the city to the Germans.
• Politics, Romania: King Carol I of Romania dies and is succeeded by his nephew Ferdinand. The new King, influenced by his British wife Marie (a granddaughter of Queen Victoria), enters into a secret agreement with Russia which will guarantee territory for Romania if Russia wins its war against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

October 13th 1914

• Home Front, United Kingdom: The first troops from the Canadian Expeditionary Force reach Europe, landing in Britain at the port of Plymouth.

October 14th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: The BEF, having been transferred to Belgium from the Aisne sector in order to be closer to its supply ports on the northern French coast, moves into West Flanders and begins to take up positions around the Medieval market town of Ypres. The Germans had entered Ypres on October 7th but left on the following day in order to regroup east of the town for a major offensive, allowing the British to move in and plug one of the last gaps in the Western Front.

October 16th 1914

• Home Front, New Zealand: The New Zealand Expeditionary Force sets sail for Europe from Wellington, having been delayed while waiting for the arrival of an adequate British naval escort.

October 17th 1914

• Home Front, Australia: 20,000 troops set sail from Australia, heading for Europe.

October 18th - 28th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: Field Marshal Sir John French orders the BEF to advance southeast from Ypres towards Menin and Lille. This move has been anticipated by the Germans, who have already begun a slow advance west towards the Channel ports of Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne. Despite Falkenhayn's rushing of reinforcements to the Ypres sector, the British and French are able to hold off the German advance. General Sir Douglas Haig's British I Corps launches a counter-attack on October 19th, beginning the First Battle of Ypres. The attacks are hindered by the wet Autumn weather and the stubborn German defence of the ridges which overlook Ypres from the east and south.
• Western Front, Belgium: North of Ypres, the Belgian army, with French support, secures the northernmost sector of the front against the Germans at the Battle of the Yser. Having completed their withdrawal from Antwerp, the Belgians struggle to hold the line of the Yser Canal between Ypres and the coast before taking the decision to inundate the entire area. On King Albert's orders the sluice gates at Nieuwpoort are opened on October 26th, flooding the low-lying Flanders countryside and bringing the German advance along the coast to a standstill.

October 20th 1914

• Naval War, North Sea: The British Giltra becomes the first merchant ship to be sunk by a submarine. The crew of U-17, abiding by the established rules of submarine warfare, intercept the ship off the coast of Norway, board the ship, evacuate the crew and then scuttle her.

October 23rd 1914

• Middle East, Mesopotamia: As the Ottoman Empire edges closer towards an alliance with Germany, British-led Indian troops sail from Bahrain and land in the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). The initial British attacks are limited but nevertheless sufficient to evict the Ottomans from southern Mesopotamia and push towards Basra, which lies near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
• Politics, Romania: The government of Romania closes its borders to all German traffic, preventing vital German supplies from reaching the Ottoman Empire by land.

October 29th 1914

• Naval War, Black Sea: The government of the Ottoman Empire announces that it is entering the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The announcement is immediately followed-up with a naval bombardment of the Russian Black Sea ports of Odessa, Sevastopol and Theodosia by the Ottoman fleet, which includes the former German vessels Goeben and Breslau.
• Western Front, Belgium: The First Battle of Ypres enters its bloody second phase as the Germans, who have been building up their forces for a major attack, go onto the offensive in Flanders. Knowing that this is their last chance to break through the enemy forces and capture the French Channel ports which are so vital to British operations on the continent, the German high command throws the Fourth and Sixth Armies against the exposed British frontline which now forms a vulnerable salient around Ypres. The intense fighting continues for almost a month with German forces gaining more valuable high ground but failing to crack the British line. Many of the German dead are enthusiastic but semi-trained student volunteers, leading the German media to refer to the battle as the "Massacre of the Innocents".

October 30th 1914

• Politics, United Kingdom: Prince Louis of Battenberg resigns from his post as Britain's First Sea Lord, citing difficulties arising from his close blood ties to the Germans.

November 1st 1914

• Politics, Russia: Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
• Naval War, Pacific Ocean: A German cruiser squadron commanded by Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee defeats Vice Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock's Royal Navy squadron off the coast of central Chile, near the city of Coronel. The British are fearful that Spee will soon move his ships into the South Atlantic, threatening their commerce routes. A new Royal Navy squadron of stronger ships under Vice Admiral Sir F.D. Sturdee is sent south to intercept him. 

November 2nd 1914

• Naval War, North Sea: The United Kingdom begins a naval blockade of Germany, which will remain in place until well after the war.
• Caucasus Front, Armenia: The Russian I Caucasian Corps launches an invasion of the Ottoman province of Armenia but is repulsed by an Ottoman counter-attack on November 11th.

November 3rd - 5th 1914

• Africa, German East Africa: German colonial forces in East Africa, commanded by General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, defeat an amphibious assault by a numerically superior British army against the German-held port of Tanga. The Battle of Tanga marks the start of a four-year guerrilla campaign by Lettow-Vorbeck's forces, which consist a few German companies and large numbers of local troops, known as askaris. Despite receiving little aid or reinforcement from Germany, Lettow-Vorbeck is able to tie down increasingly large numbers of British and Empire troops in East Africa throughout the course of the war.

November 5th 1914

• Politics, United Kingdom: The United Kingdom declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
• Politics, France: France declares war on the Ottoman Empire.

November 5th - 30th 1914

• Balkan Front, Serbia: Austro-Hungarian troops in Serbia launch a renewed offensive against the Serbian defensive positions around Belgrade. The Serbs are able to hold off the attacks until ammunition and supplies begin to run low. Marshal Putnik is eventually obliged to conduct an orderly retreat.

November 8th 1914

• Espionage, United Kingdom: The British Admiralty forms the decoding unit known as Room 40, which becomes the hub of Britain's intelligence-gathering operations. 

November 9th 1914

• Naval War, Indian Ocean: In an intense one-on-one encounter in the Indian Ocean, the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney destroys the German light cruiser SMS Emden. This is the Royal Australian Navy's first single-ship engagement.

November 10th 1914

• Far East, China: Japan secures the surrender of the German garrison at Tsingtao, concluding a siege which began on August 27th.

November 11th 1914

• Politics, Ottoman Empire: Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire declares a Jihad (holy war) against Britain, France and Russia.

November 11th - 25th 1914

• Eastern Front, Poland: The German Ninth Army, now led by General August von Mackensen following Hindenburgs recent promotion to overall commander on the Eastern Front, launches another German offensive into Russian Poland. Mackensen aims to drive a wedge between the Russian First and Second Armies near the city of Łódź and defeat each one in turn. The Germans overwhelm Rennenkampf's First Army and surround the Second before falling victim to a swift Russian counter-attack. General Reinhard von Scheffer-Boyadel's German XXV Reserve Corps is surrounded but manages to break out of the Russian encirclement, capturing 16,000 prisoners and 60 guns in the process. The offensive ends indecisively but the initiative remains with the Germans, who have thwarted the Russian plan to invade Silesia. German casualties in the offensive number 35,000 while the Russians have lost at least three times that number.

November 23rd 1914

• Middle East, Mesopotamia: British Indian forces in Mespotamia capture the southern port of Basra from the Ottomans.

November 24th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium: The First Battle of Ypres comes to an end with the Germans having failed to either capture Ypres or break through to the French Channel ports. The British have secured the ports, which are vital for their supplies and reinforcements, but the battles of 1914 have all but destroyed the pre-war regular British army. Territorial and colonial troops are already being called upon to make up the British losses until Kitchener's volunteers complete their training. The Western Front now stretches uninterrupted from the Belgian coast at Nieuwpoort all the way to the Franco-Swiss border near Belfort. French industry has been dealt a serious blow, with 40% of France's coal mines, 64% of its iron ore deposits and 24% of its steel industries being located inside the areas now occupied by the Germans. Both sides continue to strengthen and consolidate their current positions, which will eventually become highly elaborate and extensive defence systems.

December 1st 1914

• Caucasus Front, Armenia: The Russians capture the Armenian towns of Sarai and Batumi from the Ottomans.  

December 2nd 1914

• Balkan Front, Serbia: Austro-Hungarian forces occupy Belgrade. 

December 3rd - 9th 1914

• Balkan Front, Serbia: Marshal Putnik's Serbian army, now resupplied with ammunition from France, launches a major offensive against the Austro-Hungarian forces inside Serbia. The assault is a major victory for the Serbs, who rout the Austro-Hungarians at the Battle of Kolubra and push them off Serbian territory. As the Serbs retake Belgrade, the humiliated General Oskar Potiorek is removed from his command by the Austro-Hungarian General Staff and replaced by Archduke Eugene. Austria-Hungary has suffered some 230,000 casualties in the Serbian campaign since September, a loss rate of roughly 50%. Serbian castualties total 170,000.

December 8th 1914

• Naval War, Atlantic Ocean: Admiral Spee's squadron of German cruisers, having moved into the South Atlantic following their victory at Coronel, attempts to attack the British coaling and communications facilities at Stanley on the Falkland Islands. However, Spee is unaware of the presence of Vice-Admiral Sir F.D. Sturdee's Royal Navy squadron, which had reached the Falklands two days earlier, and is taken by surprise. The Germans attempt to withdraw but the faster and more heavily-armed British ships, led by the dreadnought battleships HMS Inflexible and HMS Invincible, give chase and attack. The German squadron is decimated, with Spee and nearly 2000 other German sailors lost aboard the four ships sent to the bottom: Spee's flagship SMS Scharnhorst, SMS Gneisenau, SMS Nürnberg and SMS Leipzig. The light cruiser SMS Dresden is the only German ship to escape.

December 14th 1914

• Western Front, France/Belguim: The British and French armies on the Western Front launch a general offensive along the front from the North Sea to Verdun in one last effort to break through the German defences before the onset of Winter brings an end to the campaigning season. Although the British and French outnumber the Germans, who have transferred large numbers of men to the Eastern Front, their commanders have underestimated the growing strength of the German trench systems and the excellent fighting quality of the German army. Most of the fighting peters out by December 24th, with little progress having been made, once the commanders at last realise that achieving a quick victory is now impossible. Only in the Champagne region, where the French have made moderate gains at the expense of huge casualties, does the fighting go on over the Winter months.

December 16th 1914

• Naval War, North Sea: Battlecruisers from the German High Seas Fleet, which have been carrying out minelaying operations in the North Sea since early November, bombard the towns of Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool on the east coast of England, causing the first deaths on British soil from enemy action in the war. There are 137 fatalities, mostly civilians.

December 18th 1914

• Middle East, Egypt: In order to protect its valuable strategic position in the Mediterranean and Middle East from Ottoman aggression, the United Kingdom declares a protectorate over Egypt and British troops soon begin to move in to protect the Suez Canal. The security of the canal is vital to the British as it provides them with easy access to both India and the oil-producing regions around the Persian Gulf. 

December 21st 1914

• Caucasus Front, Armenia: Ottoman forces commanded by Enver Pasha lauch a major offensive against the Russians in Armenia and the Caucasus, forcing three Russian divisions to retreat by the end of the year.

December 25th 1914

• Western Front, Belgium/France: An unofficial ceasefire known as the Christmas Truce takes place between British and German troops on some sectors of the Western Front. Men from both sides meet in no man's land (the area of exposed open ground that separated the trenches of both sides) to fraternise, bury the dead, exchange gifts and play football. The fraternisations continue for up to a week in some places until the military authorities on both sides order a stop to it.

December 29th 1914

• Caucasus Front, Armenia: Russian forces in the Caucasus region, commanded by General Illiarion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov, repel an Ottoman attempt to capture the town of Kars at the Battle of Sarikamish, which concludes on January 2nd. The Ottoman troops are ill-equipped for a Winter campaign and suffer heavy losses in the fighting.