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World War 1
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The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was on his way to an event being held in Sarajevo, Bosnia. On his way there, a small bomb gets thrown at his automobile by Nedeljko Cabrinovic, but it misses him and his wife, but injures a few people that were in the area. Franz Ferdinand later goes to the event, and then goes to check on the injured civilians from earlier. The driver takes one wrong turn and then him and his wife are shot dead by Gavrilo Princip, which started the spark for war in Europe. -
WW1 Starts
After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, beginning World War 1. -
The Battle of Liege
The Battle of Liege is the first ever battle of World War 1, and it was fought between Germany and Belgium. Germany had 7 armies, 1.5 million soldiers total, moving into Belgium which violated the countries' neutrality. Germany's troops had a planned attack made by Alfred von Schlieffen called the "Schlieffen Plan" and they thought that this would be an easy win. This was not the case. Belgium was very resilient, but Germany used Siege Cannons to win on August 15th, 1914. -
The Battle of Mons
The Battle of the Mons was the last of the four "Battles of the Frontiers" and it took place during the first month of World War 1. Germans attacked British troops with 6 hours worth of artillery and infantry assault. The British responded by retreating their troops and the battle was over, and quite disappointing. -
The Battle of Tannenberg
The Battle of Tannenburg was fought between Germany and Russia, and lasted 4 days. Russia had 2 very large armies fighting against 1 small German army, however, German Strategist Erich Ludendorff figured out that Russian communications were open radio frequencies, and he intercepted messages to figure out where the Russian Armies were going and that they would be separated. Erich and his men take the opportunity to defeat both armies in one fell swoop, and win the battle for the Germans. -
The Battle of Gallipoli
The Battle of Gallipoli was a very one sided battle between the Central Powers and the Ottoman Empire. The Central Powers wanted to control the sea route that goes from Europe to Russia. They started with the French and British ships attacking the Ottoman Empire on the Dardanelles Straits, and they lost miserably. Then they followed it up by having the British and French troops fight on land without the vital knowledge of the landscape that they were fighting on, causing them to lose the battle. -
The Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun is World War 1's longest battle, lasting nearly a year long. The battle was between German and French armies, and lasted so long because Germany wanted to win this battle through attrition, or basically bombing and shooting them until either side gave out. The casualties were substantial during this battle, with French having 400,000 casualties, and the Germans having 350,000 casualties. Ultimately, the French ended up victorious. -
The Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland is World War 1's biggest naval battle between German and British battleships. It takes place on the coast of Denmark and lasts 2 days. Both sides suffered massive loss, with the destruction of ships and many lives loss. Technically, there was no clear victor, however, Britain was able to secure North Sea shipping lanes and and continue a blockade of German ports. -
Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme was another bloody and long battle, having lasted over five months and 20k deaths for the British on the first day. Before the battle began they had already used millions of artillery shells to weaken the German borders, but as they were crossing, many soldiers were taken out because of the barbed wire that was still up, or machine gunners that took out a lot of people in No Man's Land. However, British and French soldiers were able to make Germany retreat their borders. -
America joins the Fight
After the sinking of the British ship, The Lusitania, Germany and The United States had high tensions, but were able to come up with a compromise for the mean time. This would change after the United States found out the Germany was trying to recruit Mexico to their cause should the United States join the war, known as the Zimmerman Telegram. This outrage causes America to declare war on Germany, officially putting them into World War 1. -
The Battle of Cambrai
The Battle of Cambrai is important because even though the battle did almost nothing for land capturing for both British and German forces, it allowed Britain Soldiers to develop new artillery methods and changed the course of battle with the use of tank brigades through this large-scale tank battle. -
Signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is the treaty that pulled Russia out of World War 1. With Russia out of the war, the Eastern Front was no longer considered a war zone, causing the Western Front to take an Offensive approach. -
The Battles of the Meuse-Argonne
The Battles of the Meuse-Argonne is the deadliest fight that the United States has taken part in. This battle was a combination of U.S. forces and French forces to take out all of Germany's second army. The first move was gassing and shelling the opposing side to weaken their border. This worked and soldiers were able to move in and take prisoners. This continued until the Germans were worn out and plagued by the influenza epidemic and called their final retreat before the armistice was signed. -
Signing of the Armistice
The signing of the Armistice is such a huge event because it stopped all fighting on the land, water and air. Soon after, the European Countries were broken up, creating 9 new nations. -
Signing of the Treaty of Versaille
The Treaty of Versaille is the official end of World War 1, and while many representatives came, only President Clemenceau (France), President Wilson (United States), Prime Minister Lloyd George (Great Britain), and President Orlando (Italy) had a major role in the signing of the treaty. There was a lot of disagreement by the end, and the United states and Italy left the conference, but France and Britain agreed that Germany was the major fault of the war, and should be punished.