Category: World War 1

World War 1, also known as First World War or The Great War, that started on 28th July 1914 and lasted until 11th November 1918. During this period, 8.5 million soldiers died, as a result of being wounded in battle or disease, and around 13 million civilians died.

Britain fought mainly against the Imperial German forces of Kaiser Wilhelm II (cousin of British King George V). The period of 1914 to 1918 saw military advancements in weapons on land, sea and in the air improve exponentially. The result changed how battles would be fought in the years ahead.

1914

Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie are assassinated by a Bosnian Serb nationalist while visiting the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on 28th June. This sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I.

Britain entered World War 1 by declaring war on Germany on 4th August 1914, when the Germans invaded Belgium.

The first major naval Battle of the First World War was Battle of Coronel on 1st November. The Imperial German Navy sank two armoured cruisers and one light cruiser, the first defeat the British Royal Navy had since Napoleonic times. The loss was avenged at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the following year.

On 31st October during the First Battle of Ypres, entrenched Allied forces fought off German advances. The Germans finally gave up their offensive on 24th November when the cold wet stormy weather set in.

Christmas truce along the Western Front on 25th December. In an unofficial and impromptu cease-fire, troops from both sides met in no-man’s land and exchanged greetings, gifts, and played a game of football.

1915

On 4th February, Germany issues warnings that neutral vessels in British waters would be destroyed.

Second Battle of Ypres on 22nd April, the German forces use chlorine gas at the beginning of the battle on the Western Front. 10,000 Allied troops were affected by the poison gas, while half of those died. The battle ended on the 25th May when the Allies withdrew.

Allied troops land at Gallipoli in Turkey on 25th April in a unsuccessful campaign to secure the control the sea route from Europe to Russia. The Allies had more than 250,000 casualties, including 46,000 dead.

The passenger liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk on 7th May by German submarine U-20 in the North Atlantic. The Lusitania was enroute from New York in America to Liverpool in England, 1,197 civilian passengers were killed.

British nurse Edith Cavell working with the Red Cross was shot at dawn on 12th October by a German firing squad of eight in Brussels for helping some 200 allied soldiers escape from German occupied Belgium.

1916

The Battle of Jutland took place just off the coast of Denmark between the Royal Navy and the Imperial German Navy on 31st May. The battle ended after two days with the British losing 14 ships, and Germans losing 11. British had naval dominance and secured its control of shipping lanes, while the German Navy was denied control of the seas, but both sides claimed victory.

On 24th June, The Battle of the Somme started with the Allies mounting a major offensive using large-scale artillery barrage that lasted five days. 20,000 advancing British troops are killed, and 40,000 wounded in one day by German machine gunners. British forces advanced six miles by November, but at a high cost of 419,000 British, 194,000 French, and 650,000 German Troops.

The British used the Tank for the first time on 15th September during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. The 36 Tanks had inexperienced crew and suffered with mechanical malfunctions.

1917

America declares war on Germany on 6th April, after German submarines started sinking American merchant ships in the North Atlantic.

On 17th July, British King George V gives up his German titles, and changes his name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.

The Third Battle of Ypres started on 31st July with the British artillery firing 4,283,550 shells towards German lines near Passchendaele.

British tanks penetrate the German lines at the Battle of Cambrai on the Western Front on 20th November. Ten days later the German forces would regain the lost ground.

1918

The Royal Air Force is founded by Hugh Trenchard on 1st April by merging the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. The RAF becomes the first independent air force in the world.

The abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II was announced on 9th November. The following day the former German emperor took a train across the border into the Netherlands, he remained there in exile for the rest of his life.

Germany and the Allies sign an Armistice on 11th November in a railway carriage in the Compiègne forest in France, ending World War I on the Western Front at 11am. The terms were harsh which were intended to show Germany’s acceptance of defeat.