world war one timeline by

1867 - Austro-Hungary Compromise of 1817

caseyyong — 2022-02-20 08:22:04 UTC

The Austro-Hungary Compromise of 1817 was the agreement that officially established the Austria-Hungary Empire, and united Austria and Hungary into a single dual-monarchy. This led to the entire country becoming absolutionist and uniting everyone to follow one singular culture and language. This would slowly build unrest and dissatisfaction with the diverse ethnicities inhabiting the Empire from various places such as Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria, as the government was erasing their identity. This would become integral later.

1882 - The Founding of the Triple Alliance

caseyyong — 2022-02-20 08:39:24 UTC

The Triple Alliance (dubbed Central Powers) was a secret treaty signed by Germany, Italy, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. This was a signed promise to assist each other when one of the countries is engaging in a war, and to have each other's backs during a war that involved all countries.

1904 - The Founding of the Triple Entente

caseyyong — 2022-02-20 08:40:12 UTC

The Triple Entente (dubbed the Allies) was similar to what the Triple Alliance was, except this was a three-way alliance formed between France, Russia and Britain.

28th June 1914 - Franz Ferdinand's Assassination

caseyyong — 2022-02-22 08:24:27 UTC

Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke of Austria-Hungary, was on a car ride with his wife in Sarajevo and had published the entire route of his trip in advance. Unluckily for him, the hate for the government was thriving and so, there were multiple assassins following him on his trip, hoping to be able to kill him. An assassin called Gavrilo Princip was stalking his entire journey and threw a bomb at his car at one point. Princip wanted to kill the Archduke, because he was a nationalist and despised the Archduke's absolutistic ideals. However, he missed and blew up the car right behind the Archduke's.

The Archduke then took another route in fear, but the driver took a wrong turn. Coincidentally, Princip bumped into him, so the Serb proceeded to shoot him and his wife, killing both of them

1897 - the Beginning of the Arms Race

caseyyong — 2022-02-22 09:42:43 UTC

During 1897 - 1914, there were a naval arms race between the British Empire and Germany. Germany had been slowly building up their ships for their military and the British Empire felt threatened, so they responded with creating new naval ships for battle. This caused conflict and tension between the two nations. This arms race goes on for quite some time and is only stopped when both countries are dragged into the World War I, where the race is continued there.

28th July 1914 - Start of World War One

caseyyong — 2022-02-22 15:21:38 UTC

After Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Austria-Hungary was extremely mad and blamed it on Serbia, so they declared war, but before that, Serbia had appeased to Russia, and so Russia joined in on the war to defend Serbia, as per the agreement. As Russia took part, the rest of Triple Entente were obligated to join in on the war as well.

However, Austria-Hungary had formed a secret agreement with the Triple Alliance, so they interfered as well.

Add that with the fact many countries had built up resentment towards each other and had been engaging in an arms race right before this, the atmosphere of war was ripe and they were ready

Ivor Gurney

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 07:06:09 UTC

Ivor Gurney was a solider in WWI who grew up in Gloucester, Britain. He had extremely terrible mental health and was suicidal, and the war gave him a sense of purpose and hot-blooded camaraderie that he hadn't felt before, so he ended up enjoying the war, despite the carnage and terrible living conditions.

After it, he went onto write poems depicting the war. A lot of them celebrated the war or portrayed it in a good light, with poems like "First Time In", which was about the first evening he spent with the Welsh in the trenches. This poem specifically illustrates it:

After the dread tales and red yarns of the Line

Anything might have come to us; but the divine

Afterglow brought us up to a Welsh colony

Hiding in sandbag ditches, whispering consolatory

Soft foreign things. Then we were taken in

To low huts candle-lit, shaded close by slitten

Oilsheets, and there but boys gave us kind welcome,

So that we looked out as from the edge of home,

Sang us Welsh things, and changed all former notions

To human hopeful things. And the next day's guns

Nor any Line-pangs ever quite could blot out

That strangely beautiful entry to war's rout;

Candles they gave us, precious and shared over-rations—

Ulysses found little more in his wanderings without doubt.

'David of the White Rock', the 'Slumber Song' so soft, and that

Beautiful tune to which roguish words by Welsh pit boys

Are sung - but never more beautiful than here under the guns' noise.

4th August 1914 - Belgium, Schlieffen Plan

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 07:53:49 UTC

In Germany, there was a premature plan devised a decade ago for when a war would inevitably happen called the Schlieffen Plan, named after its creator Count Alfred von Schlieffen. The plan had mapped out how to combat against both the eastern and western sides that were France and Russia. The plan relied on invading France through Belgium and the hope Russia's military would be slow to action due to their large mass of land and how the soldiers would have to cross it.

They followed through with the plan and invaded Belgium, which was neutral at the time. They attacked the city of Liege using cannons, the strongest weapons they had. Unbeknownst to Germany, Britain signed the Treaty of London long ago as a promise to protect Berlin if they were in trouble, and so, Britain declared war on Germany.

6th September 1914 - First Battle of the Marne

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 08:11:02 UTC

This battle was the first victory for the Triple Entente against Germany. Britain and France's combined efforts had been able to forbid Germany from progressing any further in their conquest of France.

23th August 1914 - Battle of Mons

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 08:38:01 UTC

The Battle of Mons was a battle that took place in Mons, Belgium between Germany and Britain in an attempt to hold the Mons-Conode Canal. The British are eventually overpowered by the Germans, and are forced to retreat.

19th October 1914 - First Battle of Ypres (Race to the Sea)

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 09:01:53 UTC

This battle was an attempt of Germany to gain control over French ports on the English Channel, and France and Britain trying to stop them. This was also to penetrate the northern flank of each other's opponents. In the end, there were too many casualties and too little breakthroughs on both sides for a win to be called.

This was also the first time trenches were actively engaged in the combat. As this war was always an arms race, the trenches were invented and exist as a form of evolution in warfare to combat against the advancing offensive technology, like guns and bombs, of the opposing sides.

21st February 1916 - Battle of Verdun

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 09:51:20 UTC

This battle was the longest battle in World War One, lasting 10 months. This war also varied a lot on the different technology used to fight it.

In order to weaken France's defences, Germany attacked forts surrounding Verdun. They launched two million shells during their first bombardment at the fort and tried to take to the skies, but France's air force overpowered them.

In the end, many French towns were left in shambles from the blasts in Verdun, such as Beaumont and Vaux, but the Germans were not exempt from tragedy either. The death toll for Germans was 143,000 and the one for the French was 162,440, so while Germany wanted to knock down France, they had lost a lot of their military as well. This would be a common theme across the war; of enormous amounts of carnage on all sides and not a clear winner of individual battles because of it.

8th March 1917 - Russian Revolution

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 10:02:15 UTC

The Russian Revolution was started by the dissatisfaction of the people with their ruler, as a lot of the population were in poverty and starving. They were also incredibly upset with the war because of the damage it had caused. Tsar Nicholas II, the king at the time, ignored his citizens and their suffering, so when Vladimir Lenin proposed the marxist communist theory for the government and for the war to be settled, many people jumped on board and protested against the monarchy in favor of communism.

The Bolsheviks, the people who supported Lenin, caused riots and destruction around Russia until the Tsar had felt threatened and overpowered by his citizens and left the government in the hands of the Bolsheviks.

1st July 1916 - Battle of the Somme

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 13:44:10 UTC

The Triple Entente launched a week's worth of bombs on the barbed wire of Germany's defences. They were sure the bombardment would destroy Germany's defence, but they didn't realize that a lot of German soldiers had burrowed underground in the trenches as protection.

Life was rough for the soldiers who had to live there. They were forced to sleep in dugouts, which could vary from shelters underground or tiny holes in the sides of the structure. There were many pests as well, such as rats and flies, which spread disease and stole rations. The rations were often also very poor and unsanitary.

Ivor Gurney was one such solider, yet he enjoyed the life in the trenches because of the tight-knight community of soldiers all banded together.

Soon enough on the 15th of September, the British artillery barrage brought a slew of tanks but they had failed to break through the German line.

The battle was devestating, resulting in 450,000 deaths on the Germans' side and 420,000 for Britain.

28th June 1919 - Paris Peace Conference

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 14:20:46 UTC

The Paris Peace Treaty was established in the Palace of Versailles. It was a conference between the winning countries of the war, which were France, Britain and America. Russia was excluded because of its state as a communist government. That was also when the League of Nations were established, a band of nations that would hold conferences when needed to discuss the state of the world. This would soon be made the United Nations and include many more countries.

France, run by Clemenceau, wanted Germany to suffer and strip the country of its wealth and weapons as revenge.
America, run by Wilson, wanted a simple peace, and a united group to ensure a war like this never happened again.
Britain, run by Lloyd George, believed that Germany should be punished and did not want it to be destroyed like France did.

The final treaty had Germany lose north east and west territory. France took back Alsace-Lorraine, and had permission to mine it there as well. Germany’s military was also cut down considerably, its army reduced to a hundred thousand soldiers and some of the parts of their military, like its air force, was completely annihilated. On top of that, Germany had to pay for the damages and publicly admit that the war was their fault. It was a compromise no one was happy with, especially Germany.

With the terms being so hard on Germany, it would light a flicker of resentment in its citizens, as they felt shame and fell into poverty. What they all didn't know at that time, was that this environment was the prime atmosphere for another world war to start, by the influence of a man called Hitler.

1917 - America Joins the War

caseyyong — 2022-02-23 14:30:50 UTC

At the start of the war, America remained neutral and maintained their shipping of products with the countries. It became hard to maintain when Germany proclaimed the waters surround Britain were a war zone and they sunk US ships.

This was further pressed on as the British got wind of the Zimmermann telegram, a telegram sent from a secretary in Germany to a German minister in Mexico, and sent it to the US. It detailed the plans of Germany utilising their submarines to its fullest capacity in warfare and using forming alliances with Mexico and Japan. if the US were to ever join the war.

After Germany sunk four more merchant ships, the US geared themselves up and declared war on Germany as well

November 1918 - the End of the World War I

caseyyong — 2022-02-24 00:03:36 UTC

This war did not end with a surrender, but instead an armistice, which was an agreement of both sides to conclude the war.

At this stage, all sides had been heavily damaged. Germany's offence had been battered down over the years, and the Allies pushed back. With America joining the war and sending in fresh troops to fight against a now weakened Germany, it became clear which side had emerged victorious.

In early October, the Germans had already tried to negotiated an armistice already and sent a late night radio message to commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, Foch. He did not cease fire, but he did tell the Germans to come and discuss it.

On November 8th, in a railroad car, the terms for the armistice were discussed. As it turns out, there really wasn't much of a negotiation, as the Allies wanted to make Germany suffer for all the damage they had caused up until this point. The German emissary sent tried to convince Foch to be more lenient on Germany's punishment, but he did not budge in his terms. Further terms were planned to be discussed at a later date, but for now, the war had officially ended.

your mom

doyo7688 — 2024-11-20 20:36:19 UTC

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