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Battle of the Mons
The Mons battle signified the first engagement between British and German forces on the Western Front, and began on 23 August 1914. The Battle of Mons comprises one of the so-called Battles of the Frontier that took place during August 1914, at Mulhouse, Lorraine, the Ardennes, Charleroi - and Mons. -
Declaration of War
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Ardennes
The battle was sparked somewhat unusually by the mutual confused collision of French and German invasion forces in the lower Ardennes forests. According to the pre-war French war strategy document, Plan XVII, German forces in the area were only expected to be light, with French light, rapid-firing, in a wooded terrain such as that found in the Ardennes. -
Battle of Tannenberg
Perhaps the most spectacular and complete German victory of the First World War, the encirclement and destruction of the Russian Second Army in late August 1914 virtually ended Russia's invasion of East Prussia before it had really started. Russia's invasion into German territory was two-sided.General Samsonov had begun to take his Second Army into the south-western corner of East Prussia whilst General Rennenkampf advanced into its north-east with the First Army. -
Heligoland Bight
Commander Tyrwhitt was charged with leading the Harwich Force of two light cruisers, Fearless and Arethusa, accompanied by two flotillas of 31 destroyers, 1st and 3rd Flotillas, in a raid upon German shipping located close to the German naval base at Heligoland.
Acting as cover for Tyrwhitt's force was the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, recently arrived from Scapa Flow and under the command of Vice Admiral Beatty. His squadron consisted of the battleships New Zealand and Invincible. -
Battle of Marne (1st)
The Germans invaded Belgium and north-eastern France, the army had reached within 30 miles of Paris. Their progress had been quick, having successfully beaten back Belgian, French and British forces in moving deep into north-eastern France. Their movement was in shadow of the aims of the Schlieffen Plan, whose primary focus was the defeat of France in the west before turning attention the Russian forces in the east. -
Battle of Arras
Together with the Battle of Albert, the Battle of Arras formed an attempt by the French to outflank the Germans in a north-westerly movement towards the English Channel - the 'race to the sea'.
Together with the Battle of Albert, the Battle of Arras formed an attempt by the French to outflank the Germans in a north-westerly movement towards the English Channel - the 'race to the sea'. -
Battle of Ypres
This so called race ended at the North Sea coast after each army attempted to outdo the other by moving north and west. This area of Flanders, described by one historian as having the dreariest landscape in Western Europe, contained the last gap through which either side could launch a decisive thrust. By October 1914, the Allies had reached Nieuport on the North Sea coast. -
Battle of Falklands Island
Fresh from his success at the Battle of Coronel, off the southern coast of Chile, Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee's East Asiatic Squadron - whose primary target was merchant and troop shipping in the South Atlantic - sped towards Port Stanley, in the Falkland Islands. His intention was to raid the British radio station and coaling depot there. -
Battle of Jutland
The recently appointed commander of the German High Seas Fleet, Reinhard Scheer, had returned to the policy of making sorties against the British coast, confident that his codes were secure, and thus that the main British battle fleet, at Scapa Flow in the north of Scotland could not intervene. However, the British could read German coded messages, and were aware of Scheer's plan. -
Battle of Somme
In this opening phase, the British assault broke into and gradually moved beyond the first of the German defensive complexes on the Somme. Success on the first day in the area between Montauban and Mametz led to a redirection of effort to that area, for the initial attack was defeated with huge losses north of Mametz. There was a stiff fight for Trones Wood and costly, hastily planned and piecemeal attacks that eventually took La Boisselle, Contalmaison and Mametz Wood. -
The Sixth Battle of the Isonzo
Referred to alternatively as the Battle of Gorizia, the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, launched on 6 August 1916, proved easily the most successful of the eleven Isonzo attacks initiated by the Italians (with the twelfth - and most successful of all - launched by a combined German-Austro-Hungarian force). -
Battle of Verdun
The German siege of Verdun and its ring of forts, which comprised the longest battle of the First World War, has its roots in a letter sent by the German Chief of Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, to the Kaiser, Wilhelm II, on Christmas Day 1915. -
The Third Battle of Ypres
Haig had long mulled the idea of launching a major offensive in Flanders. It was his preferred choice for 1916, although in the event the Battle of the Somme took precedence that summer. Meticulously planned, Third Ypres was launched on 31 July 1917 and continued until the fall of Passchendaele village on 6 November. The offensive resulted in gains for the Allies but was by no means the breakthrough Haig intended, and such gains as were made came at great cost in human terms. -
The Third Battle of the Aisne
Whilst the first two battles of the Aisne were conducted by Allied forces, predominantly French, against the German army in France, the Third Battle of Aisne, from 27 May-6 June 1918, comprised the final large-scale German attempt to win the war before the arrival of the U.S. Army in France, and followed the Lys Offensive in Flanders.
The focus of the offensive was the Chemin des Dames Ridge, held by the Germans upon their retreat from the Marne in September 1914 until their end. -
Battle of Cantigny
The first sustained American offensive of the war, although a minor action in itself, the Battle of Cantigny was fought on 28 May 1918, the second day of the great German offensive comprising the Third Battle of the aisne.
A regiment of the American 1st Division (some 4,000 troops), under Major-General Robert Lee Bullard, captured the village of Cantigny, held by the German Eighteenth Army commanded by von Hutier and the site of a German advance observation point, strongly -
Battle of Belleau Wood
Comprising two related actions, firstly at Chateau-Thierry from 3-4 June and then at Belleau Wood itself from 6-26 June, the Battle of Belleau Wood saw the re-capture by U.S. forces of the wood on the Metz-Paris road taken at the end of May by German Seventh Army forces arriving at the Marne River around Chateau-Thierry and held by four divisions as part of the German Aisne offensive. -
Second Battle of Marne
On 28 June 1918, the French Intelligence Bureau issued an appreciation of the strategic situation and forecast a renewal of the German attack in the area of the Oise and Marne. Allied Generalissimo Ferdinand Foch ordered the French and British armies to make preparations for mutual assistance. XXII Corps, which had been moved in early June to the Somme SW of Amiens, was made available for a move to assist the French and 15th (Scottish) and 34th Divisions were sent from First and Second Army area -
Meuse-Argonne
located in france -
END OF WW1
