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Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II was a German emperor and king of Prussia. Wilhelm did not actively seek war, and tried to hold back his generals from mobilizing the German army in the summer of 1914, his verbal outbursts and his open enjoyment of the title of Supreme War Lord helped bolster the case of those who blamed him for the conflict. His role in the conduct of the war as well as his responsibility for its outbreak is still controversial. -
Austria-Hungary
World War began on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. They declared war one month to the day after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo. -
Battle of the Bight
On August 28, 1914, World War I spreads from land to sea when the first major naval battle of the conflict breaks out between British and German ships in the North Sea, near the northern coast of Germany. The battle occurred in a partially enclosed body of water known as Heligoland Bight, which was used to shelter several bases of the German High Seas Fleet and also offered a good starting-off point for attacks against the British Isles. -
Battle of Coronel
In a crushing victory, a German naval squadron commanded by Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee sinks two British armored cruisers with all aboard off the southern coast of Chile on November 1, 1914, in the Battle of Coronel. The Germans, with their newer, lighter ships, took quick advantage, opening fire at 7 pm. Cradock's flagship, the Good Hope, was hit before its crew could return fire; it sank within half an hour. -
Battle of the Falkland Islands
Historians have referred to the Battle of the Falkland Islands as the most decisive naval battle of World War I. It gave the Allies a huge, much-needed surge of confidence on the seas, especially important because other areas of the war were not proceeding as hoped. The battle also represents one of the last important instances of old-style naval warfare, between ships and sailors and their guns alone, without the aid or interference of airplanes, submarines, or underwater minefields. -
Alfred von Tirpitz
Alfred von Tirpitz was chiefly responsible, with the significant support of Kaiser Wilhelm II, for the build-up in strength of the German navy, including its submarine fleet, from 1897 until the years immediately prior to the First World War. Grand Admiral Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz was a German Admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. -
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States. He won the reelection in 1916, after pledging to keep America out of World War 1. Even though President Wilson pledged to keep America out of World War 1, WIlson was obliged to declare war on Germany after the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917. -
Winston Churchill
Churchill rejoined the Army, and rose to the rank of colonel. In 1917 he was appointed Lloyd George's minister of munitions, subsequently becoming the state secretary for war and air and colonial secretary. During the post-war years he was active in support of the Whites (anti-Bolsheviks) in Russia. -
Arthur Zimmermann
On January 16, 1917 he sent a telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico, suggesting a Germany-Mexico alliance against the United States and promising German support for the Mexican recapture of territory in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The British intercepted the coded message and deciphered it, finally revealing it to the United States. When the telegram was made public, President Woodrow Wilson had little choice but to declare war on Germany, and the U.S. entered the war. -
Germany After the War
The treaty imposed steep war reparations payments on Germany, meant to force the country to bear the financial burden of the war. Some extremist groups, such as the Nazi Party, were able to exploit this humiliation and resentment and take political control of the country in the decades following World War I.
