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WW1
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The Assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
On June 28th, 1914, Archudke Franz Ferdinand was murdered by the Black Hand. The Black Hand was a secret Serbian society. This event set off a chain reaction of declarations of war amoung the major European powers. -
Austria - Hungary declares war on Serbia.
Austria was upset and had no other choice but to declare war on Serbia. Which began the First World War. -
Battle Fronts
WW1 was fought on multiple fronts. There were the Western front, eastern front the Italian front, on the seas. The Western front was fought along the 400 mile stretch between the British Chanel the Swiss Alps. The Eastern front was held by unprepared Rusian army.This front was one of the first use of the deadly mustard gas. They were also longer and easier to break through. The Italian war was fought in Snow/mountains. African- Secondary Fronts, Navel- multiple operations around world, etc -
Trench Life
Trench Life was not a good stable place. It involved long periods of boredom mixed with brief periods of terror. Not knowing if its your last day on earth, the thought of death on your mind. Lack of sleep was also a challenge. Rats lice were a big problem, they spread disease and were constant irritant. Believe it or not thats not the worst thing there was. -
First Battle of Marnes or begining of Trench Warefare
The first battle of the Marnes marked the end of German sweep into France and was the begining of Trench Warefare. Trench Warefare was a type of fighting during WW1, both sides dug trenches protected by mines and barbed wire. It was a horrific environment to be stationed in. 6 to 8 feet deep. The purposed of them was to avoid being killed or shot at. -
Second battle of Ypres
The German army initiates the modern era of chemical warefare by launching a chlorine attack on allied trenches. 5,000 French and Alegerian troops were killed. At the wars end, both sides used massive quantities of chemical weapons. This caused and estimated 1,300,000 casualties, including 91,000 fatalities. -
Collapse of British government
Landings start on the Gallipoli Peninsula at Cape Helles and at ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Cove. The attempt to force the Dardanelles and capture the Ottoman capital Constantinople is a disaster almost from the outset. Completely the allies suffered more than 200,000 casualties during the subsequent nine-month campaign. This failed offensive signals the event for Australian and New Zealand troops and eventually leads to the collapse of the British government -
The sinking of the Lusitania
The British boat, Lusitania is torpedoed by a German u-boat off the southern coast of Ireland. The ship had been carrying over 170 tons of rifle ammunition and artillery shells, and Germany felt fully justified in treating the Lusitania as a legitimate target in a declared war zone. -
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Vedun begins. Over the next 10 months, the French and German armies at Verdun, France, suffer over 700,000 casualties, including some 300,000 killed. In the end , entire French villages had been wiped from the map; they were subsequently memorialized as having “died for France.” Over 10 million shells remained in the soil around Verdun, and bomb-clearing units continued to remove some 40 tons of unexploded munitions from the area annually. -
The first battle of the Somme
(July 1–November 13, 1916), costly and largely unsuccessful Allied offensive on the Western Front during World War I. The British offensive is made to draw German attention from Verdun, and in that regard only could it be considered a success. The nearly 20,000 killed in action on July 1 marks the single bloodiest day in the history of the British army. By the time the Somme campaign ground to a halt some four and a half months later, the combined casualties of both sides topped 1,000,000. -
The U.S enters the war
The United States declares war on Germany. Four days earlier, U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson had cited Germany’s practice of unrestricted submarine warfare and the “Zimmermann Telegram” as key reasons behind the abandonment of his long-standing policy of neutrality. -
Russia surrenders
After months of delays, the Soviet government concludes a separate peace with the Central Powers when it accepts the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Russia surrenders its claim to Ukraine, to its Polish and Baltic territories, and to Finland. -
Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles is a peace document signed at the end of World War I by the Allied and associated powers and by Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, France, on June 28, 1919; it took force on January 10, 1920.