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The Battle
The battle had begun on February 21, after the Germans led by Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn developed a plan to attack the fortress city of Verdun, on the Meuse River in France. Falkenhayn believed that the French army was more vulnerable than the British and that a major defeat on the Western Front would push the Allies to open peace negotiations. -
Sinking of the Lusitania
The sinking of the Lusitania was not the single largest factor contributing to the entrance of the United States into the war 2 years later, but it certainly solidified the public’s opinions towards Germany. President Woodrow Wilson, who guided the U.S. through its isolationist foreign policy, held his position of neutrality for almost 2 more years. -
The Beginning
He lied about his age to join the Navy, he was 16 at the time but the requirement age is 18. -
Great Lake Training
They sent him to the Great Lake training station in Illinois near Chicago. They taught you how to row boats, splice ropes together, big ropes. They had big ropes in those days, bigger than they are today. He learned how to splice those and piece them together like this. And that was for tying ships up to the docks. Now they have different steel cables that they would use for the docks but it was the most common one. -
German Submarine
He started going back to Philly and they had a German submarine. The submarine had prisoners. They were also under government control. -
The Battleship
He only trained 2 or 2 ½ weeks before he was put on the New Hampshire Battleship. -
Education
Before he went to the war he was a musician at Norfork Virginia and graduated from the musician school. They sent him to play the cello but he started to play the violin. He was a member of the admiral’s orchestra when he was discharged. -
The shots have came
At around 11 am today 2 shots rang out from a street corner in the center of this city, mortally wounding the archduke Franz Ferdinand. Hear the throne of the Austro-Hungaruan Empire and Sophie the Duchess of Hohnberg, his wife. An earlier assassination attempt had been made on the archduke, around 10:15 a.m., when another suspect. -
A new chapter
The 1914 campaign had ended in a stalemate in both the east and west. The German plan of a swift overthrow of France, to be Russia, had miscarried. After less than a year of war, Germany’s Austro-Hungarian allies were already perilously near to breaking under the strain. -
Transportation
A simultaneous offensive by all the Allies was planned, with the intention of preventing the Germans from transferring reserves from one front to another. This plan was ruined by the snapping of the weakest link in the Allied chain, Russia.