After a Bosnian Serb nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, launching World War I. Other nations began to choose sides in the conflict, but the U.S. remained initially neutral. In Central America, the Panama Canal opened after 11 years of construction and the loss of more than 25,000 workers’ lives. On Christmas Eve 1914, British and German soldiers paused their fighting for unofficial Christmas Truce, sharing carols and even a soccer game.
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Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August.
Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, and his wife Sophie riding in an open carriage at Sarajevo shortly before their assassination. (Credit: Henry Guttmann/Getty Images)
Henry Guttmann/Getty Images
Jul
05
On July 5, 1914, in Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany pledges his country’s unconditional support for whatever action Austria-Hungary chooses to take in its conflict with Serbia, a long-running rivalry thrown into crisis by the assassination, the previous June 28, of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife by a Serbian nationalist during an official visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia.
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At six o’clock in the evening on July 23, 1914, nearly one month after the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a young Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Baron Giesl von Gieslingen, ambassador of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Serbia, delivers an ultimatum to the Serbian foreign ministry.
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In the early hours of July 29, 1914, Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, begin a frantic exchange of telegrams regarding the newly erupted war in the Balkan region—and the possibility of its escalation into a general European war.
Aug
01
On August 1, 1914, four days after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Germany declares war on Russia and France orders a general mobilization. The following day, the first German army units cross into Luxembourg in preparation for an invasion of France. Over the next three days, Russia, France, Belgium and Great Britain all lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and the German army invaded Belgium. The “Great War” that ensued was one of unprecedented destruction and loss of life, resulting in the deaths of some 20 million soldiers and civilians.
Aug
03
On the afternoon of August 3, 1914, two days after declaring war on Russia, Germany declares war on France, moving ahead with a long-held strategy, conceived by the former chief of staff of the German army, Alfred von Schlieffen, for a two-front war against France and Russia. One day earlier, France had begun readying its troops to move into the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which it had forfeited to Germany in the settlement that ended the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
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The Panama Canal, the American-built waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship.
The first boat passes through the Gatun locks following the opening of the Panama Canal, 15 August 1914
ullstein bild via Getty Images
Aug
15
On August 15, 1914, the government of Japan sends an ultimatum to Germany, demanding the removal of all German ships from Japanese and Chinese waters and the surrender of control of Tsingtao—the location of Germany’s largest overseas naval bases, located on China’s Shantung Peninsula—to Japan by noon on August 23.
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23
On August 23, 1914, in their first confrontation on European soil since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, four divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Sir John French, struggle with the German 1st Army over the 60-foot-wide Mons Canal in Belgium, near the French frontier.
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On August 26, 1914, the German 8th Army, under the leadership of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, strikes with lethal force against the advancing Russian 2nd Army, led by General Aleksandr Samsonov, in East Prussia during the opening weeks of the First World War.
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On the evening of September 4, 1914, General Joseph Joffre, commander in chief of the French army during World War I, gives the order and readies his troops for a renewed offensive against the advancing Germans at the Marne River in northeastern France, set to begin the following morning.
Sep
06
On September 6, 1914, some 30 miles northeast of Paris, the French 6th Army under the command of General Michel-Joseph Manoury attacks the right flank of the German 1st Army, beginning the decisive First Battle of the Marne at the end of the first month of World War I.
Sep
15
In the wake of the Battle of the Marne—during which Allied troops halted the steady German push through Belgium and France that had proceeded over the first month of World War I—a conflict both sides had expected to be short and decisive turns longer and bloodier, as Allied and German forces begin digging the first trenches on the Western Front on September 15, 1914.
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In the North Sea, the German U-9 submarine sinks three British cruisers, the Aboukir, the Hogue and the Cressy, in just over one hour. The one-sided battle, during which 1,400 British sailors lost their lives, alerted the British to the deadly effectiveness of the submarine, which had been generally unrecognized up to that time.
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On November 14, 1914, in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, the religious leader Sheikh-ul-Islam declares an Islamic holy war on behalf of the Ottoman government, urging his Muslim followers to take up arms against Britain, France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro in World War I.
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A month after German naval forces led by Admiral Maximilian von Spee inflicted the Royal Navy’s first defeat in a century by sinking two British cruisers with all hands off the southern coast of Chile, Spee’s squadron attempts to raid the Falkland Islands, located in the southern Atlantic Ocean, only to be thwarted by the British navy. Under the command of Admiral Doveton Sturdee, the British seamen sought vengeance on behalf of their defeated fellows.
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At approximately 8 o’clock in the morning on December 16, 1914, German battle cruisers from Franz von Hipper’s Scouting Squadron catch the British navy by surprise as they begin heavy bombardment of Hartlepool and Scarborough, English port cities on the North Sea.
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Just after midnight on Christmas morning, the majority of German troops engaged in World War I cease firing their guns and artillery and commence to sing Christmas carols. At certain points along the eastern and western fronts, the soldiers of Russia, France, and Britain even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing.
On Dec. 25, 1914, five months into World War I, British and German troops on the Western Front stopped fighting in a spontaneous ceasefire, soldiers from opposing nations put their weapons aside to enjoy carols and a game of soccer together. Our Picture Shows British officers from Northumberland Hussars meeting their German counterparts in no mans¿ land of the Bridoux-Rouge Banc Sector of the Western Front during the Christmas truce of 1914. (Photo by Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
Mirrorpix via Getty Images
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