Julie Knutson - World War I: The Great War to End All Wars

18701871: A unified Germany emerges after the Franco-Prussian War.
1907: The second Hague Convention seeks to establish rules for modern warfare.
October 6, 1908: Austria-Hungary annexes the former Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
19121913: The Balkan Wars lead to major territorial losses for the Ottoman Empire. The stage is set for continued conflict over borders in the region.

Early 1914: Labor unrest grips much of Europe. In Russia, more than 1,450,000 workers strike in the first part of the year.
June 28, 1914: Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, are assassinated by Serbian nationalists in Sarajevo.
July 23, 1914: Austria-Hungary issues an ultimatum to Serbia, giving it 48 hours to agree to the terms.
July 28, 1914: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. Existing alliances lead Germany to join Austria-Hungary to form the Central Powers. Russia and France back Serbia in the conflict, forming the Allied Powers. Europe is engulfed in war.
August 4, 1914: Germany invades neutral Belgium, drawing England into the war.

August 2630, 1914: On the Eastern Front, Germany crushes Russia at Tannenberg, in East Prussia.
September 59, 1914: The Allies halt the advance of German troops on Paris, France, at the First Battle of the Marne.
October 28, 1914: The Ottoman Empire officially enters the war on the side of the Central Powers with attacks on Russian ports in the Black Sea.

December 25, 1914: At various points on both sides of the Western Front, soldiers lay down their arms in observance of a Christmas truce.
March 1915: The Ottoman government begins mass deportations of its Armenian minority population.
April 22, 1915: Poison gas is used as a weapon for the first time at the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium.

April 25, 1915: The Allied forces begin the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign in Turkey.
May 7, 1915: German U-boats torpedo the passenger liner RMS Lusitania.
May 31, 1916: Germany and Great Britain face off on the high seas in the Battle of Jutland, the major naval battle of the war.
September 15, 1916: Tanks debut on the battlefield at Somme, France.

January 22, 1917: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson argues for Peace without victory.
February 1, 1917: Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare.
March 1, 1917: The Zimmermann telegram is released to the American public.
March 8, 1917: A series of protests and strikes rock Petrograd, Russia, sparking the Russian Revolution.

March 15, 1917: Tsar Nicholas II abdicates the throne in Russia. Power falls into the hands of a provisional government.
April 6, 1917: The United States declares war on Germany.
November 7, 1917: The Bolsheviks, a group led by Vladimir Lenin, seizes control in Russia.
March 3, 1918: Russia and Germany sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending combat on the Eastern Front.
November 11, 1918: Germany signs the armistice agreement. The ceasefire goes into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

19181919: More than 500 million people around the world are affected by an influenza pandemic.
January 4, 1919: The Paris Peace Conference begins, with representatives from 27 nations. Germany and Russia are not in attendance.
June 28, 1919: The Treaty of Versailles is signed by representatives from Germany and the Allies.
November 19, 1919: The U.S. Congress rejects the Treaty of Versailles.