War of movement
The illusion of a short war: frontiers battles, the Marne, the Race to the Sea, Tannenberg.
The July Crisis is one of the most studied fortnights in diplomatic history: mobilisation timetables, the blank cheque, and Britain's Belgian guarantee.
Once the Marne failed to end the war, 1915-17 became a laboratory of attrition that societies had not budgeted for.
Timeline
- Sarajevo
Franz Ferdinand assassinated on 28 June. The July Crisis ends with general war in early August.
- Marne
Allied counterstroke on the Marne stops the German advance on Paris; the front begins to ossify.
- Gallipoli and gas
Allied landings at Gallipoli fail by January 1916. Chlorine is used at Ypres in April. The Armenian genocide unfolds in the Ottoman Empire.
- Verdun and the Somme
German attack on Verdun (February); Somme offensive from 1 July, with first tank use in September. Casualties in the hundreds of thousands on each battle.
- US declaration
The United States declares war on Germany on 6 April after unrestricted U-boat warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram.
- Bolshevik Revolution
Russia's second 1917 revolution leads toward Brest-Litovsk and the exit of a great eastern ally.
- German spring offensives
Ludendorff's offensives gain ground but not decision; US numbers and Allied coordination under Foch tell in the summer.
- Breaking the Hindenburg Line
Allied Hundred Days offensives, including Australian, Canadian and US corps, force a German request for armistice.
- Armistice
Fighting in France stops at 11:00 on 11 November. Kaiser Wilhelm II has abdicated; Germany is a new republic.
- Versailles signed
German delegation signs on 28 June 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors -- five years to the day after Sarajevo.
Eras
Fortress war
Gas, Gallipoli, Verdun, the Somme -- industrial attrition becomes the Western method.
Crisis and entry
Mutinies, revolution in Russia, unrestricted U-boats, US entry, Passchendaele.
Decision
German spring offensives, then Allied Hundred Days and collapse of the Central Powers.
Peacemaking and aftershocks
Paris treaties, League, Turkish War of Independence, Russo-Polish War -- violence did not clock off in November.
Milestones
Mass conscription
European states learned to feed millions of men into a years-long war -- the template for 1939.
Memorial culture
Unknown soldiers, cenotaphs and 11 November created the modern public language of mourning.
Imperial shatter
Four empires gone; new nation-states and mandates redrew Eurasia.
The armistice clock -- the eleventh hour -- is ritual. The wars of succession in Russia, Anatolia and Ireland were already running.
Article 231 and the "war guilt" phrase did more political damage than many territorial clauses.