Timeline - 1910 - 1919
Airplanes are interesting toys,
but of no military value.
Ferdinand
Foch
1910
1911
1912
1913
- Niels
Bohr formulated the first cohesive model
of the atomic nucleus, and in the process paved the way to quantum
mechanics.
- 16th January - The
British House of Commons accepted Home
Rule for Ireland (but it was not put into
effect due to the intervention of World War I).
- 4th March - Thomas
Woodrow Wilson became President of the
USA.
- 30th May - The
Treaty
of London was signed by the Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire
and the victorious Balkan League (Serbia, Greece, Kingdom of
Bulgaria, and Montenegro) bringing an end to the First Balkan War.
- 10th July - Romania
declared war on Bulgaria
- 10th August - The 2nd
Balkan War ended with the signing of the
Treaty of Bucharest, Bulgaria lost.
- 27th October - President
Thomas
Woodrow Wilson
said the US would never attack another country
1914
1915
- 31st January - 1st (German)
chemical warfare attack, against Russians. They used xylyl
bromide tear gas (known as T-Stoff).
- 18th February - Germany
began a blockade of Britain.
- 19th February -The Gallipoli
Campaign began, also known as the Battle
of Gallipoli or the Dardanelles Campaign was an unsuccessful
attempt by the Allied Powers to control the sea route from Europe
to Russia.
- 22nd February - Germany
began "unrestricted" submarine war
- 22nd April - The first
use of a lethal chemical warfare agent (chlorine) in
the modern era by the German Army at the Second
Battle of Ypres.
- 25th April - A
major land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula, involving
British and French troops as well as divisions of the Australian
and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).
- 7th May - A
German U-Boat torpedoed the British passenger liner Lusitania
off the Irish coast. She sank in 18 minutes, drowning 1,201
persons, including 128 Americans. President
Woodrow Wilson subsequently sent four
diplomatic protests to Germany.
- 3rd July - After
exploding a bomb in US Senate reception room the previous day, Erich
Muenter, a German instructor at Cornell University, shot J.P.
Morgan for representing the British
government in war contract negotiations
- 25th September - The Battle of
Loos started, it lasted until 14th October. Chlorine
gas deployed by the British was blown back into their own trenches
causing 59,000 British & 26,000 German casualties.
- 11th October - Despite
international protest, Edith
Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium, was executed by the
Germans on charges of aiding the escape of Allied prisoners
- 7th December - The
British government authorized the
evacuation from Gallipoli; the last troops
left Helles on 9th January, 1916. In all, some 480,000 Allied
forces took part in the Gallipoli Campaign, at a cost of more than
250,000 casualties, including some 46,000 dead. On the Turkish
side, the campaign also cost an estimated 250,000 casualties, with
65,000 killed.
- 28th December - The
British Cabinet recognised the true nature of the war by
introducing military conscription,
with single men to be called up before married ones
1916
1917
1918
- 27th January - Communists
attempted to seize power in Finland.
- 28th January - Leon
Trotsky became leader of the Russian
Communists.
- 16th February - The
Council of Lithuania declared the independence of the State of
Lithuania.
- 20th February - The
Soviet Red Army seized Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine.
- 3rd March - Germany and
Austria forced Soviet Russia to sign the Peace
of Brest, which called for the establishment of five
independent countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland
and Ukraine. The Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk, which ended Russian participation in World
War I, was annulled by the November 1918 armistice. The treaty
deprived the Soviets of White Russia.
- 5th March - The Soviets moved
the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.
- 7th March - Finland
signed an alliance treaty with Germany.
- 9th March - The
Russian Bolshevik Party became the Communist Party.
- 23rd March - Germany
became the first country to recognise the independence of
Lithuania. This was based on the
Lithuanian legislative act of Dec. 11, 1917.
- 25th March - Belarus
declared independence.
- 17th July - The Russian
Imperial Romanov family were assassinated,
- 30th August - Vladimir
Lenin, the new leader of Soviet Russia, was shot by Feiga Haimovna
Roytblat (aka Fanny Kaplan) and wounded
after a speech.
- 14th October - The
Czechoslovak National Council in Paris organized a provisional
government of Czechoslovakia with T.G.
Masaryk as president.
- 17th October - Yugoslavia
proclaimed itself a republic.
- 18th October -
Czechs seized Prague, renounced Hapsburg's rule and declared
independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. T.G.
Masaryk proclaimed the foundation of
Czechoslovakia from Pittsburgh, Pa.
- The
independence of Poland was recognised by the UK.
- 28th October - The
Czechoslovak National Congress in Prague proclaimed the
independence of Czechoslovakia.
- 29th - 31st October
- The
Kingdom of Greater Serbia was proclaimed at Sarajevo in Bosnia
bringing that state into what was later called Yugoslavia.
- 30th October - The
Slovak National Council acceded to the November 28 Prague
proclamation for the creation of the Czechoslovak state. Slovaks
joined the Czechs to form Czechoslovakia.
- 3rd November - The
Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved.
- 7th November - The
Yugoslav National Conference at Geneva decided on the union of
Croatia and Slovenia with Serbia and Montenegro.
- 11th November - At
ten minutes past five in the morning, German and Allied
negotiators placed the final signatures on the armistice that
would end World War I six hours later. After
the signing, French General
Ferdinand Foch sent all Allied commanders
the following message - "Hostilities will cease
on the entire [Western] front November 11 at 11 - 00
a.m.". Even as the hour approached,
9 of 16 commanders of US divisions on the Western Front ordered a
final assault that left an additional 11,000 casualties. The costs
of the First World War were astronomical with 7.5 million dead and
more than 35 million total casualties.
- 26th November - Montenegro
deposed King Nicholas who opposed union,
and voted to join the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
- 1st December - The
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later in 1929 to be
called Yugoslavia) was proclaimed by Crown Prince Alexander
Karadjordjevic.
- USSR
War with Poland started.
1919