1914-1918
Chronology of World War I
World War I: originally, Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) against the Entente powers or Allies (France, Russia, and Great Britain)
1914
28 June: archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to Habsburg throne, is assassinated in Sarajevo by the Serb nationalist terrorist Gavrilo Prinkip.
23 July: Austrian ultimatum demands police jurisdiction in Serbia to pursue terrorists, which Serbia rejects.
28 July: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. Germany declares war on France on August 3 and France and England declare war on Germany
on August 4, when Belgium was already under invasion. A chain of war declarations followed: Austria-Hungary on Russia (August 5); Serbia on Germany (August 6); tiny Montenegro on Austria-Hungary (August 7); France on Austria-Hungary (August 10); Britain on Austria-Hungary (August 12); Japan on Germany (August 23); Austria-Hungary on Japan (August 25) and on Belgium (August 28).
August-September: The Germans had a blueprint for victory in the Schlieffen plan, which called for a quick traverse of Belgium and on to Paris. The plan almost succeeded but cool Gen. J.S. Gallieni, a veteran of colonialist wars, and Gen. Joseph Joffre observed an opening in the German advancing front, which they attacked during the battle of the Marne and drove the Germans back. France and Great Britain manned the line of trenches from Switzerland to the English channel. Remnants of the defeated Belgian army anchored the tip of the allied lines on the English channel. Japan entered on the Allied side to pocket German colonial possessions in the Pacific ocean and its Chinese concession in southern Manchuria.
August 1914-February 1915: In the eastern front, the Russians heavily outnumbered the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians—a convenient if misleading label, for Czech and members of other nationalities were also recruited—and invaded east Prussia and Galicia. The Russian offensive in Galicia threw the Austro-Hungarians off balance, but in East Prussia the brilliant duo of Gen. Paul von Hindenburg and Gen. Erich Ludendorff checkmated the Russians. The military ace of the two was Ludendorff, but he was a commoner and von Hindenburg was a Junker and naturally took precedence. Russian Gen. P. K. Rennenkampf led a Russian attack towards Koenigsberg and Gen. A.V. Samsonov invaded East Prussia from the south in the region of the Masurian Lakes. The Russian armies were badly equipped—in all they had less than 700 motorized vehicles—but their numbers were overwhelming. The Germans had discovered that Rennenkampf and Samsonov did not see eye to eye and that their operations were not coordinated. The German plan was to concentrate forces against Samsonov counting on Rennenkampf's dallying around Koenigsberg. This strategy succeeded magnificently. Samsonov's army was so thoroughly defeated that its commandant committed suicide. Then the Germans turned on Rennenkampf and forced him to evacuate Prussia. Russian losses in men and materiel were enormous. The Russian advance in Galicia towards Silesia was halted. The Russian debacle did benefit the western allies for the Germans diverted some divisions from their operations in France to hold back the Russian human tide. The war becomes a stalemate.
September: An U-boat sinks three British cruisers in one day.
October: The German warship Goeben bombards Odessa. Enver Pasha lines up his country with the Central Powers. Russia, France, and Britain declare war on the Ottoman Empire.
October-November: British offensive around Ypres.
November: The British take Basra.
November-December: The Serbs lose and recapture Belgrade.
1915
The blockade of Germany is effective.
January: In the battle of Champagne the French suffer 50,000 casualties.
April 1915-January 1916: Gallipoli campaign in Turkey produces 214,000 Allied casualties.
April: In the battle of St Mihiel there are 64,000 French casualties. Chlorine gas is used by the Germans at Ypres.
May: Italy joins Allies and declares war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. During the battle of the Isonzo (to 1916) the Italians suffer 500,000 casualties. French casualties in the battle of Arras are 102,000. The British liner Lusitania is sunk.
June: Armenian deportations in Anatolia leave a toll of victims as high perhaps as 600,000. The British use chlorine at Loos during Champagne offensive. German Gen. August von Mackensen directs an offensive from Gorlice against the Russian front at Przemysl. The Germans overrun Poland (750,000 Russian prisoners). The front is precariouly stabilized along a Riga to Czernowitz line.
October: The French land in Salonika. The Serbs had held their lines against Austria, but Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers and with German aid overran Serbia and Montenegro.
1916
January to August: Gen. Nikolai Yudenich takes Erzurun and Trabzond in Anatolia.
February to July: Battle of Verdun: Germans take Douamont; French Gen. Philippe Pétain distinguishes himself in the defense of Verdun.
March: Portugal enters war on the Allies' side.
April: The Turks defeat the British at al Kut, south east of Baghdad.
June: The battle of Jutland is indecisive but the German fleet is moored. During Russian Gen. Alexei Brusilov's offensive to Bukovina and Czernowitz, 200,000 Austrians are made prisoners but the Russians have a million losses.
July to October: British attack along the Somme to relieve Verdun (420,000 British, 195,000 French, 350,000 German casualties).
August: Romania enter war against the Central Powers.
December: Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn takes Bucharest; 300 more miles of Russian front.
1917
All-out submarine warfare, advocated by German Gens. Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, becomes effective.
January: 181 ships sunk; February, 259; March, 325; April, 430 (852,000 gross tonnage)
March: The Turks contain the British in Gaza. The Germans send the Zimmermann telegram to Mexican president Venustiano Carranza urging Mexico to declare war on the USA. The British take Baghdad.
April 6: USA declares war on the Central Powers. Another Allied Champagne campaign is under way. British use poison gas in Arras. French Gen. Robert Nivelle attacks the Hindenburg line; Germans decimate French massed assaults.
May: First convoys at sea are organized. Mutinies flare in French ranks.
June: King Constantine of Greece is forced to name pro-Allies Eleutherios Venizelos prime minister; Greece declares war on Central Powers.
July: T.E. Lawrence and the Hashemites capture Aqaba from the Ottomans. The muddy battle of Ypres lasts to November (325,000 British casualties).
August: China declares war on Germany.
October: The Italians are routed at the battle of Kubarit (Caporetto; a village in Slovenia). The Bolsheviks take power in Russia.
October to December: Gen. Edmund Allenby takes Jaffa and Jerusalem.
November: The British use tanks in Cambrai. The Italian front is stabilized along the Piave river. The October Revolution (November in the old calendar) practically takes Russia out of the war.
1917-1918
From November 1917 to March 1918: Germans move 600,000 men to western front (from 146 to 192 divisions).
1918
March-September: The American force in Europe grows from 85,000 to 1,200,000 in September.
March: Second Battle of the Somme or St. Quentin: German drive to Amiens; the brunt is on the British, who suffer 330,000 casualties.
April: French Marshal Ferdinand Foch is named commander of Allied forces. French reinforcements are sent to the Somme front. The Germans make a bulge in the Allied line.
May: By the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia signs a separate peace with Germany and end its participation in the war. German drive to Reims contained.
July: Second battle of the Marne forms the Champagne bulge, which the Allies counter-attack.
August: The Germans are driven back to Rheims-Soissons line. The British launch an offensive in the Amiens front.
September: The Americans are present in the St. Mihiel front. The Bulgarian front becomes active with attacks by French, British, Greek, and Serbian forces. Bulgaria capitulates (29).
October: Ludendorff is forced to resign (26) and Prince Maximilian of Baden takes reins of power in Germany. British offensive from Damascus to Aleppo. The British pierce the Hindenburg line. The British take Mosul. The Italians attack in Vittorio Veneto and the Austrians retreat. Sailors mutiny in Kiel, Hamburg, and Bremen. The Porte capitulates (30).
November: Austria signs armistice with Allies. Socialists take power in Bavaria. Germany asks for terms (8). Maximilian announces kaiser William's abdication (9); he hands power to the Social Democrats. Germany capitulates (11). Catholic Center politician Matthias Erzberger accepts terms. William takes refuge in Netherlands, where he abdicates (28). German republic proclaimed in Weimar, although Berlin remains the German capital.
Immediate Post-War (1919-1920)
Paris Peace Conference
Treaty of Versailles about Germany (28 June)
Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye about Austria (10 September)
Treaty of Neuilly about Bulgaria (27 November)
Treaty of Trianon about Hungary (4 June 1920)
Treaty of Sèvres about the Ottoman Empire (August 20; modified at Lausanne on 24 July 1923)
Reparations were imposed on Germany and the League of Nations was created. France recovered Alsace and Lorraine. Poland was generously restored, including a corridor to the port of Danzig. Poland claimed the 1772 eastern border and it warred with Soviet Russia. Austria-Hungary was dissolved into Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, with chunks going to Italy, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Hungary was much reduced, especially from the loss of Transylvania to Romania. Albania retained its independence. Bulgaria lost bits of land all around, especially the outlet to the Aegean. It had the basic configuration it has today.
1914
The Panamá canal is opened.
1914-1927
The British physicist and astronomer A. Eddington discovered the similarity between the Milky Way and other galaxies and explored the physical properties of stars.
1915
A.L. Wegener posits continental drift and plate tectonics in his book The origin of continents and oceans.
Voice is transmitted by radio across the Atlantic.
1915-1916
Einstein argues that gravity affects light and time. Since gravity is a form of energy and energy is defined by mass and velocity, then gravity is like matter. A gravity mass can slow down a clock. That gravity could act on light was the same as matter acting on matter. Einstein elaborated "gravitational field equations" which contemplated gravitational situations in the context of relativity postulates. Einstein assumed that gravity travels at the speed of light (which scientists in 2003 claimed to have demonstrated). Basically, Einstein conceived space-time variations whereas Newton had thought in terms of so-called absolute time and absolute space. In Einstein's theory, energy creates space. Gravity is energetic, but since energy varies the shape of space is indeterminate. In 1916, Einstein synthesized all his speculations and theories from 1905 to 1915 in a paper outlining the general theory of relativity. In it he gave a quantum expression of light. He made two predictions: that his theory would explain an irregularity in the orbit of Mercury and that the gravity of the sun could bend light. Both were confirmed, the solar prediction from the observation, made possible by eclipses, of a red-shift in the light spectrum from certain stars. Relativity basically means either or both of two things: that physical knowledge is not absolute and self-standing but relational and that the results of non-gravitational physics are counter-intuitive, i.e., they do not seem to obey the evidence of the senses or unsophisticated logical deductions.
1915-1926
Thomas Hunt Morgan and his collaborators (A.H. Sturtevant, C.B. Bridges, and H.J. Muller) theorize the existence of the gene as the carrier of traits in chromosomes.
1916
Paul Langevin invents an ultrasonic undersea device.
Alan Gardiner discovers evidence of a proto-Aramaic alphabet.
1917
When Einstein was formulating relativity, evidence on the trend of the universe was unclear (it still is). Einstein opted for a static universe doomed to extinction from contraction through gravity, to counter which he invented out of whole cloth the so-called cosmological constant, a diffuse energy that counters gravitational implosion.
1917-1949
Russia/USSR: from the October Revolution to the Cold War
1918-1948
Czechoslovakia: from its formation to communization
1918-1945
Poland: from its reconstitution to communization
1918-1945
Yugoslavia: from the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes to communization
1918
A pandemia causes the death of 50 million world-wide. In 2005, the virus was reconstructed from corpses’ tissues and believed to be a form of “bird flu”.
1919
The German physicist A.J.W. Sommerfeld expounds theoretical spectroscopy.
British Capt. John Alcock and Lt. Albert Brown make the first Transatlantic flight in a Vickers Vimy.
1919-1944
League of Nations
1919-1945
R.H. Goddard wrote A method of reaching extreme altitudes. From 1930 to 1945 he conducted rocketry experiments in Roswell, New Mexico.
1920
M. Wolf explores the structure of Milky Way.
1920-1930
The German chemist H. Staudinger did the experimental work (polymers) that permitted the development of plastics. He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1953.
1921-1922
Excavation of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro reveal the Indus River Valley Civilization.
1921-1922
Washington Naval Conference: main naval power are assigned ratios of capital ships.
1923
Juan de la Cierva invents the autogiro, precursor of the helicopter.
The Saar, which was created in the Paris Peace Conference as part of German reparations after World War I, votes to rejoin Germany.
1923-1924
Theoretical postulates by Wien and experimental results demonstrated that energy flows were irregular. This suggested to Einstein that light was particle-like. In classical (pre-quantum) physics, light was considered to be an electromagnetic wave. Planck had theorized that energy flowed in quanta. The French physicist Louis de Broglie (duke of Broglie) applied wave mathematics to electrons, whose behavior was not well understood. Previously it had been thought that changes in atoms produced radiation. Atomic wave theory (as distinct from electromagnetic waves) gave an explanation of radiation without such changes. Broglie won the Nobel prize in 1929.
1923-1929
E.P. Hubble notices the Doppler effect or a shift in the red segment of the spectrum of light, which permits determining the direction of movement and velocity of objects in space. He concluded that the universe was expanding. But he believed wrongly that the Milky Way was larger than other galaxies.
1925
In order to convert the irregularities and discontinuities of quantum physics into a quantum mechanics (such as Newton's, which justified predictions), the German physicist Werner Heisenberg came up with the idea of applying matrixes to atomic behavior. Matrixes are complex combinations of numbers in square and rectangular orderings to which mathematical functions can be applied as if they were whole numbers. However, the results of matrix calculations are not unambiguous. In 1927, Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle which derived from the separation of position and momentum. In classical physics, a position entails its momentum. With the uncertainty principle, the calculation of momentum modifies a previously calculated position. Hence, such calculations depend on the ability of the physicist. Einstein parted ways with quantum theories such as Heisenberg's. The uncertainty principle and the other ambiguities that plagued quantum theory did not interfere with the practical uses to which atomic structure and its characteristics (particle physics) were put.
In 1932, Heisenberg won the Nobel prize. He spent World War II in Germany. Scientists had not been sharing results of research into atomic physics since before the war. Heisenberg visited Bohr in occupied Denmark and Bohr got the impression that Heisenberg might have been trying to pump him for information. In 1943, Bohr (whose mother was Jewish) and his family were clandestinely transported to Sweden, where an unarmed Mosquito bomber took the scientist to Britain. Heisenberg always claimed that he was anti-Nazi. Next to the Holocaust, the devastation of theoretical physics was the worst damage inflicted by Hitler and Nazism on German culture. After Heisenberg's Nobel prize, it was only in 1961 that another German working in Germany, Rudolf. L. Mossbauer, would be awarded the prize in physics.
The Scots J.L. Baird achieved the first recognizable television images.
Excavation of Nuzi, a Mitanni provincial capital in northeastern Iraq, yields Hurrian tablets.
At Locarno, Switzerland, the western powers agreed to respect the borders defined during the Paris Peace Conference. All the parties (Belgium, Britain, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland) expressed their commitment to arbitration for the resolution of international disputes. Germany obtained guarantees of sovereignty over the Rhineland. The USSR suspected that the Locarno treaties constituted a capitalist conspiracy against it.
1925-1932
The Austrian-American physicist W. Pauli enunciated the exclusion principle according to which electrons could never occupy the same quantum space, for which he won the Noble prize in 1945. He proposed the existence of the neutrino, an uncharged, nearly inert particle first observed in 1956.
1926
The German physicist Erwin Schrödinger used Broglie's wave hypothesis to try elaborate the mechanics of electrons. His idea was that atomic wave theory should be to nuclear physics what Newton's mechanics was to planets. However, since waves are oscillations, the information that can obtained from them is probabilistic. Schrödinger won the Nobel prize in 1933. By then, though he was not Jewish, he was disgusted with Nazi Germany and he moved to Ireland where its prime minister, Eamon de Valera, who had been a mathematician himself, made research facilities available for him.
Max Born, Heisenberg's teacher, attempted to reconcile the mathematical theories on the behavior of electrons of Heisenberg and of Schrödinger. Born obtained the Nobel prize for physics in 1954.
1927
The Belgian priest and astrophysicist Georges Lemaître proposes the origins of the expanding universe in a singular burst of energy later called Big Bang. His work was based on the observations of Hubble.
Charles Lindbergh flies solo from Long Island to Paris.
1928
Alexander Fleming discovers that a mold or slime kills pathogenic bacteria. Penicillin, however, was not produced in sufficient amounts to make a difference until Howard Florey, a British pathologist, harnessed American productive resources in 1941-1942. The Nobel prize for the development of penicillin was awarded in 1945 to Fleming, Florey, and another British scientist, Ernst Chain. A variety of the penicillium mold is used to make Camembert and Roquefort.
H. Geiger and W. Müller perfect the Geiger counter for measuring radioactivity.
The Indian physicist C.V. Raman observes the scattering of light molecules, for which he won the Nobel prize for physics in 1930. Raman settled in Bangalore in 1933 and it is in that city that India has turned into a software global powerhouse.
Kellogg-Briand pact (also known as Pact of Paris) outlaws war; signed by Germany and Japan.
1928-1930
The English physicist-mathematician P.A.M. Dirac elaborates four wave equations for electrons. This led to his idea that electrons rotate. In 1930, Dirac published The development of quantum theory. In 1933, Dirac shared the Nobel prize for physics with Schrödinger.
1929
J. Doolittle demonstrates instrumental flight. He went on to bomb Tokyo in World War II with a squadron of two-engine bombers that took off from carriers in the middle of the western Pacific ocean.
C.-F.-A. Armand excavates Ugarit. The Ugaritic cuneiform-based alphabet, which established the order of the modern alphabet, was deciphered by C. Virolleaud, H. Bauer, and E. Dhorme.
Wall Street crashes and the great capitalist world depression starts in the USA.
1929-1949
The convention on the treatment of prisoners of war was adopted in 1929, in Geneva. In 1949, four Geneva conventions were approved: (1) for the wounded and sick in time of land warfare; (2) extension of (1) to maritime warfare (first accorded in 1907); (3) on the treatment of prisoners of war; (4) on the protection of civilians in wartime. Between 1929 and 1949, all conventions were violated, especially by the Axis. The proliferation of insurgencies led to a protocol in 1977 extending the conventions to non-official armed groups or bodies with some claim to recognition. The 1949 conventions were generally accepted. The 1977 protocols were not recognized by the USA.
1930
P.J.W Debye observes molecular structures with x-rays.
Frank Whittle patents the design for the turbojet engine.
E.O. Lawrence designs the cyclotron (particle accelerator), essential for atomic fission. He won the Nobel prize in in 1939.
Discovery of Pluto
1931
J.G. Lansky notices radio interference from the Milky Way.
H.C. Urey discovers deuterium, which is needed in the production of "heavy water", essential for atomic fission.
1932
The Britons Ernest Walton and John Cockcroft, using high-energy protons, derive alpha particles from a lithium nucleus. In 1951, they received the Nobel prize for physics.
J. Chadwick discovers the neutron, whose manipulation became a requisite for nuclear fission.
C.D. Anderson discovers the positron.
1932-1958
Iraq: from independence to the overthrow of the monarchy
1933
Neanderthals are ruled out as ancestors of man.
1934-1935
The Scottish physicist R.W. Watson-Watts develops an early practical radar.
1935-1940
The Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann develops equations for depicting a theory-mouldable universe.
1937
Alan Turing expresses computational theory. |