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Follow the Great War from Sarajevo to the armistice that ended four empires.

Use the timeline below to navigate through major events and milestones.

World War I · 1914-1918
The Great War

The First World War

From the assassination at Sarajevo to the armistice in the Forest of Compiègne — four years of industrial war that toppled four empires, killed seventeen million people, and broke the long European peace of the nineteenth century. Slide across the years to read the major events that reshaped the modern world.

June 1914
Outbreak
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June 1914

Outbreak
  • Political

    Assassination at Sarajevo

    Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Sophie are shot dead in Sarajevo on 28 June by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist.

17 milestones
Full Chronicle

The First World War

From the assassination at Sarajevo to the armistice in the Forest of Compiègne — four years of industrial war that toppled four empires, killed seventeen million people, and broke the long European peace of the nineteenth century. Slide across the years to read the major events that reshaped the modern world.

  1. Outbreak

    • Assassination at Sarajevo

      Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Sophie are shot dead in Sarajevo on 28 June by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist.

  2. Outbreak

    • Europe goes to war

      Within a week the alliance system pulls in Russia, Germany, France, and Britain. Germany invades neutral Belgium on 4 August, triggering British entry into the war.

  3. Outbreak

    • First Battle of the Marne

      From 5-12 September French and British forces halt the German advance forty kilometres from Paris, ending hopes of a short war.

  4. Outbreak

    • Ottoman Empire enters the war

      On 29 October Ottoman warships, joined by two German cruisers, bombard Russian Black Sea ports, bringing the Sublime Porte into the war on the Central Powers' side.

  5. Stalemate & New Fronts

    • Second Battle of Ypres — first poison gas

      On 22 April the German army releases 168 tons of chlorine gas against French colonial troops at Ypres, opening the era of chemical warfare.

    • Gallipoli Campaign begins

      Anglo-French and ANZAC forces land on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April. After eight months of trench warfare and over 250,000 Allied casualties, the operation is abandoned.

    • Armenian Genocide begins

      On 24 April the Ottoman authorities arrest hundreds of Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople, opening a campaign of deportation and massacre that will kill some 1.5 million Armenians.

  6. Stalemate & New Fronts

    • Italy enters the war

      On 23 May Italy, lured by the secret Treaty of London promising Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, and Dalmatian gains, declares war on Austria-Hungary.

  7. Year of Attrition

    • Battle of Verdun begins

      On 21 February Falkenhayn launches Operation Gericht against the French fortress city. The ten-month battle that follows will produce more than 700,000 casualties.

  8. Year of Attrition

    • Easter Rising in Dublin

      Irish republicans seize the General Post Office and proclaim a republic on 24 April. The rising is crushed in six days; the execution of its leaders transforms Irish politics.

  9. Year of Attrition

    • Battle of Jutland

      On 31 May - 1 June the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet meet in the only full-scale clash of dreadnoughts in history.

  10. Year of Attrition

    • Battle of the Somme

      On 1 July the British Army suffers 57,470 casualties — 19,240 killed — in a single day, the bloodiest in its history. The offensive grinds on until November.

  11. Crisis & Revolution

    • Russian February Revolution

      Bread riots in Petrograd topple three hundred years of Romanov rule. On 15 March Tsar Nicholas II abdicates and a Provisional Government takes power.

  12. Crisis & Revolution

    • United States enters the war

      On 6 April Congress declares war on Germany following unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram.

  13. Crisis & Revolution

    • Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele)

      From 31 July to November British Empire forces fight through Flanders mud to capture Passchendaele ridge. Some 275,000 Allied and 220,000 German soldiers fall.

  14. Crisis & Revolution

    • Balfour Declaration

      On 2 November British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour pledges support for a 'national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine.

    • Russian October Revolution

      On 7 November (25 October old style) the Bolsheviks seize the Winter Palace and the Provisional Government. Lenin proclaims Soviet power and a Decree on Peace.

  15. Decision & Armistice

    • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

      On 3 March Soviet Russia signs a harsh peace with the Central Powers, ceding Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, Finland, and the Caucasus.

    • German Spring Offensive

      On 21 March Ludendorff launches Operation Michael, the largest German offensive since 1914, hoping to win the war before American forces arrive in strength.

  16. Decision & Armistice

    • Spanish Flu — the deadly second wave

      An H1N1 influenza pandemic peaks in October 1918, killing more people in a few weeks than any plague since the Black Death. Total deaths through 1919 are estimated at 50 million worldwide.

  17. Decision & Armistice

    • Armistice of Compiègne

      At 11.00 on 11 November in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne, the German delegation signs the armistice that ends fighting on the Western Front.