Timeline World War I

Year
1914

Important Events
June 28Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
assassinated
July 28Austro-Hungarians declare war on Serbia and
invade
Dec. 25Christmas Truce

1915

April 22Germans use chlorine gas on Allied troops

(against Hague Convention)
April 24Beginning of Armenian Genocide
May 7Lusitania torpedoed

1916

Feb.-Dec.Battle of Verdun (symbolic for French selfsacrifice)

July-Nov.Battle of the Somme (nearly 20,000 British dead
on the first day alone)

1917

April 6U.S. declares war on Germany, draft

July-NovemberBritish attack on Passchendaele
Oct. 25October Uprising as part of Bolshevik Revolution

1918

August 8Beginning of the Hundred Days Offensive

Nov. 11Germany signs armistice

1919 and
beyond

Peace Treaty of Versailles ratified by Germany and U.K.

U.S. rejects treaty, refuses to join League of Nations
Weimar Republic in Germany
Treaty of Sevres ends Eastern Front

Casualties
Military Dead: Allied
Powers 5,525,000; Central
Powers 4,386,000
Military Wounded: Allied
12,890,000; Central 8,388,000
Military Missing: 7,700,000

Timeline World War I

Symbols
and
Motifs

Sunrise and Sunset

Transition
Light v. Dark
Impossibility of pure
good or evil
Animals
Scavengers
Pests
Man v. Animals
Man v. the Beast inside
Continuation of the
natural world

Concerns

Proximity
Nearness of the war to
home
The contrast between the
Front and the home front
Unending War
The possibility of an
endless conflict
Conflict as the norm
for this age

Themes

Major
Hallmarks

Inadequacy of language
Silence
Need to speak
Adversary as evil v.
adversary as similar
Question of memory
Technology and killing

Irony
Juxtaposition of physical
details of war with
nature

Timeline World War I

Proximity of trenches to
home

Adapted in part from:

Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. Oxford, Oxford UP, 1975.