World War 1 Centenaries

[Landlubber]

We can use this thread to mark the centenaries of events as they come up.  Discussion is welcome, as is explanation of events from your point of view/understanding.  Again, aiming to set this up as a discussion and learning tool.  We can mark the dates of the big battles and events, to be sure, but if there's some little obscure thing you want to throw in here, by all means do so.  So much of WW1 is focused on the trench warfare of the Western Front, and to a lesser extent the Russian/German/Ottoman conflict on the Eastern Front, that people forget this truly was a "world war" (as Ruckdog's post about that Kickstarter project shows).  There was fighting in Africa, and there was even some conflict (to what degree I'm not sure) in the Pacific.

We obviously have a big event coming up tomorrow...so feel free to post away!

[Landlubber]

And so it begins. 

On this date in 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on a bridge in Sarajevo.  I don't profess to know very much about either individual, but what I do know is intriguing.  After learning of Ferdinand's death, his uncle is rumored to have shrugged and said "These things happen."  Princip would wind up in prison on a 30-year sentence for the murder of the Archduke; ironically, he would die of tuberculosis in prison before the armistice was signed in 1918.

Maybe it's the historical nerd in me, but I'm excited to have a good excuse to delve into WW1 over the next few years.

[MadDrB]

Cool, keep posting.

An old wargaming friend and I are gearing up to play an epic game of Paths of Glory by mail.  It probably won't take us the equivalent number of years, but playing by post may drag it out many, many months, at least.

[Landlubber]

Cool, keep posting.

An old wargaming friend and I are gearing up to play an epic game of Paths of Glory by mail.  It probably won't take us the equivalent number of years, but playing by post may drag it out many, many months, at least.

Thanks MadDrB!  Afraid I'm not familiar with Paths of Glory.  But playing anything by snail mail these days is serious old-school.

For any of you who use Twitter (I do, long story) and are interested in WW1, I suggest you start following @WW1now.  Not sure who the poster is, but they are tweeting events as they happened 100 years ago to the day.  Pretty interesting stuff; they posted a pic of the NYT's front page from 29 June 1914 on 29 June 2014, which featured a story on the assassination.  If nothing else, it challenges me to look stuff up as it occurs.

[Landlubber]

On this date in 1914, Austria-Hungary delivered their ultimatum to the government of Serbia in the wake of Ferdinand's assassination. From what I've read, the mere delivery of the ultimatum took several European governments by surprise--it had been nearly a month since Ferdinand was shot. The ultimatum was written in such a way that Serbia would not be able to accede to the demands layed out by Austria.
 
Thus, the dominos have been set up to fall, leading towards war.
 
You can read the full text of the letter on this site (it is an interesting read).
 

[Landlubber]

Trying my hardest to keep this thread moving and relevant...the July/August period was a very busy time in 1914!

So, on this date (4 Aug), Germany declared war on and invaded Belgium.  England then declared war on Germany--the kicker was the German violation of Belgium's neutrality.  This act basically galvanized the French, English, and (of course) the Belgians against Germany.  From what little I know on the topic, the Germans tried their hardest to goad the French into entering Belgium first, thereby giving Germany the moral high ground.  The French president, however, ordered his troops to withdraw 10 kilometers from the Belgian border, so that there would be no question as to who first violated Belgian neutrality.  The Germans had even fabricated stories of French patrols crossing the border into Germany, and of French aircraft dropping bombs on German soil--all of which was untrue.

Some years later, according to a passage in Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, the Crown Prince of (I believe) Germany referred to 4 August as "the day when we Germans lost the first great battle in the eyes of the world."

Tomorrow, 5 August, marks the Battle of Liege in Belgium, the first true battle of the First World War.  The Germans hoped and expected the Belgian military to roll over, as they were woefully outnumbered; but, they fought.

Prophetically,  Helmuth von Moltke--the German chief of staff--wrote to Conrad von H

[Landlubber]

So we are now at the anniversary of the First Battle of the Marne, which would take place over the next several days in France.

This battle marked the end of major movement in the war on the Western Front.  The French, along with the British, were finally able to stop the advance of the German right wing as it descended on Paris from the north and northeast.  While it was a victory for the Allies, the outcome of the battle would be the entrenched--literally--stalemate that would last the next four years and cost millions of lives.

In losing the battle, the Germans lost the momentum needed to fulfill the Schlieffen Plan--to knock France out of the war quickly, so Germany could focus on Russia.

A good write-up of the battle can be found here:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/marne1.htm

 

[Landlubber]

Just learned this little fact thanks to Twitter: on 18 October 1914, the first successful attack by a submarine against another submarine occurred. The German submarine U-27 torpedoed the British submarine E-3 in the North Sea, after tracking her for two hours.  A brief write-up can be found at the link below, and there is a little more detail in the Wikipedia page:

http://www.harwichanddovercourt.co.uk/submarines-ww1/

[hammurabi70]

We can use this thread to mark the centenaries of events as they come up.  Discussion is welcome, as is explanation of events from your point of view/understanding.  Again, aiming to set this up as a discussion and learning tool.  We can mark the dates of the big battles and events, to be sure, but if there's some little obscure thing you want to throw in here, by all means do so.  So much of WW1 is focused on the trench warfare of the Western Front, and to a lesser extent the Russian/German/Ottoman conflict on the Eastern Front, that people forget this truly was a "world war" (as Ruckdog's post about that Kickstarter project shows).  There was fighting in Africa, and there was even some conflict (to what degree I'm not sure) in the Pacific.

We obviously have a big event coming up tomorrow...so feel free to post away!

Great idea!!  So who has done some Centenary battles and how did they go?