PARALLEL RECORD OF WAR EVENTS WITHIN THE LEADING COUNTRIES INVOLVED DURING 1914-1918

1917

United States
Great Britain
WESTERN FRONT
Belgium-France
Germany
AUSTRO-ITALIAN FRONT
Austria-Hungary-Italy
Balkans-Turkey
Russia
Naval Warfare
German Colonies
January

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Jan. 9. Allies state specific terms at request of President Wilson; reparation, restitution and adequate security for the future the keynote.

Jan. 22. Wilson tells Senate peace without victory necessary if United States enters league to enforce peace. 

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Jan. 29. Crown Prince delivers heavy blow at Verdun, capturing French positions at Hill 304; later recovers lost ground. 

    Jan.5. Teutonic forces capture Braila, Ronmania, important oil and grain center.

Jan. 7. Focsani taken by Austro-German invaders of Roumania.

Jan. 9. Greek king yields to Entente's demands. 

   
February

Feb. 3. Wilson severs relations with Germany; Lansing demands release of seventy-two American sailors on British steamer Yarrowdale, captured by German raider.

Federal officers seize German steamship Kronprinzessin Cecilie at East Boston.

Feb. 10. Replies from various capitals show neutrals decline to accept Wilson's invitation to break with Germany.

Feb. 26. President asks Congress for authority to use armed forces to protect American rights and shipping. 

    Feb. 1. Germany declares U-boat blockade of Great Britain in note to United States; warns neutrals that all ships entering zone will be sunk without warning.

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Feb. 28. Germany holds American consuls as hostages pending safe departure of Ambassador Bernstorff. 

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Feb. 26. British recapture Kut-el-Amara. 

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Feb. 3. American steamer Housatonic sunk by U-boat near Scilly Islands.

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Feb. 10. British passenger steamer California sunk without warning; forty-six drowned; one hundred and sixty survivors.

Feb. 26. Cunard liner Laconia torpedoed and sunk by German submarine, three American citizens being killed.

March

March 1. Washington reveals plot of Germany to induce Mexico and Japan to invade United States.

March 7. President decides to arm ships despite Congress' refusal to approve it.

March 12. Wilson notifies nations armed guard will protect American ships. 

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March 17. British capture Bapaume, France. 

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March 3. German Foreign Secretary Zimmermann admits Mexican-Japanese plot. 

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March 6. Austria, in reply to the United States, stands by U-boat ruthless warfare. 

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March 12. British capture Bagdad, Mesopotamia, from Turks.

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March 29. British defeat twenty thousand Turks in Palestine. 

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March 14. Russian revolution announced by Petrograd. 

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March 14. American steamer Algonquin torpedoed without warning.

March 31. More Americans killed on two British ships, Crispin and Snowdon Range, torpedoed by U-boats.

April

April 2. Wilson asks Congress to declare state of war exists with Germany; he calls for five hundred thousand men and most liberal credit for Entente allies.

April 4. Senate votes for war by eighty-two to six.

April 6. House of Representatives passes war resolution by three hundred and seventy-three to fifty.

Wilson signs declaration of war.

Seizure of German ships in American ports begun.

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April 21. British commissioner under Foreign Secretary Balfour arrives in America safely.

April 24. French envoys land.

President Wilson signs seven billion dollar war bond bill.

Two hundred million dollar loan made to Great Britain.

April 25. Marshal Joffre arrives in Washington. 

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April 9. British break German lines between Lens and Arras, the Canadian troops capturing famous Vimy Ridge. 

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April 9. Austria severs relations with United States. 

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April 20. British shatter Turkish forces seventy miles north of Bagdad. 

   
May

May 4. House by vote of two hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty-seven kills censorship clause in espionage bill.

May 5. Balfour addresses joint session of Congress.

May 8. Federal Shipping Board plans one billion-dollar appropriation for building wooden ships to foil submarines.

May 11. American commission to Russia named by Wilson; Elihu Root, chairman.

May 14. Ameriean Liberty Loan of two billion dollars launched.

May 15. War, Army and Navy Bill reported by Appropriations Committee totals $3,390,946,000, largest in history of nation.

May 18. President signs draft bill calling up all men between twenty-one and thirty-one, inclusive. 

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May 11. British smash so-called Hindenburg line from Arras to Bullecourt.

May 14. Gen. Petain appointed commander of all French forces. 

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May 14. Italians launch new offensive against Austrians, taking three thousand three hundred and seventy-five prisoners.

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May 24. Italians continue drive toward Trieste, taking upwards of nine thousand Austrian prisoners. 

May 2. Russians evacuate Mush, Turkish Armenia. .

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May 18. Russian Joint cabinet formed; M. Lvoff premier. 

May 2. American steamer Rockingham sunk by U-boat.
June

June 1. Wilson sends message to Russia outlining American aims in war.

June 4. Root commission reaches Russian soil. 

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June 8. Major General Pershing, American commander, reaches England.

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June 26. American aviation corps arrives in England. 

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June 6. British destroy ten out of sixteen German airplanes attacking eastern counties.

British capture Messines-Wytschaete salient; one million pounds of explosives used in greatest mining operation in history.

June 13. Pershing arrives in Paris.

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June 27. American expeditionary contingent reaches France.

July 30. French and British smash German lines over twenty-mile rent in Flanders. 

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June 16. Italians renew offensive, capturing Como Cavento, fortified Austrian position in eastern Trentino. 

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June 13. King Constantine of Greece abdicates throne under pressure from the Allies. 

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June 19. Root commission reaches Petrograd. 

 
July

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July 9. President Wilson signs embargo on exports.

July 10. President Wilson calls National Guard into Federal service.

July 13. Washington formally issues first draft call for six hundred and eighty-seven thousand men.

July 20. National draft made; nearly ten million men listed. 

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July 17. Von Bethmann-Hollweg, German chancellor resigns; Kaiser accepts.

July 20. Dr. Michaelis, new German chancellor, intimates readiness to talk peace if Entente allies ask. 

July 2. Russians capture Koniuchy, Galicia, in Galician drive; also eight thousand Austro-Germans.

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July 25. Austro-Germans recapture Stanislau, Tarnopol and Nadvorna, Galicia: Russians continue retreat. 

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July 7. Russians launch offensive in Pinsk region.

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July 12. Russians capture Kalusz, Austrian headquarters. 

 
August

Aug. 3. Government takes over all merchant ships over twenty-five hundred tons building in United States.

Aug. 10. President Wilson signs food control bill.

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Aug. 29. Wilson replies to Pope, declining proposal and declaring no terms can be with existing German government alone. 

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Aug. 13. Greece definitely at war with Central Powers, British Minister, Bonar Law, announces. 

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Aug. 19. French assault at Verdun recovers remainder of chief positions. 

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Aug. 6. Important changes made in German cabinet; Kuehlmann succeeds Zimmermann as Foreign Secretary. 

Aug. 2. Russians begin general retreat in Galicia, caused by treachery of disloyal regiments.

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Aug. 14. Pope proposes peace virtually on "status quo ante" basis.

Aug. 21. Italians renew drive toward Trieste.

Aug. 27. Italians increase gains north of Gorizia. 

     
September Sept. 3. German aircraft raid English coast towns, including Chatham, naval center; one hundred and eight British seamen killed in barracks. .

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Sept. 16. M. Painleve forms new French war cabinet.

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Sept. 27. British repel four furious Teuton attacks in Ypres sector. 

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Sept. 12. Kerensky assumes command of all Russian armies in effort to crush Korniloff revolt.

Sept. 16. Kerensky declares Russia a republic.

Sept. 22. Germans capture Jacobstadt, northern end of Russian line. 

 
October

Oct. 1. Second Liberty Loan, three billion dollars, begun.

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Oct. 15. The first damage to an American war vessel is reported; a destroyer is torpedoed by a German submarine but makes port, one of the crew being killed and five wounded. 

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Oct. 1. German airplanes again attack London, ten persons being killed, thirty-eight injured. 

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Oct. 4. British drive wedge in German line in Flanders mile or more deep over nine-mile front.

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Oct. 25. French attack northeast of Soissons and make advance of one and a half miles; the number of prisoners take in three days exceeds twelve thousand. 

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Oct. 9. Chancellor Michaelis informs the German Reichstag that peace is impossible so long as Germany's enemies demand territory or seek to drive a wedge between the German people and their Emperor.

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Oct. 30. Count George F. von Hertling, Prime Minister of Bavaria, becomes Imperial German Chancellor, succeeding Dr. Michaelis, who had held office less than four months. 

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Oct. 24. Austro-German army begins a drive against the Italian positions on the Bainsizza Plateau.

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Oct. 26 - Austro-German offensive against Italians causes the Italians to withdraw over a wide front, abandoning positions that had been gained only after many months of difficult operations.

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Oct. 27. German report of the Italian retreat declares sixty-five thousand prisoners and five hundred guns captured

Oct. 28. Austro-German armies occupy Gorizia, a strategically important point held by the Italians since the summer of 1916. 

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Oct. 31. British forces from Egypt under Gen. Albany attack and occupy Beersheba, in Palestine. 

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Oct. 4. Premier Kerensky forms a coalition cabinet in Russia, ignoring the express desire of the Democratic Congress, in session at Petrograd, to participate in reorganization of authority.

Oct. 10. New coalition ministry in Russia, headed by Premier Kerensky, assumes control of affairs.

Oct. 12. German troops landed on Oesel and Dago Islands, at the entrance to the Gulf of Riga.

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Oct. 19. The Russian government announces that removal of the capital from Petrograd to Moscow has begun. 

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Oct. 4. British Admiralty announces the cruiser Drake, fourteen hundred tons, torpedoed off the north coast of Ireland.

The German raider Seeadler runs aground on Mopeha Island, South Pacific, on Aug. 2, and is abandoned by her crew.

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Oct. 17. American transport Antilles, homeward bound under convoy, torpedoed by an unobserved submarine, sinking in five minutes; seventy of those on board are lost.

A naval engagement in the Gulf of Riga results in withdrawal of Russian fleet, Russian battleship Slava sunk and the remainder of the fleet "bottled up" in Moon Sound.

Oct. 27. American steamship D. N. Luckenbach sunk by an unobserved submarine off the French coast.

November

Nov. 1. The United States Navy Department announces that the transport Finland was struck by a torpedo while homeward bound, but was able to reach a French port; nine persons lost their lives. 

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Nov. 7. An American war commission arrives in Great Britain, to attend an Allied war conference at Paris; the commission headed by Col. E.M.House, the President's confidential adviser.

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Nov. 19. Premier Lloyd George defends his policies in in British House of Commons, justifying in particular his advocacy of an Inter-Allied Supreme War Council. 

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Nov. 3. German War Office announces first capture of American soldiers, as the result of a reconnoitering thrust at the Rhine-Marne Canal.

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Nov. 6. Canadian troops carry the entire village of Passchendaele, dominating Roulers, in the climax of a series of operations begun on October 25.

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Nov. 29. An Inter-Allied Conference is opened at Paris, with Premier Clemenceau representing France, Premier Lloyd George representing Great Britain, and Col. Edward M. House representing the United States; twelve other nations are represented.

Nov. 30. A German counter-attack on both flanks of the territory recently gained by the British near Cambrai is successful, but British reinforcements win back most of the ground lost. 

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Nov. 5. Austro-German troops in Italy cross the Tagliamento River, north of Pinzano.

Nov. 6. German official reports announce Teutonic forces have crossed the Tagliamento River along the whole front.

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Nov. 8. Official German report places the number of Italian prisoners in the present offensive at two hundred and fifty thousand, with twenty-three hundred guns.

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Nov. 9. Gen. Armando Diaz becomes commander-in-chief of the Italian armies.

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Nov. 10. Italian army reforms behind the lower Piave River, the last natural barrier to the Austro-German advance toward Venice.

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Nov. 22. Italians lose mountain positions between the Brenta and Piave Rivers.

Nov. 24. The end of the second week of German assaults against Italian positions on the Asiago Plateau, and in the twelve-mile gap in the mountains between the Brenta and Piave rivers. 

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Nov. 17. British army in Palestine occupies Jaffa, the Mediterranean port thirty miles west of Jerusalem. 

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Nov. 7. In Petrograd, the Maximalist revolutionary committee seizes the telegraph agency, the state bank, and the parliament building.

Nov. 8. Second revolution in Russia, directed against the government of Premier Kerensky, announced by "the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Central Council of Soldiers' and Workmen's Deputies"---the Bolsheviki, or Maximalist faction of radical socialists.

Nov. 9. Moscow under control of the revolutionary party in Russia, after fighting in the streets which resulted in seven hundred casualties.

Nov. 10. Cabinet formed by the Russian Bolsheviki, with Nikolai Lenine as Premier and Leon Trotzky as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Nov. 14. Kerensky, head of the recognized government in Russia, flees from Petrograd in disguise, to escape arrest by the revolutionists.

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Nov. 28. The revolutionary government in Russia makes public a secret agreement entered into (on April 26 1915) by Great Britain, France, and Russia, with Italy; in return for joining the Entente, Italian claims to the Trentino, Istria, and Dalmatia were recognized. 

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Nov. 1. United States steamer Rochester, armed, torpedoed and sunk while homeward bound, off the Irish coast, nineteen of the crew and renal guard losing their lives.

Nov. 5. American patrol boat Alcedo, sunk by a German submarine in the war zone, twenty-one of the crew being lost.

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Nov. 22. British statistics show that in the three year, ending with October, one hundred and twenty-two vessels have been lost "without trace."

December

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Dec. 4. President Wilson recommends to the American Congress that the state of war be extended to include Austria-Hungary.

Dec. 7. United States declares war against Austria-Hungary.

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Dec. 28. The President takes over the "control and possession" of the transportation systems of the country. 

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Dec. 12. Investigation ordered into British disaster at Cambrai.

Dec. 14. Premier Lloyd George, in an address at London, declares himself in agreement with President Wilson's message to Congress.

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Dec.26. Sir R. Wemyss succeeds Sir J. R. Jellicoe in British naval command.

 

Dec. 1. A Supreme War Council of the Allies holds its first session at Versailles, France, to discuss and recommend plans for united action on the Western front by Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States; the American representatives are Colonel House and General Bliss.

Dec. 2. British troops withdraw from the village of Masnieres, near Cambrai, in order to straighten and strengthen their line.

Dec. 5. The British withdraw from the salient around Bourlon Wood, in the Cambrai district.

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Dec 9. Artillery actions on both sides of Cambrai. French repulse several German attacks.

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Dec. 22. Germans bombard Rheims.

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Dec. 27. Two attacks by Crown Prince at Verdun repulsed. British bombard Germans at Roulers.

Dec. 30. British-German fighting near Cambrai. 

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Dec. 3. German and Austrian official reports announce that an armistice has been agreed to by local commanders in many sectors of the Russian front.

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Dec. 14. The German War Office announces that an armistice on the Roumanian front has been arranged with Russian and Roumanian armies.

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Dec. 20. French repulse great German attack in Lorraine.

German "Christmas peace" offer published. 

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Dec. 3. The German attempt to force the Italian line, on the Asiago Plateau, is renewed with increased forces of men and artillery.

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Dec. 7. Germans gain ground on Asiago Plateau.

Dec. 8. Italians check German advance and make great and successful counter raid with aeroplanes.

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Dec. 15. Germans and Austrians capture Col Caprille.

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Dec. 19. Germans and Austrians capture Mount Asolone.

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Dec. 26. Italians repel German assaults.

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Dec. 28. German aviators bombard Padua and destroy churches.

Dec. 30. Great French drive on Italian front. 

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Dec. 10. Jerusalem is surrendered by the Turks to British forces under General Allenby, which had practically surrounded the city.

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Dec. 15. British advance beyond Jerusalem.

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Dec. 19. General Sarrail recalled from Macedonia.

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Dec. 28. British defeat Turks in Palestine.

Dec. 30. Bulgaria accepts Russian peace. 

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Dec. 3. General Dukhonin, commander-in-chief of the Russian armies, is killed by a revolutionist mob after persisting in a refusal to enter into armistice negotiations with the Germans.

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Dec. 16. Bolsheviki make truce with Germany.

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Dec. 22. Peace talk begins at Brest-Litovsk and Bolsheviki state Russian terms.

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Dec.28. Bolsheviki-German peace negotiations under way. 

Dec.1. It is announced that German East Africa has been entirely won by Allied forces, Germany thus losing control of its last (and largest) oversea possession.

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Dec. 6. News of loss of United States destroyer Jacob Jones.

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Dec. 17. Sir Eric Geddes, First Lord of the British Admiralty, announces that eleven vessels in a British convoy have been sunk in the North Sea by German destroyers.

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