TIMELINE

=TIMELINE= Here is a timeline of WW1 and WW2:

** 1914 **  **28th June:** Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Bosnia. Austria is very annoyed because he was going to be their next emperor. **23rd July:** Austria blames Serbia for the death of Ferdinand because the assassins were from Serbia. Serbia grovels but apology is not accepted. This means //WAR.// **4th August:** German army marches through Belgium to attack France, so Britain joins the war to help ‘poor little Belgium’. **23rd August:** Meanwhile, in the east, the German Army defeats the Russian army. **9th September:** The French stop the Germans at the battle of Marne. **October:** Millions rush to join the armies. They’re afraid it will be over before Christmas and before they can fight. It //will// be over before Christmas…1918. **22nd November:** The allies and the central powers have battered one another to a standstill in the northern France. They dig trenches opposite one another…and won’t move for four years. No winners – only soldiers lose their lives. **25th December:** Enemies stop fighting for a day or two, and even play friendly football matches. It can’t last, and won’t be repeated. ** 1915 **  **19th January:** First Zeppelin Airship raids on Britain. **2nd February:** Germany says it will surround Britain with submarines, sink food supply ships and starve Britain to defeat. **18th March:** British Government asks women to sign up for war work. **22nd April:** Nasty new weapon, Poisoned gas, first used against soldiers in the trenches. **May:** Allies try to sneak around the back of the German front by landing in Gallipoli, Turkey. They expect the Turks will be easy. **7th May:** Germany makes a big mistake by sinking the //Lusitania////,// when it has 128 Americans on board, and they aren’t part of the war yet. **July:** The Turkish state uses war as an excuse to try to wipe out an entire race of people, the Armenians. **August:** Food is getting short, especially in Germany. Prices and taxes go up to pay for the war – 1 million pounds A DAY in Britain is needed to pay for fighting. **September:** At the battle of Loos in Flanders some brave Brits dribble a football towards enemy lines. The ball was full of bullets. The Brits soon were too. **12th October:** Nurse Edith Cavell is shot for helping Brit soldiers escape from Belgium. **11th November:** Winston Churchill is sacked because his Gallipoli idea fails. **20th December:** Allies give up on the Gallipoli attack and retreat. ** 1916 **  **25th January:** Britain brings in conscription into the war. This means any fit, single men HAVE to join the war. **February:** The French and Germans begin the longest battle of the war, at the Fortress of Verdun in north-eastern France. **March:** German soldiers are told to have one day a week without food to save up on supplies. **24th April:** The Irish in Dublin rebel against British rule but fail. **May:** The only great sea battle of the war takes place at Jutland. Germans claim victory but never try to fight the British navy again. **5th June:** Lord Kitchener dies when his ship hits a mine. **1st July:** The battle of Somme begins. Today Brits outnumber Germans seven to one, but lose seven men for every one German. Battle ends in a draw. **15th September:** First tanks enter the war on the British side. **October:** In a Brit election the ‘Peace’ candidate is heavily defeated by the one supporting the war. **14th November:** End of the battle of Somme. Allied and German losses: over 1,300,000. Allies gain six miles, which is roughly 120 men dead for every yard of ground won. **7th December:** Lloyd George becomes new British PM. Old PM says: “I distrust him!” ** 1917 **  **February:** The Russian people rebel against their leaders and the Russian soldiers lend their rifles to the rebels. Good news for Germany. **March:** In Britain the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is founded. **April:** The American soldiers join the war. Meanwhile, the French rebel against conditions. **June:** Brits are so short of food that they ban rice being thrown at weddings and feeding birds. **July:** War now costs the British 6 Million dollars a day. **4th September:** German submarines fire shells (bombs) at Scarborough. **November:** War between Russia and Germany starts to end as the Russian ‘Bolsheviks’ start to take over their country. **6th December:** German Planes (The Luftwaffe) reach London. ** 1918 **  **January:** Brits are forced to have a two days and all breakfasts week with no meat. Shops with margarine are raided by lots of women. **21st March:** Called the last day of trench warfare. The Germans break out and smash the British back. Shells fall on Paris. **1 April:** The Royal Air Force (RAF) is formed and shoots down a famous German aka The Red Baron three weeks later. **May:** The new German government wants young people to marry before 20 to produce more children for the country. **18th July:** At the Marne River the Allies stop retreating. The tide turns back against Germany, never to go back. Russian royal family massacred. **29th September:** Bulgarians have enough and ask the allies for peace. The Central Power (Germans) armies start falling apart. **October:** German sailors are ordered to make one last great voyage to destroy the British fleet. They refuse and pour water on their ship’s fires. **11th November:** Armistice Day. Peace is agreed at last. The peace document is signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Peace reigns for a bit. ** 1938 **  **5th October:** Adolf Hitler’s Germans take over Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. He claims he is just protecting the Germans there. ** 1939 **  **1st September:** A. Hitler had promised not to invade Poland, but does. Britain and France say they will fight for Poland’s freedom. **3rd September:** Britain and France declare war on Germany. Winston Churchill is made First Lord of the Admiralty. **8th November:** Six people are killed when a bomb explodes in a Munich beer hall. It was meant to prevent WW2 by killing Hitler, but he left 15 minutes earlier.
 * 1940 **

**9th April:** Germany invades Denmark. The Danes are so surprised they don’t fight back. **10th May:** British make Winston Churchill their PM. German army invades the Belgium and Holland. Battle of Britain takes place and Winston Churchill says: “Never before was so much owed by so many to so few.” **June:** The British army driven back to the beaches at Dunkirk. They only just escape. The Italians join Germany. **14th June:** Germans enter Paris. **7th September:** German planes bomb London in daylight while the RAF hit German cites. **December:** Japan joins Germany. Italy invades Greece and Egypt. ** 1941 **  **10th May:** Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s assistant, steals a plane and flies to Scotland and tries to bargain with Churchill. British lock him up. **22nd June:** Hitler breaks a promise to Russia and invades. Soviets won’t give up easily. **7th December:** Japan bomb US navy Pearl Harbour and then America declares revenge on Japan. **11th December**: Germany and Italy declare war on USA. ** 1942 **  **20th January:** Nastiest of all Nazi plans, they decide that Jews are not human. The Holocaust starts. **30th-31st May:** RAF does bad damage to Cologne, The Soviets push back the German army and the USA gets back at the Japanese navy. The war is turning against Germany. **7th August:** In the Pacific, US marines land in the Solomon Islands. The war is turning against Japan too. **4th November:** The British drive back German tanks in North Africa. **2nd December:** A nuclear reaction test is created by scientists on a Chicago squash court. If this can just be turned into a bomb… ** 1943 **  **February:** Germans finally defeated at Stalingrad, Russia. The Soviets start the long push towards Berlin. **19th April:** Jews in Poland rise up against their Nazi torturers. They have realised that the “work camps” that they helped fellow Jews to are actually “death camps”. **16th May:** Jews in Warsaw wiped out. Some try to commit suicide by jumping off roofs. Hitler’s new assistant, Himmler, orders buildings to be destroyed so the Jews can’t jump off them. **17th May:** RAF destroys dams with a clever invention: a bomb that bounces on water, but explodes when it hits the dam walls or power stations. Germany suffers loss of people (drowned) and power to many factories. **23rd July:** Allies fight their way back into Europe for the first time since Dunkirk in June 1940. They capture Palermo in Sicily and head north towards Berlin, 663, 216 lives and two years away. However, the war isn’t turning against Germany. It already did that a while ago. **25th June:** Allies capture Italy. ** 1944 **  **April:** The US starts capturing islands on its way to Japan. In Europe the Soviets have reached Poland and Romania fights towards the north and east of Germany. The British and rest of US are heading north through Italy. They just need an attack through France to the west. **6th June:** D-day. Allies land in France and head towards Berlin. **12th June:** New German secret weapon lands on London. It’s called V1, V for vergeltungswaffan, or Vengeance Weapon. **20th July:** Hitler is bombed by his own army officers. Unfortunately for them, he survives. It could have just been the end of the war. **31st August:** Poland tries again to throw out the Germans, but can’t without the help of the Americans and Soviets. **September:** First US troops land in Germany, but the Germans don’t surrender. ** 1945 **  **27th January:** Soviets free 5000 prisoners from Auschwitz concentration camp. **14th February:** Dresden is flattened by Allies, killing 130,000 people. **12th March**: Anne Frank dies in Belsen Concentration Camp. **30th April:** Allies surround Berlin. A. Hitler kills his new wife and dog, then himself. **7th May:** New government surrenders and the war is over for Europe. **6th August:** US drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. **9th August:** Japan surrenders. WW2 ends after the death of 40,000,000.