WHAT CAUSES WORLD WAR 1

WHAT CAUSES WORLD WAR

But in the Pacific, off the coast of Chile, German Admiral von Spee's powerful East Asia squadron sinks two British cruisers at the Battle of Coronel. Both ships are lost with all hands.

Five weeks later, he runs into a British naval task force at the Falkland Islands.

Four of the five German cruisers are sunk. Von Spee goes down with his flagship.

While in the Middle East, British troops seize control of the Ottoman port of Basra,

securing access to the vital Persian oil that fuels the British fleet.

That winter, Austrian troops finally capture Belgrade, but the Serbs then counterattack and drive them back once more.

The fighting in Serbia has already cost around casualties on each side.

In the North Sea, German warships mount a hit-and-run raid against English coastal towns, shelling Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough, and killing more than a hundred civilians.

On the Western Front, the French launch their first major offensive against the German lines: but the First Battle of Champagne leads to small gains at a cost of casualties.

While in the Caucasus, an Ottoman offensive through the mountains in midwinter ends in disaster at Sarikamish. Turkish casualties total many frozen to death.

On the Western Front, that first Christmas is marked in some sectors by a short truce, and games of football in No Man's Land, the killing zone between the trenches.

January World War One is just five months old, and already around one million soldiers have fallen.

A war that began in the Balkans has engulfed much of the world.

The Central Powers:Germany,Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, fight the Allies:

Britain, France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Belgium, and Japan.

In Poland and the Baltic, the Russian army has suffered a string of massive defeats,

but continues to battle German and Austro-Hungarian forces.

Austro-Hungarian troops have also suffered huge losses,

and are humiliated by their failure to defeat Serbia.

In the Caucasus Mountains, Russian and

Ottoman forces fight each other in freezing winter conditions.

While on the Western Front, French, British and Belgian troops are dug in

facing the Germans, in trenches stretching from the English Channel to Switzerland.

As part of the world’s first strategic bombing campaign, Germany sends two giant airships, known as Zeppelins, to bomb Britain. They hit the ports of King's Lynn and Great Yarmouth, damaging houses and killing civilians.

At sea, at the Battle of Dogger Bank, the British navy sinks one German cruiser,

but the rest of the German squadron escapes.

Command of the seas has allowed Britain to impose a naval blockade of Germany,

preventing vital supplies, including food, from reaching the country by sea.

Germany now retaliates with its own blockade: it declares the waters around the British Isles to be a war zone, where its U-boats will attack Allied merchant ships without warning.

Britain relies on imported food to feed its population.

Germany plans to starve her into surrender.

On the Eastern Front, German Field Marshal von Hindenburg launches a Winter Offensive, and inflicts another massive defeat on the Russian army at the Second Battle of Masurian Lakes.

The Russians lose up to men, half of them surrendering amid freezing winter conditions.

The Russians have more success against Austria-Hungary:

the city of Przemyśl falls after a four-month siege, netting the Russians prisoners.

Austria-Hungary's total losses now reach two million.

Meanwhile, the British and French send warships to the Dardanelles,

to threaten Constantinople, capital of the Turkish

Ottoman Empire. They believe a show of force will quickly cause Turkey to surrender.

They bombard Turkish shore-forts in the narrow straits, but three battleships are sunk by mines, and three more damaged. The attack is called off.

On the Western Front, the British attack at Neuve Chapelle, but the advance is soon halted by German barbed wire and machineguns.

British and Indian units suffer casualties – about a quarter of the attacking force.

Six weeks later, at the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans attack with poison gas for the first time on the Western Front. A cloud of lethal chlorine gas forces Allied troops to abandon their trenches, but the Germans don't have enough reserves ready to exploit the advantage.

Soldiers on both sides are quickly supplied with crude gas-masks,

as a chemical weapons arms-race begins.

The Allies land ground troops at Gallipoli, including men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the ANZACs. Their goal is to take out the shore forts that are preventing Allied warships reaching Constantinople. But they immediately meet fierce Turkish resistance, and are pinned down close to the shore.

The day before the landings, the Ottoman Empire begins the systematic deportation

and murder of ethnic Armenians living within its borders.

The Armenians are a long-persecuted ethnic and religious minority,

suspected of supporting Turkey's enemies.

Tens of thousands of men, women and children are transported to the

Syrian desert and left to die. In all, more than a million Armenians perish.

The Allies condemn the events as 'a crime against humanity and civilisation', and promise to hold the perpetrators criminally responsible.

To this day, the Turkish government disputes the death toll,

and that these events constituted a 'g******e'.

On the Eastern Front, a joint German / Austro-Hungarian offensive in Galicia

breaks through Russian defences, recapturing Przemyśl and taking prisoners.

It is the beginning of a steady advance against Russian forces.

At sea, the British passenger-liner Lusitania, sailing from New York to

Liverpool, is torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland without warning.

passengers and crew perish, including Americans.

US President Woodrow Wilson and the American public are outraged. But Germany insists the

liner was a fair target, as the British used her to carry military supplies.

In May, the Allies launch the Second Battle of Artois, in another effort

to break through the German lines. The French make the main attack at Vimy Ridge, while the British launch supporting attacks at Aubers Ridge and Festubert.

The Allies sustain casualties, and advance just a few thousand yards.

That summer, above the Western Front, the Fokker Eindecker helps Germany win

control of the air. It's one of the first aircraft with a machinegun able to fire forward through its propeller, thanks to a new invention known as interruptor gear.

Allied aircraft losses mount rapidly, in what becomes known as the 'Fokker Scourge'.

Italy, swayed by British and French promises of territorial gains at Austro-Hungarian expense, joins the Allies, declaring war on Austria-Hungary, and later the Ottoman Empire and Germany.

The Italian army makes its first assault against Austro-Hungarian positions along the Isonzo river, but is repulsed with heavy losses.

Meanwhile the Allies face a crisis on the Eastern Front. The Russians have

begun a general retreat, abandoning Poland. German troops enter Warsaw on th August.

Tsar Nicholas II dismisses the army's commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, and takes personal command. It will prove disastrous for the Tsar,

as he becomes more and more closely tied to Russian military defeat.

At Gallipoli, the Allies land reinforcements at Suvla Bay, but neither they nor a series

of fresh attacks by the ANZACs can break the deadlock. Conditions for both sides are terrible; troops are tormented not only by the enemy, but by heat, flies, and sickness.

In the Atlantic, a German U-boat sinks the liner SS Arabic: are lost, including three Americans.

In response to further US warnings, Germany ends all attacks on passenger ships.

On the Western Front, the Allies mount their biggest offensive of the war so far,

designed to smash through the front, and take pressure off their beleaguered Russian ally.