100 Years Ago Today

[Jimbuna]

11th August

Republic of France declares war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Britain declares that general mobilization of its armed forces is complete.

German cruisers Goeben and Breslau are sold to the Ottoman Empire for 80 million Marks. They will be crewed by Germans.

"Goeben" and "Breslau" enter Dardanelles.

German press declares that the Battle of Mulhouse is Germany’s first victory in the war.

Fort de Lantin and Fort d'Évegnée, two of the Liège forts, falls to German troops.

Germany seizes around $25 million ($596 million today) in Russian assets that were held in German banks.

U.S. Army surgeons predict that the present war will be the “most humane ever waged” due to advances in medicine.

[TarJak]

12 August 1914

HMA Ships PARRAMATTA, YARRA, and WARREGO, (torpedo boat destroyers), landed parties at Rabaul.

HMAS ENCOUNTER, (cruiser), captured the German steamer ZAMBESI in St George’s Channel, New Britain.

Great Britain and France declare war on Austria-Hungary. Serbia is invaded by Austria-Hungary.

The "Dirty 500" arrived on Thursday Island to garrison against actions from German New Guinea: http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-11/dirty-500-queenslanders-honoured-in-wwi-tribute/5663436

[Sailor Steve]

August 11
SMS Karlsruhe arrives at Curaçao and manages to purchase 1100 tons of high-quality coal.

Originally Posted by TarJak

11 August 1914

HMAS AUSTRALIA, (battle-cruiser), and the Australia Squadron, under VADM Sir George Patey, RN, arrived in St Georges Channel, near Rabaul, on a search for ADML von Spee’s forces.

August 12

SMS Emden rendesvous with Spee's squadron at Pagan Island, in the Marianas.

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

August 12

SMS Emden rendesvous with Spee's squadron at Pagan Island, in the Marianas.

I can see where this is going...

[Jimbuna]

Yacht race for the America’s Cup is cancelled due to the war.

Belgium troops under Léon de Witte successfully defend the town of Haelen from German cavalry led by Georg von der Marwitz. Belgium suffers 480 casualties while Germany suffers 750 casualties and 300 captured.

Austro-Hungarian 5th and 6th armies, with 270,000 men, begin crossing the Serbian border across the Drina River.

Prince George of Serbia is wounded during an Austrian bombardment of Belgrade.

Great Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary.

Turkey reports purchase of "Goeben" and "Breslau".

[TarJak]

13 August 1914

Establishment of the Australian Red Cross to raise funds to purchase comfort supplies for Australian service personnel overseas. The Australian Red Cross was established by Lady Helen Munro-Ferguson. http://centenary.redcross.org.au/gro...t-meeting-1914

HMAS MELBOURNE, (cruiser), intercepted the collier ALCONDA off Rossel Island, and requisitioned her cargo of coal.

France declares war on Austria-Hungary

Egypt severs diplomatic relations with Germany

British naval forces bombard and raid Dar-es-Salaam

First Austrian invasion of Serbia begun: Austrians force passage of the River Drina

Germans seize La Garde.

[Sailor Steve]

August 13

Still at Pagan Island, Maximillian von Spee decides to take his squadron around Cape Horn and into the Atlantic. Karl von Müller, captain of the light cruiser Emden, is ordered to take his ship to the Indian ocean and do what damage he can to Allied shipping there.

Royal Flying Corps Number 2 Squadron, under the command of Major Charles James Burke, is ordered to be the first group of British pilots in France. Flying B.E.2s they took off from Dover at about 06:25. One of the pilots, Lieutenant Hubert Dunsterville Harvey-Kelly, managed to separate from the rest of the group and arrive ahead of the rest, making himself the first British pilot to land in France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.D._Harvey-Kelly

While fighting at Dinant, a French Lieutenant is wounded in the knee. His name is Charles de Gaulle.

[Jimbuna]

German check at Eghezee; Neufchateau occupied by Crown Prince.

British naval forces bombard and raid Dar-es-Salaam.

Germany releases Archer Huntington, president of the American Geographical Society, who was detained on suspicions of spying.

Germany protests against the U.S. ban on wireless communications between America and Germany.

Life insurance companies in the U.S. refuse to offer business to reservists or Canadians due to war risk.

Austro-Hungarian navy begins its blockade of Montenegro.

Around 60,000 Dutch troops mass on the German border and large areas are flooded as a precautionary measure against an invasion.

Russia announces that its concentration of forces on the Galician frontier is complete and is ready for an offensive.

Queen Elisabeth of Belgium spends 6 hours today visiting wounded soldiers in military hospitals.

[TarJak]

14 August 1914

Lt Col Bolton ordered to raise 8th Battalion of the AIF with troops recruited from Ballarat, Ararat, the Western District and Surrey Hills Melbourne.

Battle of the Frontiers begins. This battle will last until September 5, 1914.The Battle of the Frontiers is the name for all fighting that took place during this time between the German and the French armies along the German-Belgian border and the German border to France. Over 2,000,000 troops were engaged.

France invades Lorraine. The French push back Germans in northern Alsace and bomb German airsheds at Metz.

Russians defeat Austrians at Sokal.

Austrians drive Serbians back and occupy Loznitsa.

Russia proclamation made promising reconstruction and autonomy of the "Kingdom of Poland".

British field marshal John French and General Wilson land in France

[Jimbuna]

Sir John French lands at Boulogne.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the Navy, announces that he will seek the Senate seat for New York.

Fort de Liers, Fort de Fléron, and Fort de Boncelles, three of the Liège forts, surrenders to German troops after heavy bombardment.

French 1st Army under Dubail and 2nd Army under Castelnau advance into Germany towards Sarrebourg, Lorraine.

German 6th and 7th Armies under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria and General Josias von Heeringen fall back.

Austro-Hungarian 2nd and 5th Armies move towards Belgrade, but are opposed by the Serbian 1st, 2nd and 3rd Armies.

Grand Duke Nicholas, supreme commander of the Russian armies against the Central Powers, appeals to the Poles to support Russia.

[Sailor Steve]

August 14

The Voisin III was the first aircraft to be designed specifically as a bomber. On August 14, 1914 two of them carried out the first bombing raid. Bombs had been dropped by hand from Bleriot monoplanes back in the 1911 Italian campaign in Libya, but those qualified more as 'ground attack' than as actual bombing missions. In this case Lieutenant Antoine Cesari and Corporal Roger Prudhommeaux attacked the Zeppelin shed at Metz-Frescaty, each dropping a 155mm artillery shell adapted for the purpose. They missed the shed entirely.

German light cruiser SMS Dresden, operating off the coast of Argentina under the command of Kapitän zur See Fritz Emil von Lüdecke, stops the merchant SS Hyades. Von Lüdecke takes the crew on board his own ship, then sinks the British vessel.

Dresen's sister ship, SMS Emden, departs Pagan Island for the Indian ocean with collier SS Markomannia.

In the first surface naval action of the war, SS Gwendolen attacks SS Hermann von Wissman on Lake Nyasa (now lake Malawi) in Central Africa. It's a fascinating story.
http://www.historytoday.com/janie-ha...ory-lake-nyasa

[TarJak]

Excellent story of the first naval engagement of the war Steve.

15 August 1914

The 1st Division AIF (Australian Imperial Force ) begins forming from recent recruiting across Australia.
When originally formed in 1914, the AIF was commanded by General William Bridges, who also assumed command of the infantry division.

Japan sends and Ultimatum to Germany demanding the removal of all German ships from Japanese and Chinese waters and the surrender of control of Tsingtao—the location of Germany’s largest overseas naval bases, located on China’s Shantung Peninsula—to Japan by noon on August 23

The 64 km channel between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans was officially opened. The Panama Canal saved ships making the 11,300 km voyage around Cape Horn. It had taken ten years to build across the isthmus between North and South America

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by TarJak

The Panama Canal...

Wow! I've known about the canal my whole life. I've read about President Theodore Roosevelt taking it over from the French; I've read about Ferdinand de Lesseps, and I've read about the mosquitos and the malaria, and I've read about it taking ten years; but to this day I never made the connection associating that ten years with August 1914!

If you hadn't posted that I might still not have realized.

[Sailor Steve]

August 15

"The army wounded will have to be dealt with on the Continent, and, as far as can be seen at present, mainly at Brussels. Our institution, comprising a large staff of English nurses, is prepared to deal with several hundreds and the number is being increased day by day."
-Edith Cavell, letter to The London Times

"Yesterday's papers announced France's declaration of war against Austria. This morning comes the news that Montenegro has also declared her intention of wiping Austria off the map. Our daily query is now - 'Who has declared war to-day?'"
-Hugh Simons Gibson, secretary to the U.S. delegation in Brussels, diary entry

[Jimbuna]

15th August

Belgium: Reduction of forts at Liege completed; Germans checked at Dinant by the French.

Alsace-Lorraine: Passes of the Vosges in French hands.

South Africa: Meeting of disaffected Boers: Address by General Delarey.

British ocean liners announce they will resume regular service after assurances that the Atlantic Ocean is safe.

President Wilson states there are no immediate plans to censor domestic cables or wireless communications.