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Timeline | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919
January 24 : Conscription introduced in Britain.
February 18 : German forces in Cameroon surrender to British, French and Belgian troops attacking from neighbouring colonies.
February 21 : Germany's Verdun offensive begins.
April 24 : Irish Republican forces rise at Easter against British rule in Dublin.
April 29 : British forces at Kut-el-Amara (Mesopotamia) surrender after 146 days of siege.
May 3-12 : Britain executes 15 leaders of the Easter Rising, turning these men into Republican heroes and martyrs.
May 31-June 1 : Battle of Jutland: The British lose more ships and men but the German fleet turns tail and remains in port [its home port] for the rest of the war. The Allies' blockade continues.
June : Germany's Verdun offensive grinds to a halt following General Brusilov's highly successful Galician offensive (begins 4 June). Germany must divert troops to the Eastern Front, and Germany's last offensive in the Verdun battle was launched at the end of June.
June 5 : Spurred on by promises of post-war independence, the Hejaz Arabs rise in revolt against Ottoman rule.
June 24 : British Somme offensive begins with a week-long artillery bombardment.
July 1 : British and French infantry move forward in Somme offensive. Twenty thousand British troops are killed on the first day, the heaviest loss suffered by the British army in a single day during any war.
July 30 : German saboteurs blow up Black Tom Island, a loading depot in New York harbour. Tremors from the explosion are felt 90 miles away in Philadelphia.
August 27 : Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary.
August 28 : Italy declares war on Germany.
August 29 : Hindenburg replaces Falkenhayn as chief of the German General Staff.
October 24 : French forces recapture the strategic fortress of Douaumont. Verdun is saved.
November 7 : Woodrow Wilson re-elected US president. He has promised to keep the United States out of the war.
November 18 : The Somme offensive finally comes to an end. A total of 1.1 million British, French and German soldiers have been killed or wounded.
November 21 : Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Josef dies and is succeeded by Kaiser Karl , a much younger liberal figure with a French wife. In 1917, he will initiate secret peace negotiations with the French.
December : Germany experiences the 'Turnip Winter'. Because of the Allied blockade and inadequate planning, many German soldiers and civilians have to subsist on little more than cattle feed for several months.
December 6 : German forces enter Bucharest, effectively knocking Romania out of the war.
December 7 : David Lloyd George becomes British prime minister.
December 12 : Germany sends a peace note to the Allies, enquiring about the possibility of concluding the war but without suggesting specific terms. The Allies reject this overture and the conflict continues.
December 18 : US President Woodrow Wilson invites both sets of belligerents to state their war aims.