When did the First World War start and end?

The First World War began on 28 July 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and fighting ended with the Armistice that came into effect at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. The war was formally ended by peace treaties, starting with the Treaty of Versailles signed on 28 June 1919.

What caused the First World War?

Historians point to several long-term causes: rival military alliances, an arms race including a naval race between Britain and Germany, competition for colonies, and nationalism, especially in the Balkans. The immediate trigger was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb.

Why was there trench warfare on the Western Front?

After the German advance was stopped at the Battle of the Marne in September 1914, both sides dug trenches to protect themselves from machine guns and artillery. By the end of 1914 a line of trenches ran from the North Sea coast of Belgium to the Swiss border, and for most of the war attacks gained little ground at a huge cost in lives.

How many Indian soldiers fought in the First World War?

About 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in the war, according to common estimates, in France and Belgium, Mesopotamia, Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine, and East Africa. Around 74,000 of them died. Indian soldiers received 11 Victoria Crosses, the first awarded to Sepoy Khudadad Khan for bravery in Belgium in October 1914.

What new weapons were used in the First World War?

The war saw the large-scale use of machine guns and heavy artillery, and the first major use of poison gas (from April 1915), tanks (from September 1916), fighter and bomber aircraft, submarines (U-boats) against merchant ships, flamethrowers, and wireless radio. Medicine also advanced, with mobile X-ray units, blood banks, and plastic surgery.

Why did the United States join the war?

The United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917 after Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking American ships, and after the Zimmermann Telegram revealed a German proposal for Mexico to attack the United States. Fresh American troops helped the Allies win the final battles of 1918.

What was the Armistice of 11 November 1918?

The Armistice was an agreement between the Allies and Germany to stop fighting. It was signed in a railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne in France in the early hours of 11 November 1918 and came into effect at 11 a.m. — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It is remembered each year as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day.

What was the Treaty of Versailles?

The Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, was the main peace treaty between the Allies and Germany. Germany lost territory and all its colonies, had to limit its army, accepted responsibility for the war in the ‘war guilt’ clause, and was required to pay reparations. The treaty also created the League of Nations.

How is the First World War remembered in India?

India Gate in New Delhi, designed by Edwin Lutyens and completed in 1931, is a memorial to soldiers of the Indian Army who died in the First World War and the Third Anglo-Afghan War, and it bears the names of more than 13,000 of them. The Teen Murti memorial in Delhi honours the Indian cavalry who fought at Haifa in 1918.

World History Timeline

First World War Timeline: Roots of War → 1914 Outbreak → Trenches & Total War → 1917 Turning Point → 1918 Armistice → Peace & Remembrance

Q: Who fought on each side?

The Allies, or Entente Powers, included France, Russia, Britain and its empire (including India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa), Serbia, Belgium, Japan, Italy from 1915, and the United States from 1917. The Central Powers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria.

In the summer of 1914 two shots in Sarajevo set off a chain of declarations that pulled Europe’s great powers and their empires into the first truly global, industrial war. For more than four years, millions of soldiers — including over a million from India — fought in trenches, deserts, mountains, and at sea. The war toppled empires, redrew the map, changed the lives of women and workers, and shaped the century that followed.

This timeline covers the alliance system and the naval race, the Balkan Wars, the assassination at Sarajevo, the July Crisis, the Marne and the race to the sea, the Christmas truce, poison gas, Gallipoli, Verdun, Jutland, the Somme, Kut, the first tanks, the Russian Revolution, the United States’ entry, Passchendaele, Haifa, the Hundred Days, the Armistice, the 1918 flu, the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations, and India Gate.

28 June 1914 Sarajevo → 4 Aug 1914 Britain at war 1 July 1916 Somme → 6 April 1917 USA joins 11 Nov 1918 Armistice → 28 June 1919 Versailles

Why the First World War Matters

The First World War was fought on a scale never seen before, with entire economies turned to war production and soldiers drawn from every inhabited continent. It killed millions of soldiers and civilians, ended the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires, sparked the Russian Revolution, and led to new countries and the League of Nations. Its unresolved tensions helped cause the Second World War, and its memory still shapes how nations remember their dead.

Big picture

The First World War in one view

Rival alliances and an arms race divided Europe, a murder in Sarajevo triggered war in 1914, the Western Front froze into trenches, 1915–1916 brought gas, Gallipoli, Verdun, and the Somme, 1917 saw Russia collapse and the United States join, the Allies broke through in 1918 to force an armistice, and the peace of 1919 redrew the world map. Related timelines: air transport, radio, communication.

4 yrs 3 mths

From 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918

~70 million

Soldiers mobilised worldwide (estimate)

~1.3 million

Indian soldiers and labourers served (estimate)

11 a.m.

The guns fall silent, 11 November 1918

Split image with a muddy Western Front trench in 1916 on the left, with sandbags, duckboards, shattered tree stumps, water-filled shell craters, and soldiers in steel helmets under a smoky grey sky, and the same landscape today on the right as peaceful green farmland with red poppies, faint grassy hollows, and a small memorial cross under a blue sky — A Western Front trench in 1916 and the same fields with poppies today (artistic illustration).

War and the World Then vs Now

Feature	1914–1918	Today
World map	Great empires ruled much of Asia and Africa	About 193 independent member states of the United Nations
India	A British colony; troops raised and sent abroad by Britain	An independent republic and a leading contributor to UN peacekeeping
Battlefield messages	Field telephones, runners, signal lamps, and carrier pigeons	Satellite links and secure digital networks
Aircraft	Wood-and-fabric biplanes, often under 200 km/h	Jet fighters, drones, and satellites
Armoured vehicles	Slow early tanks, about 6 km/h	Fast modern tanks and armoured vehicles
Medical care	No antibiotics; infection killed many wounded	Antibiotics, trauma surgery, and air ambulances
News from the front	Censored letters and newspapers, often days late	Live video and social media
Rules of war	Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907	Geneva Conventions (1949) and a global ban on chemical weapons (1997)
World body for peace	None before 1920	The United Nations (since 1945)
Women’s votes	Few countries allowed women to vote	Women vote in almost every country

🧭 Roots of War1871 – 1914

Roots of War

In the decades before 1914, Europe’s great powers competed for colonies, trade, and prestige. They formed two rival alliances, built ever-larger armies and navies, and made detailed war plans. Meanwhile, nationalism in the Balkans threatened the crumbling Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires and drew Russia into the region.

Sepia scene of a crowded European railway station in 1914 with soldiers in peaked caps leaning from the windows of a flower-decorated train, waving to families on the platform, women in long skirts and wide hats waving handkerchiefs, children, and steam rising under an iron roof — Families wave off soldiers on a flower-decked train as war begins (artistic illustration).

1871–1882: Germany is unified after defeating France, which loses Alsace-Lorraine, and Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy form the Triple Alliance (1882).
1894–1907: France and Russia ally (1894), Britain and France sign the Entente Cordiale (1904), and the Anglo-Russian agreement (1907) completes the Triple Entente.
1906–1912: Britain launches HMS Dreadnought (1906), starting a naval race with Germany, while crises over Morocco (1905, 1911) raise tensions.
1908–1913: Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia (1908), angering Serbia and Russia, and two Balkan Wars (1912–1913) push the Ottomans out of most of Europe and enlarge Serbia.

Technology

Dreadnoughts: All-big-gun battleships.
Railways: Fast mobilisation of armies.
Machine guns: Maxim-type weapons.

Features

Two alliances: Triple Alliance and Triple Entente.
Arms race: On land and at sea.
Balkan tension: The “powder keg”.

💥 1914 Outbreak1914

July Crisis & Outbreak

A political murder in Sarajevo turned into a world war within six weeks, as alliances and mobilisation plans came into play. Germany’s plan to knock out France quickly through Belgium failed at the Marne, and by Christmas both sides were dug into trenches. Troops from India arrived in France in the autumn and fought at Ypres.

Sepia scene of Indian Army soldiers in khaki uniforms and turbans with rifles marching along a muddy French country road lined with autumn trees, led by a British officer on horseback, while French villagers watch from beside a stone farmhouse — Indian soldiers march through a French village in the autumn of 1914 (artistic illustration).

28 June–28 July 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary is assassinated in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary sends Serbia an ultimatum (23 July), and declares war on Serbia (28 July).
1–4 August 1914: Germany declares war on Russia (1 August) and France (3 August), invades neutral Belgium, and Britain and its empire, including India, enter the war (4 August).
August–September 1914: Germany crushes a Russian army at Tannenberg, while the French and British halt the German advance on Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (6–12 September).
September–December 1914: Indian divisions land at Marseille, Khudadad Khan wins the first Victoria Cross for an Indian soldier at Ypres (October), the Ottoman Empire joins Germany, and an unofficial Christmas truce takes place.

Technology

Heavy artillery: Siege guns smash Belgian forts.
Telegraph and wireless: Orders and news.
Trenches: Dug for protection.

Features

Chain reaction: Alliances drawn in.
Plans fail: No quick victory.
Global war: Empires join in.

🪖 Trenches1915 – 1916

Trenches & Total War

With the Western Front locked in place, both sides tried new weapons and new fronts to break the deadlock. Poison gas, the Gallipoli campaign, and huge battles of attrition at Verdun and the Somme cost hundreds of thousands of lives for little ground. At home, whole societies were mobilised for “total war”.

Reconstructed First World War trench in drizzle with soldiers in khaki and flat steel helmets standing on a fire step with rifles, one looking through a periscope, sandbag walls, wooden duckboards over muddy water, a dugout with a cloth curtain, a field telephone, and metal mess tins — Soldiers keep watch from a muddy front-line trench (artistic illustration).

April–May 1915: Germany releases chlorine gas at Ypres (22 April), Allied troops including Australians, New Zealanders, and Indians land at Gallipoli (25 April), and a U-boat sinks the liner Lusitania (7 May).
1915: Italy joins the Allies (May), Bulgaria joins the Central Powers (October), and the Ottoman government carries out the mass deportation and killing of Armenians.
February–June 1916: The Battle of Verdun begins (21 February), British and Indian troops besieged at Kut in Mesopotamia surrender (29 April), and the British and German fleets clash at Jutland (31 May–1 June).
July–November 1916: The Battle of the Somme begins on 1 July, the worst single day in British military history, and tanks go into action for the first time on 15 September.

Technology

Poison gas: And the first gas masks.
Tanks: First used in 1916.
Steel helmets: Protecting soldiers’ heads.

Features

Stalemate: Trenches from sea to Switzerland.
Attrition: Verdun and the Somme.
New fronts: Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, Italy.

🔄 Turning Point1917

The Turning Point

In 1917 the war changed direction. Germany’s submarine campaign brought the United States into the war, while revolution swept away the Russian tsar and then the provisional government, taking Russia out of the fighting. On the Western Front, the mud of Passchendaele showed the horror of attrition, but massed tanks at Cambrai hinted at the future.

Reconstructed First World War tank with caterpillar tracks running around its rhomboid hull crawling over a trench and barbed wire on a muddy battlefield, with infantry in flat steel helmets following behind through grey mist — A tank crushes barbed wire as infantry follow, as at Cambrai in 1917 (artistic illustration).

January–April 1917: Germany restarts unrestricted submarine warfare (1 February), the Zimmermann Telegram is revealed, and the United States declares war on Germany (6 April).
March–November 1917: Tsar Nicholas II abdicates in the February Revolution (March), and the Bolsheviks under Lenin seize power in the October Revolution (November), soon seeking peace.
March–December 1917: British and Indian forces take Baghdad (March), Canadians capture Vimy Ridge (April), the Battle of Passchendaele is fought in deep mud (July–November), and Jerusalem falls to the British (December).
August–November 1917: The Montagu Declaration promises India gradual self-government (August), Italy is defeated at Caporetto (October–November), and hundreds of tanks attack at Cambrai (20 November).

Technology

U-boats: Attacks on merchant ships.
Convoys: Escorted groups of ships.
Mustard gas: First used in July 1917.

Features

USA joins: Fresh troops and money.
Russia leaves: Revolution.
Middle East: Baghdad and Jerusalem.

🕊️ Armistice1918

Final Offensives & Armistice

With Russia out of the war, Germany gambled on a huge spring offensive in the west before American troops arrived in strength. It gained ground but exhausted the German army. From August, the Allies pushed back in the Hundred Days Offensive, Germany’s allies collapsed one by one, and the guns fell silent on 11 November.

Sepia scene of a huge joyful crowd in a European city square in November 1918, with people in caps, bowler hats, and long coats cheering and waving hats and flags, a man standing on a lamppost, people crowded on a double-decker tram, confetti in the air, and grand domed buildings behind — Crowds cheer in a city square as news of the Armistice spreads (artistic illustration).

January–March 1918: President Wilson sets out his Fourteen Points for peace (8 January), Russia signs the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March), and Germany launches its Spring Offensive (21 March).
August–September 1918: The Allies win at Amiens (8 August), beginning the Hundred Days Offensive, and Indian cavalry of the Jodhpur and Mysore Lancers capture Haifa (23 September).
September–November 1918: Bulgaria (29 September), the Ottoman Empire (30 October), and Austria-Hungary (3 November) agree to armistices, and Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates (9 November).
11 November 1918: The Armistice signed in a railway carriage at Compiègne takes effect at 11 a.m., while a deadly influenza pandemic spreads around the world, killing millions, including in India.

Technology

Combined arms: Tanks, aircraft, and artillery together.
Long-range guns: Shelling Paris from far away.
Air forces: Britain’s RAF formed in April 1918.

Features

Last gamble: German Spring Offensive.
Hundred Days: Allied advance.
Armistice: 11 a.m., 11 November.

🌺 Remembrance1919 – Today

Peace & Remembrance

The peace treaties of 1919–1920 punished Germany, broke up old empires, and created new countries and the League of Nations. In India, wartime promises and post-war repression fuelled the freedom movement. Nations built memorials, and the red poppy became a symbol of remembrance that is still worn today.

India Gate war memorial in New Delhi lit warmly at dusk against a deep blue sky, with families and visitors walking along the wide avenue and lawns, street lamps glowing, and a child holding a small Indian flag — India Gate, memorial to Indian soldiers of the First World War, at dusk (artistic illustration).

1919: The Paris Peace Conference opens (January), the Rowlatt Act and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (13 April) shake India, and the Treaty of Versailles is signed on 28 June.
1920–1923: The League of Nations begins work (January 1920), Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire are broken up into new states, and the Unknown Warrior is buried in Westminster Abbey and Paris (1920).
1921–1931: The foundation stone of the All India War Memorial, now India Gate, is laid (1921), and the memorial designed by Edwin Lutyens is inaugurated in 1931.
2011–Today: The last known veterans of the war die (2011–2012), centenary events are held from 2014 to 2018, and Haifa Day is marked by the Indian Army every 23 September.

Technology

Plastic surgery: Rebuilding injured faces.
Blood banks: Stored blood for transfusion.
Digital archives: Service records online.

Features

Treaties: Versailles and others.
New countries: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia.
Remembrance: Poppies and memorials.

Who Fought on Each Side

Country	Side	Entered the war	Notes
Serbia	Allies	July 1914	Invaded by Austria-Hungary
Russia	Allies	August 1914	Left the war in 1918 after revolution
France	Allies	August 1914	Much of the Western Front on French soil
Britain and its empire	Allies	August 1914	Including India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa
Belgium	Allies	August 1914	Neutral country invaded by Germany
Japan	Allies	August 1914	Took German bases in China and the Pacific
Italy	Allies	May 1915	Fought Austria-Hungary in the Alps
United States	Allies (associated power)	April 1917	Over two million troops sent to France
Germany	Central Powers	August 1914	Fought on both Western and Eastern Fronts
Austria-Hungary	Central Powers	July 1914	Broke apart at the end of the war
Ottoman Empire	Central Powers	November 1914	Fought at Gallipoli, in Mesopotamia, and in Palestine
Bulgaria	Central Powers	October 1915	First Central Power to seek an armistice

Major Battles and Campaigns

Battle	Date	Front	Why it matters
Tannenberg	August 1914	Eastern	German victory over a Russian army
First Marne	September 1914	Western	Stopped the German advance on Paris
First and Second Ypres	1914, 1915	Western	Indian troops in action; first major gas attack
Gallipoli	1915–1916	Ottoman	Failed Allied landing; birth of the ANZAC legend
Verdun	February–December 1916	Western	Longest battle of the war, a symbol for France
Siege of Kut	1915–1916	Mesopotamia	Surrender of British and Indian troops
Jutland	May–June 1916	North Sea	Largest naval battle of the war
Somme	July–November 1916	Western	Huge losses; first use of tanks
Brusilov Offensive	June–September 1916	Eastern	Major Russian success against Austria-Hungary
Passchendaele	July–November 1917	Western	Fought in deep mud near Ypres
Megiddo and Haifa	September 1918	Palestine	Indian cavalry played a leading role
Amiens	August 1918	Western	Start of the Allied Hundred Days Offensive

India in the First World War

Topic	Details
People who served	About 1.3 million soldiers and labourers (estimates vary)
Deaths	Around 74,000 Indian soldiers died
Fronts	France and Belgium, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Palestine, East Africa, and Persia
Bravery awards	11 Victoria Crosses, the first to Sepoy Khudadad Khan (1914)
Who fought	Soldiers from Punjab, the Frontier, Garhwal, Nepal (Gurkhas), Rajputana, the Deccan, and princely state forces
Money and supplies	Large contributions of money, food, cloth, animals, and war materials
Politics	Home Rule Leagues (1916), the Lucknow Pact (1916), and the Montagu Declaration (1917)
After the war	The Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh (1919) turned many towards non-cooperation
Memorials	India Gate (1931), Teen Murti in Delhi, and the Neuve-Chapelle memorial in France

New Weapons, Machines, and Medicine

Reconstructed aerial battle between First World War biplanes with roundel markings and cross markings flying above a patchwork of farm fields and a winding river, pilots in leather helmets visible in open cockpits, dark puffs of anti-aircraft fire, and towering white clouds — Wood-and-fabric biplanes duel above the fields of France (artistic illustration).

Invention or use	First major use	Impact
Machine guns	From 1914	Made attacks across open ground deadly
Fighter aircraft	1915	Guns firing through the propeller; aerial combat
Poison gas	April 1915	Chlorine, phosgene, and later mustard gas
Gas masks	1915	Protection against gas attacks
Tanks	September 1916	Crossed trenches and barbed wire
U-boats	1914–1918	Sank thousands of merchant ships
Wireless radio	1914–1918	Messages to ships, aircraft, and headquarters
Mobile X-ray units	1914	Marie Curie’s vans helped surgeons find bullets
Blood banks	1917	Stored blood saved wounded soldiers
Plastic surgery	1917	Harold Gillies rebuilt the faces of wounded men

Life on the Home Front

Sepia scene inside a First World War munitions factory with rows of women in caps, overalls, and aprons filling and checking brass shell cases on long wooden benches under belt-driven machinery, while a forewoman with a clipboard watches in light from tall windows — Women fill and check shell cases in a wartime munitions factory (artistic illustration).

Topic	Life at home during the war
Women at work	Women took jobs in factories, transport, farms, offices, and nursing
Conscription	Compulsory military service, introduced in Britain in 1916
Rationing	Food shortages led to rationing, and severe hunger in Germany
Propaganda	Posters, films, and newspapers urged people to join up and save
War loans	Governments borrowed money from citizens through war bonds
Letters	Millions of letters and parcels went between home and the front
Daylight saving time	First adopted by Germany in 1916 to save fuel
Votes for women	Britain gave some women the vote in 1918, and others followed
India	Recruitment drives, rising prices, war funds, and the 1918 influenza

First World War Timeline Summary

Date	Milestone
1882	Triple Alliance formed
1907	Triple Entente completed
28 June 1914	Assassination in Sarajevo
28 July 1914	Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
4 August 1914	Germany invades Belgium; Britain and India at war
September 1914	First Battle of the Marne
October 1914	Khudadad Khan wins the first Indian Victoria Cross
22 April 1915	First major poison gas attack at Ypres
25 April 1915	Gallipoli landings
21 February 1916	Battle of Verdun begins
1 July 1916	Battle of the Somme begins
15 September 1916	First tanks in battle
6 April 1917	United States declares war
November 1917	October Revolution in Russia
3 March 1918	Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
8 August 1918	Battle of Amiens; Hundred Days begin
23 September 1918	Indian cavalry capture Haifa
11 November 1918	Armistice
28 June 1919	Treaty of Versailles
January 1920	League of Nations begins work
1931	India Gate inaugurated

Timeline understanding World history Map skills Cause and effect

Make a timeline poster: 28 June 1914 Sarajevo, 4 August 1914 Britain at war, 1915 Gallipoli, 1916 Somme, 6 April 1917 USA, 11 November 1918 Armistice, and 28 June 1919 Versailles.
On a map of Europe and the Middle East, mark the two alliances and the Western Front, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Haifa.
Draw a cause-and-effect chain from the assassination in Sarajevo to Britain’s entry into the war.
Write a letter home as an Indian soldier in France in the winter of 1914.
Make a fact card about Khudadad Khan or the Indian cavalry at Haifa.
Compare communication in 1914 (letters, telegrams, field telephones) with communication in the armed forces today.
Explain how the war changed women’s lives, using examples from factories and voting rights.
Design a poppy or remembrance display for 11 November, explaining its meaning.
Find out about a war memorial in your town or state and present its history.
Debate: “The Treaty of Versailles made another world war more likely.”

Continue exploring

The First World War sped up the development of aircraft, radio, long-distance communication, and railways. Explore these connected timelines next.

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Moments Through Visual Stories

Click any panel to expand and explore the visual mood.

The First World War in pictures — soldiers leaving in 1914, Indian troops in France, a front-line trench, a tank at Cambrai, biplanes overhead, women in a munitions factory, Armistice crowds, India Gate, and the Western Front then versus now.

Off to War

August 1914

Indian Soldiers

France, 1914

The Trenches

Western Front

First Tanks

1916–1917

War in the Air

Biplanes

Home Front

Women at work

Armistice

11 November 1918

India Gate

Remembrance

Then vs Now

Mud to poppies

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First World War Timeline: Roots of War → 1914 Outbreak → Trenches & Total War → 1917 Turning Point → 1918 Armistice → Peace & Remembrance

Why the First World War Matters

The First World War in one view

War and the World Then vs Now

Roots of War

Technology

Features

July Crisis & Outbreak

Technology

Features

Trenches & Total War

Technology

Features

The Turning Point

Technology

Features

Final Offensives & Armistice

Technology

Features

Peace & Remembrance

Technology

Features

Who Fought on Each Side

Major Battles and Campaigns

India in the First World War

New Weapons, Machines, and Medicine

Life on the Home Front

First World War Timeline Summary

Test Your Knowledge

Students Tasks

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Moments Through Visual Stories

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