TIMEBASE 1914 
TIMEBASE 1914 1914 January 11 A Germanenorden initiation ceremony held in the Berlin Province features racial tests by Berlin phrenologist Robert Burger-Villingren, inventor of the "plastometer," a device used for determining the relative "Aryan purity" of a subject by measurement of the skull. (Roots)
1914 January 12 Adolf Hitler is ordered to report for Austrian military service.
1914 January 19 Hitler writes to the Austrian Consulate pleading for leniency in regard to his failure to report for military service.
1914 February 5 Hitler is rejected by the Austrian army as unfit for duty.
1914 February 9 Detlef Schmude, one of Jorg Lanz von Liebenfel's earliest and most enthusiastic supporters in Germany, founds the second priory of the Order of the New Templars (ONT) at Hollenberg near Kornelmünster. (Roots)
1914 May 20 A letter from Arthur Strauss to Julius Rüttinger says that a Reichshammerbund group was founded in Munich that spring by Wilhelm Rohmeder, chairman of the Deutscher Schulverein and a member of the List Society since 1908. (Bundesarchiv; Roots)
1914 June King Peter I of Serbia, in poor health, appoints his son, Alexander as regent of Serbia.
1914 June 28 Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary is assassinated at Sarajevo, capital of the Austrian province of Bosnia, by a Serbian assassin, Gavrilo Princip. Princip has ties to both Britain and Russia.
1914 July The Master of the Leipzig Geramanenorden lodge politely proposes that Hermann Pohl retire from his office as head of the order. (Roots)
1914 July 23 Austria-Hungary presents a warlike, 48-hour ultimatum to the Serbian government, demanding a virtual protectorate over Serbia. Serbia accepts all but one of the demands, but still its response is unsatisfactory to Austria-Hungary.
1914 July 28 Austria-Hungary, refusing to submit the disputed terms to international arbitration, declares war on Serbia. Within a week most of Europe will at war.
1914 July 29 Austrian forces invade Serbia and begin an artillery bombardment of Belgrade, the Serbian capital.
1914 July 29 Russia mobilizes its troops near the Austrian border.
1914 July 31 The London Stock Exchange, at this time the most influential in the world, announces its closing due to war. The U.S. follows suit and for several weeks all other important exchanges will also close. (Schlesinger I)
1914 August 1 Fighting begins on the German-Russian frontier and Germany declares war on Russia.
1914 August 2 General Helmuth von Moltke is appointed commander of all German armies in the field.
1914 August 3 Germany declares war on France.
1914 August 3 Hitler petitions King Ludwig III of Bavaria for permission to enlist in the Bavarian army.
1914 August 3 The French firm of Rothschilds Freres cables J.P. Morgan & Co. in New York suggesting the floatation of a loan of $100,000,000, a substantial part of which is to be left in the United States to pay for French purchases of American goods. (America Goes to War,Charles C. Tansill. Little, Brown. Boston, 1938)
1914 August 4 Germany invades Belgium. A specially trained task force of about 30,000 men crosses the frontier and attacks Liege, one of the strongest fortresses in Europe. Some of the fortifications are captured in a daring night attack led by General Erich Ludendorff.
1914 August 4 Great Britain declares war on Germany.
1914 August 5 British ships dredge up and cut the German trans-Atlantic cables to America. Thereafter, the bulk of the war news will be routed through London and the British censors.
1914 August 5 The U.S. makes a formal statement announcing it will remain neutral in the European wars, but offers its services as a mediator in the mushrooming conflicts. (Schlesinger I)
1914 August 6 Austria-Hungary declares war against Russia. Italy temporarily remains neutral, claiming its obligations to the Triple Alliance are void because Austria had initiated the war.
1914 August 8 French troops under Gen. Paul Pau advance across the frontier to Mulhouse in Alsace.
1914 August 12 Austrian troops numbering 200,000, commanded by Gen. Oskar Potiorek, cross the Sava and Drina Rivers and invade Serbia.
1914 August 14 A full-scale French offensive, the Battle of Lorraine, begins southeast of Metz. Following a planned withdrawal, the Germans counterattack, throwing the French back to the fortified heights of Nancy.
1914 August 14 Kaiser Wilhelm II leaves Berlin, choosing to live at Pless, in Silesia, or near the Western front for the remainder of the war.
1914 August 15 U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan writes to J.P. Morgan telling him that loans to belligerents goes against the U.S. policy of neutrality. (See October 15) (Schlesinger I)
1914 August 15-20 Serbian Marshal Putnik is victorious over the Austrians at Cer Mountain.
1914 August 16 The last fortifications at Liege, pounded into submission by giant howitzers, surrenders. The German First Army under Gen. Alexander von Kluck and the Second, commanded by Gen. Karl von Bulow, pour through the Liege corridor and across the Meuse.
1914 August 16 Adolf Hitler enrolls in the 1st Company of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry.
1914 August 16 Austrian troops are driven back by the numerically superior Serbian army, inadequately equipped, but battlewise from their Balkan Wars experience. They are commanded by Marshal Radomir Putnik.
1914 August 17 The Russian Northwest Army Group begins to advance into East Prussia. From the east came Gen. Pavel K. Rennenkampf's First Army; from the south Aleksandr Samsonov's Second Army. Opposing are German Gen. Max von Prittwitz and Gen. Gaffron's Eighth Army. Their mission one of elastic defense and delay until the bulk of the German army can be shifted from the Western Front.
1914 August General Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the German general staff, hampered by poor communications with his armies, overestimates the extent of the initial German victory. Confident that the French armies are on the brink of destruction, he detaches two corps from Kluck's army to the Eastern front, where the Russians are threatening East Prussia.
1914 August 17 The center of Rennenkampf's advance is mauled by General Hermann K. von Francois's German I Corps near Stalluponen.
1914 August 18 President Woodrow Wilson issues his "Proclamation of Neutrality," temporarily keeping America out of the war.
1914 August 20 Brussels is occupied by the Germans. The Belgians, personally commanded by King Albert I, retreat to Antwerp.
1914 August 20 Advancing French troops collide with a numerically superior German force in the Battle of the Ardennes.
1914 August 20 Rudolf Hess joins the 1st Bavarian Infantry Regiment and is soon transported to the battlefields of France. (Missing Years)
1914 August 20 At Gumbinnen in East Prussia, Prittwitz's forces are thrown back by Rennenkampf, who has attacked from the east. Prittwitz, fearing envelopment by Samsonov's army, withdraws to the Vistula River, thus ceding all of East Prussia. Prittwitz phones Moltke at Coblenz, reporting his decision and requesting reinforcements to hold the Vistula line. Moltke immediately relieves Prittwitz, appointing in his place 67-year-old Gen. Paul von Hindenburg who had retired in 1911. Gen. Erich Ludendorff, the hero of Liege, is named Hindenburg's chief of staff.
1914 August 20 Pope pius X dies, just one day after issuing a futile plea for peace.
1914 August 20 Britain, in its Order of Council, enlarges the list of goods it unilaterally considers contraband and thereby subject to search and seizure. British ships immediately begin confiscating the contraband cargoes, which include even cotton, now used in making munitions. (Schlesinger I)
1914 August 21 The newly landed British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under Field Marshal Sir John French moves into Belgium to support Lanrezac's advance.
1914 August 21 Serbian Marshall Putnik defeats the Austrians at the battle of Sabac (August 21-24).
1914 August 22 Two German armies strike Gen. Charles Lanrezac southwest of Namur, on the Sambre River, forcing him to retreat on the 23rd.
1914 August 23 The Belgian defenders of Namur are overwhelmed by Bulow's troops after a brief siege.
1914 August 23 The BEF near Mons is struck by the full weight of Kluck's German First Army. Learning of the fall of Namur, Lanrezac orders a general retreat, leaving the outnumbered British with an unprotected left flank and forcing them to withdraw during the night.
1914 August 23 In the Galician Battles (August 23-September 11), Russian forces under Gen. Nikolai Ivanov repelled an Austrian offensive, seizing all of Austrian Galicia except the key fortress of Przemysl.
1914 August 23 Japan declares war on Germany and soon besieges Tsingtao, the only German base on the China coast.
1914 August 23 Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrive to take command on the Eastern Front.
1914 August 24 After four days of furious fighting, the devastated French fall back in the Ardennes and reorganize west of the Meuse.
1914 August 24 Main German armies enter France.
1914 August 24 Samsonov's troops encounters the Germans near Frankenau and severe fighting rages the entire day between Frankenau and Tannenberg.
1914 August 26 In East Prussia, the Germans counterattack from north, east, and west. Samsonov's uncoded radio messages are intercepted and Ludendorff learns the locations of all Russian units.
1914 August Alexander I becomes nominal Commander-in-Chief of the Serbian army.
1914 August St. Petersburg's name is changed to Petrograd in order to eliminate the German ending "burg".
1914 August 27 At Le Cateau French's BEF fights off a double envelopment by the full strength of Kluck's army. The survivors successfully disengaged at nightfall.
1914 August 28 A British raid into the Heligoland Bight results in the war's first naval battle. Four German ships are sunk.
1914 August 29 Russian forces in East Prussia but are defeated at the Battle of Tannenberg. Hindenburg and Ludendorff direct the movements that encircle General Samsonov's Second Russian Army. By nightfall the encirclement is complete. Samsonov, who disappeared during the night, evidently committed suicide. 35,000 Russians are killed, and 90,000 taken prisoner. German losses are 10,000 to 14,000.
1914 August 29 Hoping to relieve German pressure on the BEF at Le Cateau, Joffre orders the French Fifth Army, itself pressed hard by the German Second Army, to make a 90-degree shift westward to attack the left flank of the German First Army at Guise. The initial attack, however, is inconsequential.
1914 August Gen. Louis Franchet d'Esperey, commanding the French I Corps, halts the German advance, achieving the first French tactical success of the campaign. Bulow calls on Kluck for aid the next day.
1914 August Kluck responds to Bulow's call for assistance by shifting his direction of march to the southeast, thus discarding the remnants of the Schlieffen Plan. This change would cause him to pass east of Paris. He knew nothing of General Maunoury's concentration in the fortified area of the capital. Belatedly, Moltke sends a message to Kluck, agreeing to the move east of Paris, but ordering Kluck to guard the right flank of the Second Army. For Kluck to have obeyed this order would have meant halting his army for two days, a move he believes will permit the French either to escape or to rally. Intent on driving the French out of Paris, Kluck continues southward across the Marne, just east of Paris, his right flank wide open.
1914 September 4 General Wilson sets in motion a plan to envelop the exposed German right flank. Gen. Maunoury's Sixth Army, temporarily under the regional command of Gen. Joseph S. Gallieeni, the military governor of Paris, begins an advance from Paris toward the Ourcq River, where Kluck's right flank lies open.
1914 September 5 The First Battle of the Marne begins. Joffre's plan is almost ruined when right-flank units of Kluck's army detect the French Sixth Army advance from Paris and counterattack. Kluck then launches an attack toward Paris in the Battle of the Ourcq. By turning west, however, Kluck creates a gap to his left between his army and the Second, under Gen. Karl von Bulow.
1914 September 6 After two days of furious fighting, the German offensive bogs down only twenty-five miles from Paris.
1914 September 6-15 The Battle of the Masurian Lakes.
1914 September 7-9 Kluck then turns his entire army westward in savage counterattacks, halting the French and forcing them to fall back. Only fresh reinforcements rushed from Paris, some in taxicabs, permits Maunoury to stem the German advance.
1914 September 8 Maubeuge, on France's northern border, falls to the Germans.
1914 September 9 Lt. Col. Richard Hentsch, a trusted staff officer sent by Moltke to assess the situation and issue orders if necessary, discovers that von Bulow's Second Army had been pushed back by the French Fifth, and that the BEF is moving into the gap between the German First and Second Armies, Hentsch then orders both armies to retreat to the Aisne River. Kluck retreats to prevent his army from being encircled.
1914 September 9-14 Russian troops are expelled from East Prussia, after the German Eighth Army defeats the Russian First Army in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes.
1914 September 10 Assuming the BEF is no longer a threat, Kluck shifts westward, widening the existing gap between his army and that of Bulow, which is still advancing to the south. Exploiting this gap, French commander Franchet d'Esperey, in a vigorous night attack, takes Marchais-en-Brie from the Germans. This is probably the turning point of the battle. Bulow, personally defeated, is about to retreat. Kluck's First Army is making headway in the northwest against Maunoury's left, but the BEF's northward advance into the gap threatens Kluck's left and rear. Moltke, realizing that his offensive has failed, then orders a retreat to the Noyon-Verdun line. (Allied losses are about 250,000; German casualties nearly 300,000.)
1914 September 14 General Moltke, blamed for the failure at the Marne and with violating the Schlieffen Plan, is relieved by by the Kaiser and ordered to report to Berlin. He is replaced by Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn.
1914 September 15 The first trenches are dug.
1914 September 15 The German victory at Masurian effectively knocks out the Russians as an important consideration in Allied strategy. (Schlesinger I)
1914 September 17 The German "Race to the Sea" begins.
1914 September 22-26 Fierce battles are fought in Picardy.
1914 September 22 The German cruiser Emden bombards Madras, India.
1914 September 22 The German U-9 sinks three British cruisers in quick succession off the Dutch coast.
1914 September 26 U.S. Secretary of State Bryan protests Britain's Order of Council and the confiscation of cargoes from U.S. ships. (See August 20)
(Note: The U.S. has begun to profit from the war and is sending cargoes to all belligerents including Germany, which is getting its goods funneled through neutral countries.) (Schlesinger I)
1914 September 27 Heavy fighting at Artois until October 10.
1914 September 28 A general Austrian-German advance begins in Galicia. Hindenburg moves to assist the defeated Austrians and prevent the Russian invasion of Silesia. Four German corps of the Eighth Army are transferred by rail to the vicinity of Krakow.
1914 September 30 Before Grand Duke Nikolai, the Russian supreme commander, can move through Poland into Silesia, the heart of Germany's mineral resources, Hindenburg attacks their left flank.
1914 October 9 The Belgian fortress of Antwerp falls.
1914 October 9 Germans troops under Hindenburg reach the Vistula River south of Warsaw.
1914 October 12 The first battle for the Belgian city of Ypres begins.
1914 October 12 Hindenburg outnumbered more than three to one, halts the Polish offensive.
1914 October 15 The U.S. declares it will not prohibit shipments of gold or the extension of credit to belligerents. (See August 15)
1914 October 15 The British cruiser HMS Hawk is torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat.
1914 October 17 Hindenburg skillfully withdraws, leaving a ravaged Polish countryside behind him.
1914 October 18 A German U-boat raid on Scapa Flow, although unsuccessful, results in the temporary transfer of the British Grand Fleet to Rosyth on the Scottish coast while antisubmarine nets are installed at Scapa.
1914 October 21 Hitler is assigned to the Western Front and soon becomes a regimental orderly and dispatch runner.
1914 October 22 The Revenue Act passes the U.S. Congress. It imposes the first income tax on incomes over $3,000 to offset loss of tariff money brought about through enactment of the Underwood-Simmons Act of 1913. (See October 3, 1913) (Schlesinger I)
1914 October 22 The U.S. formally withdraws its demand that Britain keep to the letter of the Declaration of London and cease confiscating American cargoes. The British are now willingly paying for the confiscated goods, and Americans are making a good profits without loss of life to their crews. Thereafter, Britain contains the German fleet in harbor and dries to a trickle the flow of goods to the Central Powers. Smarting under the impact of the blockade, Germany is forced to increase its U-boat activity. (Schlesinger I)
1914 October 27 The British battleship Audacious sinks after striking a German submarine-laid mine off the Irish coast.
1914 October 29 Turkey, encouraged by the Germans, declares war against the Allies, announcing its entrance into the war with a surprise bombardment of the Russian Black Sea coast.
1914 November 1 Hindenburg is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian-German Eastern Front. Ludendorff remains his chief of staff.
1914 November 1 Adm. Graf von Spee's China Squadron, two heavy and three light cruisers, sinks two British heavy cruisers without losing a single ship in the Battle of Coronel, off the coast of Chile. Some time later the British battle cruisers Invincible and Inflexible, under Vice Adm. Sir Frederick Sturdee, sought out Spee, who had taken his squadron around Cape Horn into the South Atlantic. Spee had planned to raid the British wireless and coaling station at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, but discovered Sturdee's squadron there, refueling. The surprised Germans fled and were pursued and destroyed; approximately 1,800 Germans--including Admiral Spee--perished on the sunken ships.
1914 November 2 Britain declares the entire North Sea a military area. Neutral ships bound for neutral ports now become subject to search and seizure. (Schlesinger I)
1914 November 3 General Moltke is officially replaced as German Chief of Staff.
1914 November 5 A reinforced Austrian army begins a third offensive in Serbia.
1914 November 5 Great Britain responding to Turkey's recent alliance with Germany annexes Turkish Cyprus.
1914 November 7 The Japanese capture Tsingtao, the only German base on the China coast. Japan also occupies Germany's Marshall, Marianas, Palau, and Caroline Island groups.
1914 November 9 The German cruiser Emden is sunk in action with the Australian cruiser Sydney in the Cocos Islands.
1914 November The first battle of Ypres comes to and end, concluding the so-called "race to the sea" after the German defeat at the First Battle of the Marne.
1914 November 22 Hermann Pohl writes to Julius Rüttinger, Master of the Franconian Germanenorden province, who is serving at the front. Pohl tells him that the order is in financial difficulty because half of the brethren are serving in the armed forces. "A great number of the brothers have already been killed in action." (Roots)
1914 December American Magazine runs an article saying that Ray Stannard Baker reported in 1909 that the Christian churches in America had "awakened as never before to the so-called Jewish problem."
1914 December 2 Adolf Hitler is awarded the Iron Cross, second class, for bravery under fire.
1914 December 2 A reinforced Austrian army succeeds in occupying Belgrade.
1914 December 3 Marshal Putnik's Serbian troops counterattack after receiving much needed ammunition from France.
1914 December 8 The Battle of the Falkland Islands.
1914 December 11 Serbians troops recapture Belgrade.
1914 December 14 England breaks the German war code, so that "By the end of January 1915, (British Intelligence was) able to advise the Admiralty of the departure of each U-boat as it left for patrol..." (Simpson)
1914 December 15 Putnik's troops recapture Belgrade and soon drive the Austrian invaders from Serbia. Austrian casualties in this savagely fought campaign are approximately 227,000 out of 450,000 engaged. Serbian losses are approximately 170,000 out of 400,000.
1914 December 17 Britain declares a protectorate over Egypt, previously subject to Turkey, and begins moving troops there to defend the Suez Canal.
1914 December 25 The French battleship Jean Bart is torpedoed by an Austrian submarine in the Straits of Otranto.
1914 Giacomo della Chiesa becomes Pope Benedict XV, succeeding Pius X.
1914 Benito Mussolini, editor of the Milan Socialist party newspaper Avanti!, is at first opposed to Italy's involvement in the war but soon reverses his position and calls for Italy's entry on the side of the Allies. Expelled from the Socialist party for this stance, he founds his own newspaper in Milan, Il popolo d'Italia which will later become the party newspaper of the Fascist movement. Mussolini will serve in the Italian army until wounded in 1917.
1914 Jean Monnet obtains a lucrative monopoly contract for the shipment of vital war materials from Canada to France, making a fortune as a war profiteer.
1914 Lazar Kaganovich moves to Kiev, takes a factory job and begins to organize a Bolshevik union of sales employees. After several strikes, Lazar is fired. He then finds work as a leather dresser across town and continues to organize, though more cautiously.
1914 Guido von List publishes GLB 6 (Die Ursprache der Ario-Germanen und ihre Mysteriensprache) his so-called "masterpiece" of occult linguistics and symbology. (Roots)
1914 Albert Einstein returns to Germany to occupy the most prestigious and best-paying post a theoretical physicist can hold in central Europe: professor at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft in Berlin, but does not reapply for German citizenship. He is one of only a handful of German professors who remained a pacifist and did not support Germany's war effort. Although he held a cross-appointment at the University of Berlin, from this time on, he will never again teach regular university courses, but remains on the staff until 1933.
1914 The Panama Canal is completed, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
1914 U.S. Marines land at Veracruz, Mexico, and President Huerta resigns.
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