1. CHRONOLOGY OF THE JULY CRISIS OF 1914
June 28
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo
July 5/6
Hoyos Mission to Berlin; Germany issues a “blank check” to Austria (Strachan, pp 13-15)
July 23/24
Austrian ultimatum to Serbia and Russia’s sresponse (pp )
July 28
Austria declares war on Serbia
July 29
Bombardment of Belgrade; Sir Edward Grey threatens British intervention for the first time
July 30
Russia orders general mobilization
July 31
Germany issues 12-hour ultimatum to Russia
Aug 1
Schlieffen Plan implemented

3. NOT ACCORDING TO PLAN: THE OPENING ROUNDS OF THE GREAT WAR
German troops drive toward Paris in August 1914 but suffer defeat in the Battle of the Marne (September 5-9).
Russia invades Germany but suffers crushing defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg (August 26-30).
Japan conquers the German naval base at Jiaozhou (aka Tsingtao) in northeast China, November 1914.
British Indian forces fail to conquer the port of Tanga in German East Africa (now Tanzania).
With no more than 3,000 German and 11,000 African troops, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck ties down 300,000 Allied troops in Africa,

4. Citizens of Paris rejoice on August 2, 1914
Leading French citizens demonstrate their enthusiasm for war on a Paris boulevard, 2 August From John Keegan, An Illustrated History of the First World War (New York: Knopf, 2001), p. 57.

5. Some Parisians may have had second thoughts...
A French sergeant marches backwards in front of his unit as they march down a Paris boulevard toward a train station during the mobilization of August Perhaps only the older men waving their hats in the crowd display unalloyed enthusiasm; some nervous strain seems evident on the faces both of the soldiers and of their wives and mothers in the crowd. From Keegan, ILLUSTRATED FIRST WORLD WAR, p. 59.

6. Soldiers in Berlin, 2 August 1914
Berlin civilians joyously accompany their soldiers on the first mile's march toward Paris. SOURCE: American Heritage History of World War I, p. 39 6

7. Munich, August 1, 1914: “I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.” (Mein Kampf, p. 161)
Mein Kampf, p. 161: “To me those hours seemed like a release from the painful feelings of my youth. Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.”

8. The “Moltke Plan” vs. the French “Plan XVII”
The German and French war plans at the outbreak of the First World War. Note that, according to Moltke's operational plan, loosely based on the memoranda of Schlieffen, the German First Army was supposed to penetrate at least 40 miles to the west of Paris before it swung to the south. Schlieffen and Moltke guessed correctly that the French would launch an offensive to recover Alsace-Lorraine, which would draw their front-line troops away from Paris without threatening any strategically vital target in Germany. The French troop movements anticipated by "Plan XVII," shown in blue, actually played into the Germans' hands.
SOURCE:

9. THE GROWTH OF MILITARY FIREPOWER, 1815-1914
ARMIES AT WATERLOO, 1815:
70,000 men each under Napoleon & Wellington, fighting on a 1.5-mile front
ARMIES AT BATTLE OF THE MARNE, 1914:
1 million men on each side, fighting along a
90-mile front
FIREARMS:
Smooth-bore muskets
RANGE: 150 yards
RATE OF FIRE: 2 rounds per minute
High-powered rifles
RANGE: 1 mile
RATE OF FIRE: 12x per minute
PLUS 2 machine guns per thousand men;
RATE OF FIRE: 400x per minute
ARTILLERY:
3 cannon per 1,000 men, firing solid shot or canister
RANGE: ½ mile for shot,
150 yards for canister
RATE OF FIRE: 1 round per minute
6 cannon per thousand men, firing high explosive shells
RANGE: 4-10 miles
RATE OF FIRE: 20 rounds per minute

10. One of the modern Belgian forts guarding Liège: Many military planners regarded such forts as impregnable
Artist's rendering of one of the powerful Belgian forts that ringed the city of Liege in 1914; they were designed by the engineer Brialmont and featured the "disappearing cupola," steel gun turrets that popped up to fire and then sank into the ground.
SOURCE: Richard Holmes, _The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Course of History_ (London and New York: Viking, 1988), pp

11. Krupp’s 420-mm (16.8-inch) siege howitzer, and the gun turrets of Fort Loncin (outside Liège) after 2 ½ hours of bombardment on August 15, 1914.
German troops were equipped with 420-mm (16.8-inch) siege howitzers, manufactured by the Krupp Works in Essen, which went into action against the Belgian fortresses around Liege and Namur beginning on 12 August Only two of these late-model cannon were available for this operation, but they had a devastating impact. From Keegan, ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR, pp. 71, 73.

12. The actual German advance by September 5, 1914
The actual German advance by September 5, The French assembled a new 6th Army to threaten the flank of the German 1st Army.
The furthest advance of the German troops as of September 5, 1914, just before the French counter-attack.
SOURCE: Richard Holmes, _The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Course of History_ (London and New York: Viking, 1988), p. 138.

13. ARCHITECTS OF THE FRENCH VICTORY ON THE MARNE
General Joseph Joffre ( ), Chief of Staff
General Joseph Gallieni ( ), Paris commander
General Joseph Joffre ( ), chief of staff of the French army, hand-colored photograph from Joffre was an engineer officer who had made his career in the colonies and became popular as "Papa" Joffre” because he kept his nerve during the initial French retreats and sensibly altered his tactics and deployment. He was eventually removed from office in 1917 and made a Marshal of France (the first since 1870). Beside him General Joseph Gallieni ( ) is shown standing before a 75-mm field piece. Like Joffre, Gallieni had a background in colonial warfare, but the two men were bitter rivals. As the Germans approached Paris in August 1914, Gallieni was called out of retirement to serve as military governor of the city. He quickly formed the Sixth Army out of garrison troops and mobilizing reserves and directed the counter-attack that derailed the Moltke Plan. Gallieni served briefly as Minister of War in 1915/16 but died in May 1916.
SOURCE: John Keegan, _An Illustrated History of the First World War_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), pp. 56, 96.

14. The “Taxis of the Marne,” which drove 6,000 soldiers from Paris to the front in early September 1914
Taxis assemble before Les Invalides in Paris to ferry troops to the front during the Battle of the Marne, September No more than 6,000 troops were transported in this way, but news stories about the "taxis of the Marne" provided a great boost to French morale. From Keegan, ILLUSTRATED FIRST WORLD WAR, p. 101.

15. French colonial troops from North Africa attack German positions on the Marne (French engraving from 1914)
In this engraving from 1914 by Fernand Besnier, French colonial troops from North Africa take part in the counter-attack against the German invaders in the First Battle of the Marne, 6-14 September 1914.
SOURCE: John Keegan, _An Illustrated History of the First World War_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), p. 97.

16. German war dead, Battle of the Marne (published in the French press): Moltke suffered a nervous breakdown soon thereafter
German dead litter a battlefield recaptured by the French in the Battle of the Marne, September Many army units still attacked to the sound of drums and bugles in 1914, with banners unfurled, but this 18th-century tradition disappeared the following year. Many of the wounded lay where they had been hit for many hours during the battles of the First World War because of a lack of stretcher bearers and adequate medical services, and many of them died unnecessarily from shock and dehydration. From Keegan, ILLUSTRATED FIRST WORLD WAR, p. 102.

17. Tsar Nicholas II greets Russian soldiers departing for the front in early August 1914
Tsar Nicholas II greets kneeling Russian soldiers before their departure for the German border, August 1914.
SOURCE: [Bildersammlung: Kriege, Krisen & Konflikte. The Yorck Project: Das große dpa-Bildarchiv, S. 49
(vgl. dpa, S. 17) (c) 2005 The Yorck Project]

18. Russian troops invade East Prussia, August 1914 (but coordination was poor between the 1st & 2nd Armies)
A popular Russian print of the Russian army entering East Prussia in August The regimental band heads the column, followed by the regimental singers. They have attached a print of their tsar to a German mileage marker. From Keegan, ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR, p. 149.

19. The Battle of Tannenberg, East Prussia, August 27-30, 1914: 30,000 Russians killed, 100,000 captured
The Germans took advantage of the interval when the Masurian Lakes made it most difficult for the two Russian armies invading East Prussia to maintain contact with each other. They disengaged completely from Rennenkampf's First Army in the North, leaving only a cavalry screen, and utilized their railroad net to concentrate all their forces against Samsonov's Second Army in the South. In the Battle of Tannenberg, August 26-31, 1914, Samsonov's 13th, 15th, and 23rd Corps were wiped out, and Samsonov committed suicide; about 30,000 Russians were killed and 100,000 captured in what was probably the only "decisive" battle of the First World War.
SOURCE: Richard Holmes, _The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Course of History_ (London and New York: Viking, 1988), p. 144.

20. General Alexander Samsonov committed suicide…
Russians surrendering at Tannenberg, August 30, 1914 (published in Germany)
General Alexander Samsonov committed suicide…
Russian soldiers surrender at the Battle of Tannenberg. SOURCE: American Heritage History of World War I, p. 95.
General Alexander Samsonov, commander of the Russian Second Army at Tannenberg, who committed suicide shortly after the battle. From Keegan, Illustrated History, p. 125.

21. The victor of Tannenberg, General Paul von Hindenburg, and his chief of staff, Erich Ludendorff, became Germany’s greatest war heroes….
General Paul von Hindenburg and his chief of staff, Erich Ludendorff, soon after their victory at Tannenberg.
SOURCE: Richard Holmes, _The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Course of History_ (London and New York: Viking, 1988), p. 144.

22. The old fortress of Belgrade:
Artist’s rendering of the failure of the Austrian assault on Belgrade in August 1914
The old fortress of Belgrade, built mostly by the Turks on a hill above the Danube. It suffered the first shots of the Great War, from Austrian gunboats, fired on July 29, 1914, but it was so strongly built that it survived all subsequent battles intact.
SOURCE: John Keegan, _An Illustrated History of the First World War_ (New York: Knopf, 2001), p. 142.
An Italian artist's rendition of Austria's failed attempt to cross the River Sava in August Vigorous Serb counter-attacks compelled the Austrians to withdraw by August 24. In the next three months of fighting, the Austrians briefly occupied Belgrade, but the Serbs recaptured it in December 1914.
SOURCE: John Keegan, _An Illustrated History of the First World War_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), p. 140.
The old fortress of Belgrade:
Captured by the Austrians on December 2, but abandoned on December 13, 1914

23. The Russian conquest of Austrian Galicia, autumn 1914.
The Eastern Front as of November Conrad von Hoetzendorf sought in August 1914 to launch a major invasion of Serbia, but he also responded to Moltke’s pleas for assistance by launching an invasion of Russian Poland, and he did not have nearly enough troops to pursue both objectives. The Austrian invasion of Serbia suffered a bloody defeat, while overwhelmingly superior Russian forces conquered Austrian Galicia in fighting that destroyed one-third of Austria-Hungary’s army, which lost at least 250,000 men killed and wounded plus another 100,000 taken prisoner. SOURCE: The American Heritage History of World War I, p. 81.

24. Austrian troops leave a burning village in Russian Poland
Austrian troops leave a burning village in Russian Poland, carrying suspiciously large sacks.
SOURCE: American Heritage History of World War I, p. 160
Refugees flee the combat zone in Russian Poland in The husband holds the reins of horses pulling a typical light farm wagon. From Keegan, ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR, p. 152.
Refugees flee the fighting in Russian Poland

25. A German trench on the Western Front, November 1914 (by now they stretched from Switzerland to the English Channel)
The first trenches were makeshift, but this German trench from late 1914 displays many of the features that became standard, including duckboards along the bottom of the trench and a firestep or ledge for riflemen to stand on.
SOURCE: Richard Holmes, _The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Course of History_ (London and New York: Viking, 1988), p. 141.

26. French observation post below Vimy Ridge, 1915
A French listening post below Vimy Ridge in December The Germans dominated the front between Arras and Ypres from this ridge. After repeated assaults, it was finally captured by Canadian troops in April The French soldier at the rear is watching no-man's-land through a camouflaged periscope.
SOURCE: John Keegan, _An Illustrated History of the First World War_ (New York: Knopf, 2001), p. 185.

27. The Western Front: Aerial view of a German trench network
Overview of a three-deep network of trenches.
SOURCE:

28. Cross-section of a well constructed trench
SOURCE:

29. Life in a German dugout in the Argonne Forest in 1915 (a cheerful postcard for the home front)
A posed photograph of German soldiers enjoying life in a comfortable and well furnished dugout underneath the trenches in the Argonne Forest in German troops did in fact develop safer and more comfortable field fortifications than did their French or British opponents in 1915, because Falkenhayn instructed them to prepare for a long-term defensive campaign. From Keegan, ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR, p. 161.

30. European Empires in Asia in 1914
Colonialism in Asia as of 1914.
SOURCE:

31. The Partition of Africa, 1878-1911
The marginal zone of European rule in Africa in 1878, and the colonial empires of 1914.
SOURCE: Thomas Noble et al., _Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries_, 5th edn. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), p. 742. 31

32. German East African “askaris” and their commander, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
German "askaris" march in East AFrica during the First World War.
SOURCE: John Keegan, _An Illustrated History of the First World War_ (New York: Knopf, 2001), p. 191.

33. THE EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGNS OF PAUL VON LETTOW-VORBECK, 1914-18
Military campaigning in East Africa in the First World War.
In 1914 Germany possessed four colonies in sub-Saharan Africa: Togoland, Cameroons, South-West Africa (now Namibia), and East Africa (now Tanzania). The fight for the fourth of these has most captured the public imagination. The last German troops did not surrender until two weeks after the Armistice in Europe, on 25 November Their commander, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, became a German hero, the symbol of an army that deemed itself undefeated in the field. By the 1960s he had acquired another reputation, that of guerrilla leader. Neither interpretation can be fully sustained.
The German colonial troops, the Schutztruppen, were equipped and trained only for internal policing duties, but Lettow-Vorbeck, appointed through the influence of the German general staff, aimed to contribute to the main struggle in the event of war in Europe by drawing British forces away from their principal theatres and sought battle rather than shunned it. However, his isolation from Germany meant that neither trained European soldiers nor stocks of munitions were easily replaced. After the battle of Mahiwa, which Lettow-Vorbeck began on 15 October 1917, the Germans had exhausted all their smokeless cartridges and had to abandon German territory for Portuguese in the search for ammunition.
British strategy in Africa was much more limited. On 5 August 1914 a subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence decided that the principal objectives were to eliminate Germany's wireless stations and to deprive its navy of bases. Heinrich Schnee, the governor of German East Africa, anxious to protect the fruits of German colonialism, effectively co-operated in the achievement of both these objectives. The principal German cruiser in the region, SMS Königsberg, was unable to enter Dar es Salaam, and took refuge in the delta of the Rufiji river, where she was eventually located and sunk on 11 July The British colonial office lacked the troops to do much more, and it therefore called on the Indian army. Indian Expeditionary Force B, principally made up of second-line units, landed at German East Africa's second major port, Tanga, on 2 November Lettow-Vorbeck had concentrated his forces to the north, with a view to launching an attack into British East Africa, but was still able to redeploy and inflict a humiliating defeat on the British. The latter, hamstrung by overlapping administrative authorities and now deprived of any faith in the available Indian troops, did nothing in The Germans raided the Uganda railway.
The campaign was reactivated in March 1916 with the arrival of South African reinforcements under J. C. Smuts. Like the Indians, the South Africans were not easily deployable to the western front, and to that extent Lettow-Vorbeck's strategy was not working. However, Smuts's aims were much more extensive than those of London. He wished to conquer the entire German colony and then to trade territory with Portugal, so as to extend South Africa's frontier into Mozambique at least as far as the Zambezi. He therefore invaded German East Africa from the north, cutting across the axes of the two principal railway lines and neglecting the harbours on the coast. He had earned his military reputation as the leader of a Boer commando and conducted his campaign as though his mounted rifles could move as fast through regions infested with tsetse fly as across the veld. He accorded little recognition to the difference between rainy seasons and dry. His advance, although rapid, failed ever to grip and defeat the German forces. His troops entered Dar es Salaam on 3 September 1916, and were astride the Central railway, running from there to Tabora and Lake Tanganyika. Smuts should have paused but he did not, plunging on to the Rufiji river, and claiming that the campaign was all but over when in reality it had stalled.
Worrying for Smuts were Belgian territorial ambitions in the west. Debouching from the Congo into Ruanda and Urundi, the Belgians had reached Tabora in August Smuts's sub-imperialism was challenged even more fundamentally by the contribution of blacks to the campaign. The Schutztruppen, although officered by Europeans, were predominantly native Africans, and yet they had proved formidable opponents for the whites. On the British side the South Africans were particularly susceptible to malaria, and by early 1917 they were being replaced in the British order of battle by the black units of the West African Frontier Force and the King's African Rifles. Moreover, the collapse of animal transport meant that supply was largely dependent on human resources; the British ended up recruiting over a million labourers for the campaign. The long-term impact for Africa—in the development of the cash economy, in the penetration of colonial rule into areas hitherto unmapped, and in the erosion of chiefly or tribal authority—was immense.
Smuts was recalled to London in January 1917, and handed over his command to A. R. Hoskins. Hoskins set about remedying the worst of the health, transport, and supply problems, but in doing so aroused impatience in the War Cabinet in London which could not understand why a campaign which Smuts had said was over was still continuing to drain Allied shipping. (This was one area in which Lettow-Vorbeck most nearly fulfilled his overall strategy.) In April Hoskins was replaced by J. L. van Deventer, another Afrikaaner, who implemented Hoskins's plan but still failed to prevent the rump of the Germans from escaping into Portuguese East Africa in November. For the next year, Lettow-Vorbeck's columns marched through Portuguese territory, fighting largely to secure supplies and munitions. The Allies still had a ration strength of 111, 371 in the theatre at the war's end.
SOURCE:

34. TROOPS FROM BRITISH INDIA, captured by the askaris after landing at Tanga in November 1914 despite an 8:1 numerical superiority
Indian soldiers of the British expeditionary force under guard at Tanga, German East Africa, after the dismal failure of their amphibious assault on November 2-5, The British had made no effort to conceal their plans, trusting in numerical superiority, as they landed 8,000 troops to face the 1,000 mostly African troops commanded by the German Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. The Indian troops were poorly trained and poorlly motivated contingents from the Princely States, and the only result of their landing was to provide von Lettow with several hundred rifles and 600,000 rounds of ammunition.
SOURCE: John Keegan, _An Illustrated History of the First World War_ (New York: Knopf, 2001), p. 194.

35. The locomotives “Mimi” and “Tou-Tou” transport British troops in German East Africa in 1915
The locomotives "Mimi" and "Tou-Tou" transport troops during the British invasion of Tanganyika in 1915.
SOURCE: John Keegan, _An Illustrated History of the First World War_ (New York: Knopf, 2001), p. 190.

36. French colonial soldiers in 1917
ANONYMOUS, Untitled photograph of French Colonial soldiers (1917; Musée d'histoire contemporaine / BDIC).
SOURCE:
Starting clockwise from the soldier standing at left, they come from Senegal, Guinea, Somalia, Tunisia, Indochina, Sudan, and Dahomey.

37. Senegalese volunteers in the French army, July 1918
These "Tirailleurs se'ne'galais" take a break shortly before the Second Battle of the Marne, July The French Army had long raised black regiments for service within the African colonies on a volunteer basis, and the recruits from Senegal were especially prized for their fighting qualities. By 1918 almost two million African troops served in France. From SOURCE: John Keegan, _An Illustrated History of the First World War_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), p. 379.