1914
Assassination sparked conflict
1914 refers to the year that began World War I, often used as shorthand for that conflict's outbreak or the era it ended: the world before 1914, the summer of 1914.
The year marks a historical watershed—the close of the long nineteenth century and the beginning of modern warfare, mass mobilization, and the collapse of European empires.
Murder of a prominent figure
- Archduke Franz FerdinandAustrian heir, killed 1914
- SarajevoBosnia's chief city
- ultimatumNon-negotiable final terms
- Austria-HungaryFormer Central European empire
Serbia · mobilization · declarations of war · Christmas truce · Western Front · Eastern Front · Triple Entente · Central Powers
Extending dominion over others
- nationalismDevotion to one's country
- militarismPro-force national policy
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
- BalkansSoutheastern European peninsula
alliances · entente · arms race · dreadnoughts · geopolitics · monarchies · Habsburg · Romanov
Elongated ground excavations
- no man's landUnowned space between enemies
- artilleryLarge-caliber battlefield weapons
- infantryGround combat troops
- cavalryMounted military force
machine guns · barbed wire · poison gas · stalemate · casualties · frontline · siege · bombardment
Of early twentieth-century Britain
- ragtimeSyncopated piano genre
- suffragettesFemale voting-rights activists
- Home RuleIrish autonomy within Britain
- Mexican Revolution1910s armed political transformation
Panama Canal · Ford Model T · assembly line · silent film · Charlie Chaplin · Buster Keaton · vaudeville · immigration
assassination
Murder of a prominent figure
- Archduke Franz FerdinandAustrian heir, killed 1914
- SarajevoBosnia's chief city
- ultimatumNon-negotiable final terms
Austria-Hungary · Serbia · mobilization · declarations of war · Christmas truce · Western Front · Eastern Front · Triple Entente · Central Powers · Allied Powers
imperialism
Extending dominion over others
- nationalismDevotion to one's country
- militarismPro-force national policy
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
Balkans · alliances · entente · arms race · dreadnoughts · geopolitics · monarchies · Habsburg · Romanov · diplomacy
trenches
Elongated ground excavations
- no man's landUnowned space between enemies
- artilleryLarge-caliber battlefield weapons
- infantryGround combat troops
cavalry · machine guns · barbed wire · poison gas · stalemate · casualties · frontline · siege · bombardment · conscription
Edwardian
Of early twentieth-century Britain
- ragtimeSyncopated piano genre
- suffragettesFemale voting-rights activists
- Home RuleIrish autonomy within Britain
Mexican Revolution · Panama Canal · Ford Model T · assembly line · silent film · Charlie Chaplin · Buster Keaton · vaudeville · immigration · tenements
- WWI LiteratureIn Flanders Fields, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, war poetry, shell shock
1914peacetime
Absence of armed conflict
peace · armistice · ceasefire · 1913 · tranquility
19141900
Start of 1900s
1890 · 1913 · Edwardian era · fin de siècle · Victorian era