3 August Germany declares war on France.
4 August Germany invades Belgium.
Britain declares war on Germany.
6 August Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.
Serbia declares war on Germany.
10 August France declares war on Austria-Hungary.
12 August Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary.
23 August Germans attack the British in Belgium, at the Battle of Mons.
6 September Battle of the Marne begins in France.
Mid-October First Battle of Ypres, between the British and the Germans, begins.
November/December Britain’s east coast shelled by German ships.
25 December Soldiers on the Western Front enjoy an unofficial Christmas truce; carols, presents, international football games.
1915
19 January First Zeppelin air raid on Britain.
February German U-boats (submarines) ordered to sink any ships in British waters.
April/May Second Battle of Ypres. Germans use poisonous chlorine gas.
7 May British liner Lusitania sunk by U-boat. Almost 1,200 people die, at least 120 of them Americans, prompting outrage in the US.
1916
February Germans attack the French, starting the Battle of Verdun, which lasts until November.
31 May Battle of Jutland, a sea battle between the British and the Germans.
1 July The Battle of the Somme begins, and lasts until November. On the first day, nearly 60,000 British soldiers are killed or injured.
15 September The British use tanks for the first time on the Western Front in the Somme battle. They’re heavy and slow and many break down or get stuck in the mud.
28 November First daylight raid on London by German bombers.
5 December British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith resigns, and is replaced by David Lloyd George.
1917
6 April The United States declares war on Germany.
11 June King Constantine of Greece goes into exile and abdicates. He’s succeeded by his son, Alexander, who is pro-British.
27 June Greece joins the Allies in war.
17 July King George V changes the surname of the Royal family. Instead of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which sounds German, he chooses Windsor for all the UK descendants of Queen Victoria.
31 July Start of the third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele.
6 November Passchendaele falls to the Allies, bringing the third Battle of Ypres to a close.
1918
15 July Second Battle of the Marne.
16–17 July Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsarina and their children, who’ve been captives in Siberia for months, are murdered by Bolshevik Communists.
7–11 November Germany discusses plans for an armistice – an agreement to end the war – in a railway carriage at Compiègne, France.
9 November Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German Emperor, abdicates. Germany becomes a republic – the country no longer has a monarch.
11 November At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the armistice comes into force. The War is ended.
Experience history first-hand with My Story – a series of vividly imagined accounts of life in the past.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Daphne Rowntree is a fictional character, created by the author, and her diary is a work of fiction.
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First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2008
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd, 2015
Text © Valerie Wilding, 2008
Cover photography © Jeff Cottenden, 2015
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eISBN 978 1407 15682 8
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