1914 Battles of World War I

World War I (WWI or WW1), also known as the First World War, or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history.

1914 August

• Battle of Liège (5 August 1914): The opening engagement of the German invasion of Belgium and the first battle of World War I. The length of the siege of Liège may have delayed the German invasion of France by 4–5 days.
• Battle of Mulhouse (7 August 1914): The battle was part of a French attempt to recover the province of Alsace, which France had ceded to the new German Empire following defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871.
• Battle of Halen (12 August 1914): Halen was a small market town and a convenient river crossing of the Gete River; the town was also on the principal axis of advance of the Imperial German army. The battle was a tactical victory for the Belgians but did little to delay the German invasion of Belgium.
• Battle of Lorraine (14 August 1914): The Battle of Lorraine was a battle of World War I fought in August 1914 between France and Germany. This followed Plan XVII, which proposed a French offensive through Lorraine and Alsace into Germany.
• Battle of Stallupönen (17 August 1914): The Germans under the command of Hermann von François conducted a successful counterattack against four Russian infantry divisions from different infantry corps, which heavily outnumbered them but were separated from each other, creating a gap between the 27th Infantry Division and the 40th Infantry Division.
• Battle of Charleroi (21 August 1914): The French were saved by a counter-attack at Dinant and the re-direction of the 3rd Army to the north-west in support of the 2nd Army, rather than south-west.
• Battle of the Ardennes (21 August 1914): The German armies defeated the French armies and forced the French armies to retreat. The battle was part of the larger Battle of the Frontiers, the first battle of the Western Front.
• Battle of Rossignol (22 August 1914): To counter the German invasion of Belgium, the French commander-in-chief General Joseph Joffre ordered an attack upon the centre of the German advance.
• Battle of Mons (23 August 1914): Although the British fought well and inflicted disproportionate casualties on the numerically superior Germans, they were eventually forced to retreat due both to the greater strength of the Germans and the sudden retreat of the French Fifth Army, which exposed the British right flank.
• Battle of Galicia (23 August 1914): In the course of the battle, the Austro-Hungarian armies were severely defeated and forced out of Galicia, while the Russians captured Lemberg and, for approximately nine months, ruled Eastern Galicia until their defeat at Gorlice and Tarnów.
• Battle of the Trouée de Charmes (24 August 1914): The Battle of the Trouée de Charmes was a victory for the French Second Army; in stopping the Germans from passing through the Trouée de Charmes, Castelnau possibly saved the French from disaster.
• Battle of Tannenberg (26 August 1914): The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov.
• Battle of Le Cateau (26 August 1914): The Battle of Le Cateau was fought on 26 August 1914, after the British and French retreated from the Battle of Mons and had set up defensive positions in a fighting withdrawal against the German advance at Le Cateau-Cambrésis.
• Battle of St. Quentin (29 August 1914): The French resumed the offensive on the morning of 30 August but managed only disjointed attacks, which were repulsed and German counter-attacks began before noon.

1914 September

• First Battle of the Marne (6 September 1914): The battle was the culmination of the German advance into France and pursuit of the Allied armies which followed the Battle of the Frontiers in August and had reached the eastern outskirts of Paris.
• First Battle of the Masurian Lakes (7 September 1914): It pushed the Russian First Army back across its entire front, eventually ejecting it from Germany. Further progress was hampered by the arrival of the Russian Tenth Army on the Germans' left flank.
• First Battle of the Aisne (13 September 1914): When the Germans turned to face the pursuing Allies on 13 September, they held one of the most formidable positions on the Western Front.
• Battle of Flirey (19 September 1914): The battle cut most of the roads and railways to the strategically important Fortified Region of Verdun (Région Fortifiée de Verdun [RFV]) and was to have a large effect on the course of the war.
• First Battle of Picardy (22 September 1914): The French Sixth Army attacked up the Oise river valley towards Noyon, as the Second Army assembled further north, ready to attempt to advance round the northern flank of the German 1st Army.
• Battle of Albert (25 September 1914): The Second Army (Noël de Castelnau), began to assemble at Amiens in mid-September and was directed by General Joseph Joffre, the Generalissimo of the French Army, to attack near Albert.
• Battle of the Vistula River (29 September 1914): The Battle of the Vistula River, also known as the Battle of Warsaw, was a Russian victory against the German Empire and Austria-Hungary on the Eastern Front during the First World War.

1914 October

• Battle of Arras (1 October 1914): The French were forced to withdraw towards Arras and Lens was occupied by German forces on 4 October.
• Battle of La Bassée (10 October 1914): The German 6th Army took Lille before a British force could secure the town and the 4th Army attacked the exposed British flank further north at Ypres.
• Battle of Messines (12 October 1914): The Battle of Messines was fought in October 1914 between the armies of the German and British empires, as part of the Race to the Sea, between the river Douve and the Comines–Ypres canal.
• Battle of Armentières (13 October 1914): The 6th Army began attacks from Arras north to Armentières in late October, which were faced by the BEF III Corps from Rouges Bancs, past Armentières north to the Douve river beyond the Lys.
• Battle of the Yser (16 October 1914): Victory at the Yser allowed Belgium to retain control of a sliver of territory, while making King Albert a Belgian national hero, sustaining national pride and providing a venue for commemorations of heroic sacrifice for the next century.
• First Battle of Ypres (19 October 1914): The battle was part of the First Battle of Flanders, in which German, French and Belgian armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) fought from Arras in France to Nieuport on the Belgian coast.
• Battle of Langemarck (21 October 1914): On 20 October, Langemarck, north-east of Ypres, was held by a French territorial unit and the British IV corps to the south.
• Battle of Gheluvelt (28 October 1914): Strict economies were imposed on the 6th Army formations further south, to provide artillery ammunition for 250 heavy guns allotted to support an attack to the north-west, between Gheluvelt and Messines.

1914 November

• Battle of Nonne Bosschen (9 November 1914): On 10 November, twelve and half German divisions of the 4th and 6th Armies, Armeegruppe Fabeck and XXVII Reserve Corps attacked from Nonne Bosschen and the edge of Polygon Wood, to Gheluvelt and across the Menin Road to Shrewsbury Forest in the south.
• Battle of Łódź (11 November 1914): The Battle of Łódź took place from November 11 to December 6, 1914, near the city of Łódź in Poland. It was fought between the German Ninth Army and the Russian First, Second, and Fifth Armies, in harsh winter conditions.

1914 December

• Battle of Limanowa (1 December 1914): The Austro-Hungarian high command had assumed that the German success would weaken Russian forces in the north and that the Galician front would remain quiet. Both these assumptions were incorrect.
• Battle of the Falkland Islands (8 December 1914): The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a naval action between the British Royal Navy and Imperial German Navy on 8 December 1914, during the First World War in the South Atlantic.
• First Battle of Champagne (20 December 1914): The offensive was part of a strategy by the French army to attack the Noyon Salient, a large bulge in the new Western Front, which ran from Switzerland to the North Sea.
• Battle of Sarikamish (22 December 1914): Battle of Sarikamish was an engagement between the Russian and Ottoman empires during World War I. It took place from December 22, 1914 to January 17, 1915, as part of the Caucasus Campaign.

RESOURCES
This article uses material from the Wikipedia articles "World War" and "World War I", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.