August 1914: Difference between revisions

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The following events occurred in August 1914:

August 1, 1914 (Friday)

• The German Empire declared war on the Russian Empire, following Russia's full military mobilization in support of Serbia. The declaration of war was also required for Germany to begin mobilization.
• Italy declared itself neutral at the start of the war despite being part of the Triple Alliance, citing it was a defensive nature and Austria-Hungary's aggression did not obligate the country to take part.
• Germany accepted an offer from Great Britain to guarantee France's neutrality. However, Germany's plan to invade Luxembourg and Belguim forced France to mobilize.
• A secret treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Germany secured Ottoman neutrality.
• The New York Stock Exchange closed due to war in Europe, where nearly all stock exchanges were already closed.
• Swiss National Park (Parc Naziunal Svizzer) was established in the Engadin region of Switzerland.
• Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Jamaica.
• Born: Hughie Edwards, Australian Royal Air Force pilot during World War Two, recipient of the Victoria Cross, 23rd Governor of Western Australia, in Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia (d. 1982)

August 2, 1914 (Saturday)

• German troops occupied Luxembourg in accordance with its Schlieffen Plan.
• At 7:00 pm (local time) Germany issued a 12-hour ultimatum to neutral Belgium to allow German passage into France.
• The first military action on the Western Front occurred as a skirmish at Joncherey in northeastern France near the border. A small German cavalry illegally crossed the border (no formal declaration of war had yet been made) and advanced deep into French territory with no resistance as French forces in good faith had pulled back from the border. The cavalry eventually came on the village and alarmed residents alerted local French militia. Shots were exchanged and two officers on either side were fatally wounded. Three more German cavalrymen were injured, another was taken prisoner, and two made it back across the border.
• Born: Beatrice Straight, American film and theater actress, Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress in Network, in Old Westbury, New York (d. 2001); Félix Leclerc, Canadian singer-songwriter and advocate for Quebec nationalism, in La Tuque, Quebec (d. 1988)

August 3, 1914 (Sunday)

• At 7:00 am (local time), King Albert of Belgium refused the German request to violate his country's neutrality, resulting in Germany declaring war on Belgium and on France.
• British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey encouraged the House of Commons to support going to war with Germany should Germany invade Belguim. Later that evening, he made the famous observation to a friend while looking out a window in the Foreign Office as gas lamps in London streets were being lit at dusk: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
• The Imperial German Navy leased the cargo-passenger ship Answald for conversion into Germany's first seaplane carrier, SMS Answald, designated Flugzeugmutterschiff I (Airplane Mothership I).
• English language teacher Henry Hadley was shot in an altercation with a Prussian officer on a train at Gelsenkirchen in Germany, dying two days later shortly after the declaration of war.
• Born: Gordon Bryant, Australian politician, cabinet minister of Aboriginal Affairs from 1972 to 1973, laid much of the groundwork for the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976, in Lismore, Victoria, Australia (d. 1991)
• Died: Louis Couturat, French mathematician, philosopher, and linguist, known for the creation of the constructed language Ido (b. 1868)

August 4, 1914 (Monday)

• German armies under command of generals Alexander von Kluck and Karl von Bülow invaded Belgium at 8:02 am (local time) after the 12-hour ultimatum expired.
• Great Britain declared war on Germany at 11:00 p.m. for violating Belgian neutrality.
• The United States declared neutrality at the outbreak of World War One.
• With Great Britain formally at war, former British colonies and sovereign nations Australia, Canada, and New Zealand entered World War One.
• Imperial German Navy cruisers Goeben and Breslau under command of Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Souchon bombarded the ports of Bône and Philippeville in French Algeria.
• Admiral Sir John Jellicoe was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the newly designated Grand Fleet, based at Scapa Flow.
• The Royal Naval Air Service took inventory of its air fleet, which had only 26 out of 52 seaplanes that were serviceable for flight, with 46 more on order.
• The British government took control of all the nation's railways as a wartime measure.
• Mahatma Gandhi learned that war had been declared just as he reached London. Soon after, he began organizing the Indian Volunteer Corps to provide non-military support for the British Empire.
• The Order of the White Feather was established by Admiral Charles Cooper Penrose-Fitzgerald, RN (retd), in Folkestone, aiming to persuade women to offer white feathers to men not in uniform to shame them into enlisting.
• Died: Hubertine Auclert, feminist and campaigner for women's suffrage (b. 1848); Jules Lemaître, French literary critic and dramatist, critic for Journal des Débats and Revue des Deux Mondes (b. 1853)

August 5, 1914 (Tuesday)

• The Kingdom of Montenegro declared war on Austria-Hungary.
• Battle of Liège – German forces assaulted the city of Liège in east Belgium at 2:30 a.m., instigating the first major battle of World War One.
• Battle of Liège – The first air attack on a major European city occurred when a German zeppelin dropped bombs on Liége, killing nine civilians.
• The first shots by the Allies in World War One were from the guns of Point Nepean fort at Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia. The fort's guns fired across the bow of the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamer SS Pfalz as it was attempting to leave the Port of Melbourne in ignorance of the declaration of war (the German ship was detained).
• SS Königin Luise, taken over two days earlier by the Imperial German Navy as a minelayer, laid mines 40 miles (64 km) off the east coast of England. She was intercepted and sunk by the British Royal Navy light cruiser HMS Amphion, the first German naval loss of the war.
• The German naval ships SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau escaped the Allied naval blockade after the Ottoman government opened the Dardanelles to allow them passage to Constantinople, despite being required under international law, as a neutral party, to block military shipping.
• Captain Robert Bartlett of the shipwrecked Karluk completed the first leg of his voyage to rescue the remaining survivors on Wrangel Island in the Bering Sea. He rendezvoused at Port Hope, Alaska to provide new clothing and wages owed to his Intuit guide and companion who traveled with him from Wrangel Island to Siberia in an attempt to get back civilization and arrange a rescue boat.
• The first electric traffic light was installed on the corner of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio.
• Born: Parley Baer, American actor, known of character television roles including The Andy Griffith Show and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, in Salt Lake City (d. 2002); Stjepan Šulek, Croatian composer, in Zagreb, Austria-Hungary (d. 1986)

August 6, 1914 (Wednesday)

• Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia. Serbia declared war on Germany.
• The first engagement between ships of the British Royal Navy and the Imperial German Navy began when HMS Bristol pursued the SMS Karlsruhe (which escaped) in the West Indies.
• The Royal Navy light cruiser HMS Amphion struck the same mines laid by the Königin Luise it had sunk the day before with the loss of 150 British sailors, the first British casualties of the war, and 18 German crew members from the German minelayer.
• The first airship lost in combat was the Imperial German Army Zeppelin Z VI. Badly damaged by artillery and infantry gunfire on her first combat mission while bombing Liège, Belgium, at low altitude, she limped back into Germany and was wrecked in a crash-landing in a forest near Bonn.
• Ellen Axson Wilson, First Lady of the United States, passed away from Bright's disease (chronic nephritis). It was said she relayed a last message to the White House physician allowing husband and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to remarry. Her last words supposedly were "Take good care of my husband." She was buried in Rome, Georgia among her family. Woodrow remarried over a year later to Edith Bolling Galt.
• Born: Gordon Freeth, Australian politician, Member of Parliament for Forrest and cabinet minister from 1949 to 1969, in Angaston, South Australia, Australia (d. 1994)

August 7, 1914 (Thursday)

• Battle of Mulhouse – France launched its first attack of the war in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to recover the province of Alsace from Germany, beginning the Battle of the Frontiers.
• The British Expeditionary Force arrived in France.
• British colonial troops of the Gold Coast Regiment entered the German West African colony of Togoland and encountered a German-led police force at a factory in Nuatja, near Lomé, where the police opened fire on the patrol. Alhaji Grunshi returned fire, becoming the first soldier in British service to fire a shot in the war.
• The Currency and Bank Notes Act in Great Britain gave wartime powers of banknote issue to HM Treasury; the first notes, with the signature of John Bradbury, were issued.
• Died: Bransby Cooper, Indian-Australian cricketer, first Indian-born player to play Test cricket (b. 1844); Charles Davis Lucas, Irish Royal Navy officer, recipient of the Victoria Cross (b. 1834)

August 8, 1914 (Friday)

• Great Britain passed the first Defence of the Realm Act.
• German colonial forces executed Cameroonian resistance leaders Martin-Paul Samba and Rudolf Duala Manga Bell for high treason.
• A French aerial observer was injured by small-arms fire, becoming that nation's first air casualty in a war.
• Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition set sail on the Endurance from England in an attempt to cross Antarctica.
• The 13th International Lawn Tennis Challenge, now known at the Davis Cup, wrapped with final played between Great Britain and Australasia at the Longwood Cricket Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. Australasia was victorious over Britain, with a final score of 3-2.

August 9, 1914 (Saturday)

• The Kingdom of Montenegro declared war on Austria-Hungary.
• The Togoland Campaign begins.
• British Royal Navy light cruiser HMS Birmingham rammed and sank German submarine U-15 off Fair Isle, the first U-boat lost in action.
• Conducting a reconnaissance mission, the French dirigible (airship) Fleurus became the first Allied aircraft to fly over Germany during World War One.
• Born: Gordon Cullen, influential English architect and urban designer, author of Townscape which influenced the architectural movement, in Calverley, Leeds, England (d. 1994); Ferenc Fricsay, Hungarian-Austrian conductor, best known for his interpretations of Mozart and Beethoven, in Budapest (d. 1963); Tove Jansson, Finnish children's author and illustrator, best known for her Moomin book series for children, in Helsinki (d. 2001); Joe Mercer, British association football manager, manager for Manchester City from 1965 to 1971, in Ellesmere Port, England (d. 1990)
• Died: Roque Sáenz Peña, Argentine politician, 17th President of Argentina (b. 1851)

August 10, 1914 (Sunday)

• German warships SMS Goeben and Breslau (both commissioned in 1912), reached Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire.
• Australia recruited an offering of 20,000 troops for the First Australian Imperial Force to fight in World War One.
• All suffragette prisoners in Great Britain were released unconditionally.
• The adventure-drama The Call of the North opened at the box office, starring Robert Edeson and directed by Oscar Apfel and Cecil B. DeMille. Based on the play by George Broadhurst, that film was remade in 1921.
• Born: Ken Annakin, British film director, known for adventure films including Swiss Family Robinson and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines in Beverley, England (d. 2009); Jeff Corey, American actor and acting teacher, instructor famous film actors including James Coburn, James Dean, Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Leonard Nimoy, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand and Robin Williams, in New York City (d. 2002); Witold Małcużyński, Polish pianist, best known for his piano interpretations of Chopin, in Koziczyn, Poland (d. 1977)

August 11, 1914 (Monday)

• France declares war on Austria-Hungary.
• Born: Hugh Martin, American composer, best known for his scores of Meet Me In St. Louis including "The Boy Next Door," "The Trolley Song," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", in Birmingham, Alabama (d. 2011)
• Died: Emil Fischer, German operatic bass, best known for his bombastic style for the Wagner operas (b. 1838)

August 12, 1914 (Tuesday)

• Great Britain declared war on Austria-Hungary.
• Battle of Haelen – Belgian troops repulsed the Germans.
• Lieutenant Robin R. Skene and mechanic R. Barlow crashed their Blériot monoplane on the way to Dover, becoming the first members of the Royal Flying Corps to die on active duty.
• Born: Ruth Lowe, Canadian pianist and songwriter, composed the song "I'll Never Smile Again" (d. 1981)
• Died: John Philip Holland, Irish engineer, developed the first Royal Navy submarine (b. 1840)

August 13, 1914 (Wednesday)

• The Treaties of Teoloyucan^{Template:Es icon} were signed in Mexico City.
• Canada's War Measures Act is passed suspending some civil rights in Canada during a crisis.
• Twelve Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 observation aircraft from No. 2 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, flying from Dover, became the first British aircraft to arrive in France for the war.
• Died: Gregor McGregor, Australian politician and trade union leader, Senator for South Australia from 1901 to 1914, first major Australian politician who was legally blind (b. 1848)

August 14, 1914 (Thursday)

• Battle of Lorraine – a phase of the Battle of the Frontiers.
• The first true bomber, the French Voisin III, was used in combat for the first time in an attack on German airship hangars at Metz-Frascaty, Germany.
• Born: Andrea Leeds, American actress, best know for her nominated Oscar performance for Best Supporting Actress in Stage Door , in Butte, Montana (d. 1984); Grace Bates, American mathematician, author of The Real Number System and Modern Algebra, Second Course (d. 1996); Francis Lawrence Jobin, Canadian politician, 18th Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, in Winnipeg (d. 1995)

August 15, 1914 (Friday)

• The Panama Canal was inaugurated with the passage of the SS Ancon.
• Battle of Cer – Serbian troops defeated the Austro-Hungarian army, marking the first Entente victory of World War One.
• Mexican Revolution – Venustiano Carranza's troops under general Álvaro Obregón entered Mexico City.
• A dismissed servant killed seven people at American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's studio and home, Taliesin in Wisconsin (including his mistress, Mamah Borthwick), and set it on fire.
• Born: Paul Rand, American graphic designer, best known for designing logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Morningstar, Inc., Westinghouse, ABC, and Steve Jobs' NeXT, in New York City (d. 1996)

August 16, 1914 (Saturday)

• The Serbs defeat the Austro-Hungarians at the Battle of Cer.
• The Russian army enters East Prussia. Battle of Stalluponen.
• German warships SMS Goeben and Breslau are transferred to the Ottoman Navy, with Goeben becoming its flagship, Yavuz Sultan Selim.

August 17, 1914 (Sunday)

• The Germans attack the Russians in East Prussia, the Battle of Gumbinnen. The attack is a failure in addition to being a deviation from the Schlieffen Plan.
• The Imperial Japanese Navy's first aviation ship, Wakamiya, was recommissioned as a seaplane carrier.
• The first feature film produced in New Zealand, Hinemoa debuted at the Lyric Theatre in Auckland. Directed by George Tarr and featuring Māori actors, the film tells the Māori legend of lovers [[Hinemoa and Tutanekai.
• Born: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., American lawyer and politician, son of Franklin D. Roosevelt (d. 1988); Gabrielle Weidner, Belgian-Dutch resistance fighter during World War Two, responsible for the rescue of over 800 Dutch Jews and 100 Allied airmen, recipient of the Dutch Cross of Resistance, in Brussels (d. 1945)

August 18, 1914 (Monday)

• The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force of 1,500 men left Sydney to capture German New Guinea.
• Born: Arthur Tange, Australian public servant, Secretary of the Department of Defence (Australia) from 1970 to 1979 where he instituted many reforms (d. 2001)
• Died: Anna Yesipova, Russian pianist, most famous pupil and performer of Polish composer Theodor Leschetizky (b. 1851)

August 19, 1914 (Tuesday)

• Passenger trains of the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway began using the Grand Trunk Railway's Central Station in Toronto.
• Born: Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury, French politician, Prime Minister of France during the Fourth Republic, in Luisant, France (d. 1993)
• Died: Franz Xavier Wernz, German Jesuit priest, 25th Superior General of the Society of Jesus (b. 1842)

August 20, 1914 (Wednesday)

• German forces occupied Brussels.
• Battle of Morhange, a phase of the Battle of Lorraine.
• Battle of Sarrebourg, a phase of the Battle of Lorraine.
• Born: Yann Goulet, French sculptor, Breton nationalist and war-time collaborationist with Nazi Germany, in Saint-Nazaire, France (d. 1999); Colin MacInnes, English novelist, author of the London Trilogy which included City of Spades, Absolute Beginners, and Mr Love & Justice, in London (d. 1976)
• Died: Pope Pius X, his pontificate of the Roman Catholic Church lasted from 1903 to 1914 (b. 1835)

August 21, 1914 (Thursday)

• Battle of the Ardennes, a phase of the Battle of the Frontiers.
• Battle of Charleroi, a phase of the Battle of the Frontiers.
• Two Imperial Germany Army Zeppelins on their first combat missions became the second and third airships lost in combat after being damaged by French infantry and artillery fire during low-altitude missions in the Vosges mountains. Z VII limped back into Germany to crash near St. Quirin in Lothringen, while Z VIII crash-landed in a forest near Badonvillers, France, where French cavalry drove off her crew and looted her. The loss of three airships on their first combat missions in August soured the German Army on the further combat use of airships.
• Reconnaissance cyclist Private John Parr (perhaps aged 15) was the first British soldier to be killed on the Western Front, at Obourg in Belgium.
• Captain Robert Bartlett of the sunken Karluk met Burt McConnell, secretary for expedition leader Vilhjalmur Stefansson, at Point Barrow, Alaska, who gave details of Stefansson's movements after leaving the ship the previous September when it was trapped in ice. McConnell reported in April that Stefansson had headed north with two companions, searching for new lands. McConnell later left Point Barrow for Nome aboard the American fishing schooner King and Winge while Bartlett's rescue ship, the Bear, finally sailed for Wrangel Island.
• Died: Charles J. Hite, American film producer, president and CEO of Thanhouser Film Corporation in New York City (killed in an auto accident) (b. 1876)

August 22, 1914 (Friday)

• Austria-Hungary declares war on Belgium.
• Battle of Rossignol – German forces decisively defeated the French.
• The British Expeditionary Force reached Mons. Just after 6:30 a.m. British cavalryman Captain Charles Beck Hornby was reputed to be the first British soldier to kill a German soldier using his sword, while Drummer Edward Thomas of the 4th Dragoon Guards was reputed to have fired the British Army's first shot of the war near the Belgian village of Casteau, the first time a British soldier fired a shot in combat on mainland Europe since the Battle of Waterloo 99 years earlier.
• While commanding the French 24th Infantry Division at the battle of Robelmont (near Meix-devant-Virton, Belgium, French general Achille Pierre Deffontaines was shot in the head and grievously wounded, among the other 27,000 fellow soldiers that fell in battle that day. He died at military hospital in Reims four days later, the youngest French general to die in the war.
• An Avro 504 of the Royal Flying Corps's No. 5 Squadron on patrol over Belgium was shot down by German rifle fire, the first British aircraft ever to be destroyed in action.
• An early attempt to get a Lewis gun into action in air-to-air combat failed when a Royal Flying Corps Farman armed with one scrambled to intercept a German Albatros and took 30 minutes to climb to 1,000 feet (305 meters) because of the gun's weight. On landing, the pilot was ordered to remove the Lewis gun and carry a rifle on future missions.
• Died:James Dickson Innes, British landscape painter, member of the Camden Town Group (b. 1887)

August 23, 1914 (Saturday)

• Japan declared war on Germany.
• Battle of Tannenberg – Fighting began between German and Russian forces. Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn blended fiction with actual events in the battle for his 1970 novel August 1914, in what became the first book in the The Red Wheel cycle.
• Battle of Lemberg – The Russians capture Lviv.
• Battle of Kraśnik – a phase of the Battle of Lemberg. The Austro-Hungarian First Army defeats the Russian Fourth Army.

August 24, 1914 (Sunday)

• Action of Elouges –
• Battle of the Mortagne – a phase of the [[Battle of Lorraine].
• The Germans besiege and capture the Maubeuge Fortress.
• The Allied Great Retreat to the River Marne.
• Died: Darius Miller, president of Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad from 1910 to 1914 (b. 1859); Normand MacLaurin, Australian academic, vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney (b. 1835)

August 25, 1914 (Monday)

• Japan declared war on Austria-Hungary.
• British and French forces conquer Togoland, a German protectorate in West Africa.
• Flying a Morane-Saulnier Type G monoplane, Imperial Russian Army pilot Pyotr Nesterov became the first pilot to down an enemy aircraft in aerial combat. After firing unsuccessfully with a pistol at an Austro-Hungarian Albatros B.II crewed by Franz Malina (pilot) and Baron Friederich von Rosenthal (observer), Nesterov rammed the Albatros. Both aircraft crashed, killing all three men.
• The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is set on fire by German troops during the Rape of Belgium.
• Efforts to rescue the remaining survivors of the Karluk on Wrangel Island in the Bering Sea were delayed when Bear, the rescue ship, was stopped by ice 20 miles (32 km) from the island. After failing to force a way through, the ship returned to Nome for more coal.
• Died: Powell Clayton, American politician U.S. Senator of Arkansas from 1868 till 1871 (b. 1833)

August 26, 1914 (Tuesday)

• Battle of Tannenberg – The Russian Second Army was surrounded and defeated by the Germans.
• Battle of Río de Oro – British Royal Navy protected cruiser HMS Highflyer forced the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, sailing as an auxiliary cruiser, to scuttle.
• Battle of Le Grand Fayt –
• Battle of Le Cateau – The Allies retreated from Le Cateau to Saint Quentin.
• Battle of Gnila Lipa – a phase of the Battle of Lemberg.
• Battle of Komarow – part of the Battle of Lemberg.
• Rutland Boughton's fairy opera The Immortal Hour was first performed in Glastonbury Assembly Rooms at the inaugural Glastonbury Festival co-founded by the English socialist composer.
• Born: Julio Cortázar, Flemish-Argentine writer, one of the founding writers of the Latin American Boom, in Ixelles, Belgium (d. 1984)

August 27, 1914 (Wednesday)

• Battle of Étreux –
• Battle of Tsingtao – British and Japanese forces capture the German-controlled port of Tsingtao in China.
• The Royal Naval Air Service's famed Eastchurch Squadron arrived in France for World War One service, commanded by Wing Commander Charles Samson.
• Died: Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, Austrian economist, contributed to the development of the Austrian School of Economics (b. 1851)

August 28, 1914 (Thursday)

• Battle of Heligoland Bight – British cruisers under the command of Admiral David Beatty sank three German cruisers..
• Born: Glenn Osser, American conductor and arranger, worked with many renowned American signers including Patti Page, Doris Day, and Johnny Mathis, in Munising, Michigan (d. 2014)
• Died: Anatoly Lyadov, Russian composer and music instructor, taught many of renowned Russian composers at the St. Petersburg Conservatory his pupils including Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Mikhail Gnesin, Lazare Saminsky and Boris Asafyev (b. 1855)

August 29, 1914 (Friday)

• Battle of St. Quentin – French forces held back the German advance.

August 30, 1914 (Saturday)

• Battle of St. Quentin – French forces retreated from Saint Quentin.
• Paris was bombed by a German aircraft for the first time - by an Etrich Taube flown by Lt Ferdinand von Hiddessen.
• New Zealand occupied German Samoa (later Western Samoa).
• Following the complete defeat of the Russian Second Army at Tannenberg, commanding general Aleksander Samsonov left his field headquarters and disappeared into the nearby woods. A German search party came across his body a year later, with evidence the Russian officer had committed suicide with his own pistol. The Red Cross arranged to return his body to his family.
• Born: Julie Bishop, American actress, known for film roles in Princess O'Rourke and The High and the Mighty, in Denver (d. 2001)
• Died: Ingress Bell, English architect and professional partner of Sir Aston Webb (b. 1837)

August 31, 1914 (Sunday)

• Born: Joan Barclay, American actress, starred in many B movies on the 1930s and 1940s including Prison Shadows and Phantom Patrol in Minneapolis (d. 2002); Richard Basehart, American actor, best known for the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson in the 1960s television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in Zanesville, Ohio (d. 1984)

References

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