As Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey had attempted to prevent the crisis but these efforts proved unsuccessful and, during the evening of 3 August, he reportedly remarked, “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
162 people were killed and over 400 were injured, including at a school in Upper North Street School in Poplar where a bomb struck during school hours.
The Brusilov Offensive is regarded as one of the most effective operations of the war in terms of tactical innovation and initial results as it involved simultaneous attacks across a broad front to prevent Austro-Hungarian forces from concentrating reserves.
Troops were first withdrawn from the Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove areas in December 1915. The final phase, involving the evacuation of Cape Helles, was completed on 9 January 1916 with the departure of the Newfoundland Regiment and remnants of The Plymouth Battalion, Royal Marine Light Infantry.
On February 4, 1915, Admiral Hugo von Pohl of the German High Seas Fleet warned that ‘every enemy merchant vessel’ in British waters would be targeted and that ‘it may not always be possible to prevent attacks on enemy ships from harming neutral ships’.
The Military Service Act made all single men and childless widowers between the ages of 18 and 41 liable to be called up. It received royal assent on 27 January but was met with a protest demonstration of approximately 200,000 people in London’s Trafalgar Square, while by July almost 30% of those called up to fight had failed to appear.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip in 1914 had a direct effect on the outbreak of war, while the Treaty of Versailles was signed on exactly the same date five years later in 1919.
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