World War I As It Happened (1914)

He has ordered the opening of the sluice gates, to be specific. Sorry about that!

King Albert I (left, conversing with a mounted officer) has, in a final attempt to stem the German advance towards the French border, ordered the sluice gates at Nieuwpoort: If Belgian arms can't stop the Germans, the cold waters of the North Sea will.

Just north of Ypres, where the British are desperately holding on under immense pressure from the Germans, the Belgian Army is crumbling on the banks of the Yser; The Germans have created a small beachhead on the western side of the canal and are eager to exploit it.

Many of the Germans mowed down outside Langemarck belong to the German reserve corps, fresh out of rudimentary training in Germany; soldiers as young as 15 years old are quickly cut to shreds under British artillery, rifle and machine-gun fire.

British artillery at Ypres, despite being outnumbered by their German counterparts almost 3 to 1, is still capable of causing major damage whenever the Germans attack: scores of German infantry have been cut down in the open, as they charged British trenches near Langemarck.

"...one minute later, shots crackled out of all the windows and doors and from behind hedges and walls. One of the first bullets hit the man next to me in the stomach. He plunged to the ground, uttering a terrifying scream."

Dominik Richert, a soldier of the German Army, describes an attack near Violaines: "Instead of keeping silent, our young soldiers shouted 'Hurrah' as they had been trained to do. As a result of their shouts, the English troops in the village were alerted."

Seen outside a recruitment office in Birmingham: An offer to visit Berlin, all expenses paid! Estimated time of arrival is to be determined.

The British push east of Ypres has swiftly come to a bloody halt: The Germans, far more numerous and including relatively fresh forces from the siege of Antwerp, have arrived at the scene, preparing to push the British and Belgians out of this last corner of Belgium.

British forces, having assembled around Ypres, are preparing to push east; initial probes have failed to encounter meaningful resistance, so British leadership is confident that the Germans have not arrived in force.

The swift destruction of the German torpedo boats brings a much-needed boost to the British Navy's morale: two days ago, the cruiser HMS Hawke was sunk by a German submarine, with the loss of over 500 men.

British destroyers on patrol have stumbled upon a German flotilla of torpedo boats off the coast of the Netherlands; the latter are quickly ripped to shreds by superior firepower. Over 200 Germans are lost at sea, while the British suffer three men wounded.

The mud is making logistics an herculean task, with wagons and horses sinking deep into the quagmire: "Once it took us a full hour to move one wagon, loaded with munitions and drawn by fifteen horses, a distance of only fifteen yards."

West of Warsaw, German and Austrian forces are trying to break up several Russian armies, but torrential rains, apart from stiff Russian resistance, are seriously hampering their progress, turning roads into muddy swamps.

Just as the Belgians are setting up shop at the Yser, further south, British forces have arrived in force in and around Ypres, left by the Germans after their entry a week ago. Here, men of the Colonial Horse Regiment (in conspicuous uniforms) keep watch outside the city.

What parts of the Belgian Army that escaped from Antwerp has reached the river Yser, close to the French border; having been told he can not expect to keep his crown after the war if this final slimmer of Belgium is lost, King Albert is determined to make his final stand here.

Escaping Antwerp, these British soldiers managed to bring with them a local terrier, who is now under the protection of the British Army.

Over a thousand British Marines have been captured in one stroke, as the train they were packed into was intercepted by the Germans as it was leaving Antwerp.

Many of the British Royal Marines in Antwerp missed the orders to retreat and are now desperately fighting their way out of the city; some make it to neutral Netherlands, where they will be interned.

As news of the surrender spreads, thousands of civilians swarm the port of Antwerp, hoping to find passage out of the city before it's too late; many hope to make the short journey into neutral Netherlands.

With the bulk of the Belgian Army retreating westward, the remaining defenders of Antwerp finally accept the terms; the siege in the German rear is over, and the Germans can now free up the besieging forces to fight elsewhere.

Mere days after British support arrives, Belgian leaders in Antwerp have decided that the fall of the city is imminent; the bulk of the Belgian Army has been ordered to make for the French border; men of the Royal Naval Division scramble to make their own exit.

"Then came a new sound. First I saw a sudden, almost grotesque melting of the advancing line. It was different from anything that had taken place before. The men literally went down like dominoes in a row." German machine guns and artillery quickly shatter the Russian attack.

"On came the Slave swarm – into the range of the German trenches, with wild yells and never a waver. Russian battle flags, the first I had seen, appeared in the front of the charging ranks."

Karl H. von Wiegand, German correspondent to the American United Press, has caught up to the German army in the east outside the town of Wirballen; here he bears witness to a spirited Russian attack against prepared German defences.

Father Camille Delaere sees a message scrawled on the blackboard in his church in Ypres: “The Germans fear God, but apart from Him they fear nothing in this world. Germany forever!” The church has been occupied by a number of cavalrymen and their horses.

As the "race to the sea" continues, German forces have reached the city of Ypres, not far from the coast; many of the locals immediately take flight: "Fathers and mothers all weighed down with children and bundles, with pale faces and frightened eyes, running like madmen..."

Most aircraft currently in use are too weak to allow for heavy weaponry, leading aggressive pilots to try and bring down enemy aircraft with handguns; throwing bricks has also been attempted, without success.

Air-to-air combat has thus far been sporadic and led by individual innovations of dubious usefulness: Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov, determined to bring down an enemy, died a few weeks ago, as he rammed an Austrian aircraft with his own.

French aviator pair Louis Quenault and Joseph Frantz have made aviation history by being the first to shoot down an enemy aircraft without losing their own, using a machine gun to methodically pepper a German reconnaissance flight until it crashed.

Upon meeting the journalist, Churchill, sporting a big cigar, shakes his hand vigorously: "'You see all is going well.' In this observation lies the whole superiority of the man and his nation."

An Italian correspondent in war-torn Antwerp is amazed to see none other than the First Lord of the (British) Admiralty, Sir Winston Churchill, in town; ever ready for an adventure, the British politician has followed the Royal Marines into the besieged city.

The besieged Belgian Army has received welcome support from the British Royal Naval Division, which arrived in town in requisitioned London buses.

Some Indian nationalists, not inherently friendly to their British overlords, are still supporting the war effort: "It has taken us 100 years to teach the English how to govern us and we can’t afford the time to begin again on the Germans."

Indians have mixed feelings about the war; many hope their (forced) participation might speed up the calls for reforms, and maybe even independence. Others resent yet another British overreach in Indian interests.

After a long journey, Indian soldiers have finally reached France, where they are now preparing to join the rest of the British Army as it rushes towards the English Channel.

Amongst its many other worries, the French Army is struggling to keep back curious war tourists, who scrounge through recently abandoned battlefields, looking for souvenirs; sometimes even disturbing the remains of fallen soldiers.

As both sides keep on trying to outflank the adversary in northern France, bloody, but ultimately inconclusive, battles ensue; the Germans have been halted outside of Arras, but the French are unable to make a decisive counterstroke.

Tsarist Russia has a long history of anti-Jewish violence, and many Jews fled Galicia as the Austrian army retreated. Those who remain are now suffering under sporadic pogroms and forced expulsion.

Terrible violence has erupted in Russian-occupied Lemberg, where Cossacks are terrorising the local Jewish population; at least 40 Jews have been killed, ostensibly in revenge for a purported robbery in the Jewish quarter.

Repeated Russian attempts to break the defenders of Przemyśl have ended in costly failure: Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed, wounded, or captured, but the Austrian garrison remains defiant.

The Indian coastal town of Madras has come under attack; hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil are burning up, courtesy of the German East Asia Squadron and its cruiser SMS Emden.

As Papeete burns to ruin, the cruisers sail away. They are led by Maximilian von Spee, commander of the German East Asia Squadron, who is determined to inflict as much damage as possible on French and British holdings in the Far East.

The war has reached faraway Tahiti, where two German cruisers have shelled Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. When the local French garrison refused the demand to hand over its coal supply to the Germans, the bombardment of the French colony began.

"Our machine guns did excellent work; the English fell in heaps…During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of bread and no water... War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end the war." The British attack failed to break through.

A scene in Ostend: A wounded German cavalry officer, taken prisoner, is hastily brought in for medical care by the Belgian Red Cross. A stretcher is waiting for him, on which he'll be transported to a medical ship.

As both sides use the available forces they have to try and outflank the other, most of the forces on the Western Front, British, French and German alike, have been ordered to dig in for the time being.