With her troops already poised to attack, Germany declares war on France

A small British Expeditionary Force is rushed across the Channel to Boulogne

France declares war on the empire of Austria-Hungary

A Germany army crosses the river Marne in an advance towards Paris

A French army halts the German advance, just 30 miles from Paris

After a four-day battle, the French drive the German forces back over the river Marne

The Germans adopt a defensive position at the river Aisne in northern France, in the first sign of the trench warfare that will characterize the entire war in the west

from September - the German and French armies, attempting to outflank each other, engage in a race to the sea

British troops are driven to the western front in London Transport double-deckers

Britain and France declare war on the Ottoman empire

from November - with the battle lines stablized to the coast, the German and Allied armies settle in for years of gruesome trench warfare

Manuel de Falla's ballet El Amor Brujo, including the 'Ritual Fire Dance', is performed in Paris

Radiotelephone messages are transmitted from Arlington in Virginia to the Eiffel Tower in Paris

Two German Zeppelin airships bomb Paris, causing 23 deaths

The French aviator Roland Garros fires a machine gun through the propeller in his fighter plane, using metal plates to deflect any bullets that hit the propeller

The British use chlorine gas for the first time in an attack on Loos, but in places it is blown back over the British lines when the wind changes

Britain and France sign the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing up spheres of influence in the Middle East

In his Course in General Linguistics Ferdinand de Saussure provides the basis for the broader development of structuralism

Claude Monet begins the great cyclorama of water-lilies, Nympheas, that he donates to the French nation

The author H.H. Munro ('Saki') is killed by a sniper's bullet on a battlefield in France

A German thrust against the French begins the year-long battle of Verdun

Feb 26 - a French troopship La Provence is torpedoed by a U-boat off Cape Matapan and sinks with the loss of nearly 1000 lives

An Allied advance in the valley of the Somme launches a four-month battle with very heavy casualties

Eleven British tanks go into pioneering but ineffective action at the battle of the Somme

Philippe Pétain becomes a French national hero for his successful defence of Verdun