World War I Timeline

1914

June - August

June 28: The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in Sarajevo, Serbia.
June 28: Germany declared war on Serbia.
July 31: Russia mobilized its armed forces against Germany in defense of Serbia.
August 1: Germany declared war on Russia.
August 3: Germany declared war on France.
August 4: In a daring movie to surprise and overwhelm France, Germany invades the neighboring Belgium. This prompted Great Britain to declare war on the German Empire.
August 6: The Austrian-Hungarian Empire declared war on Russia.
August 22: The Battle of the Frontiersresulted in 27,000 French casualties on a single day.
August 26-30: Germany scored a decisive victory on the Eastern Front against the Russian Imperial Army at the Battle of Tennenberg.

September - December

September 5-10: The First Battle of the Marne halted the German advance through France.
September 15: Trench warfare in Europe began.
December 25: Soldiers on both sides on the Western Front declared an unofficial Christmas truce. German and British soldiers sang Christmas hymns together, exchanged cigarettes and played a friendly game of soccer. In addition, some Germans who lived in Great Britain before the war, received updates from British soldiers about life on the British Isles.

1915

February - September

February 4: Germany established a submarine blockade around Great Britain and promised to sink any vessel deemed aiding the British. This included ships from the United States.
May 7: German submarine, U- 20, sank the HMS Lusitania and killed 1,198 people. 128 Americans were onboard the ocean liner.
August 30: Germany declared it would warn civilian vessels before sinking them – largely in response to grievances from the United States regarding unrestricted, submarine warfare.
September 5: Russian Tsar Nicholas II took command of the Russian forces.
September 15: The British Army used chlorine yellow gas against the Germans near Loos, France, although shifting winds resulted in 60,000 British casualties.

1916

February - December

February 21-December 18: The longest battle of World War I, the Battle of Verdun, took place without a decisive victory and finished with an estimated one million casualties.
April 9: The Canadian Army captured the French village of Vimy Ridge. Upon the American entry into the war, the Arkansas town of Germania changed its name to Vimy Ridge to avoid anti-American accusations.
April 19: President Woodrow Wilson warned Germany against continuing unrestricted, submarine warfare.
May 31-June 1: The Battle of Jutland in the North Atlantic, the only major naval engagement of the war, resulted in no decisive victory.
July 1-November 18: The stalemate on the Western front continues. The Battle of the Somme concluded with an estimated one million casualities with no decisive victor.
November 7: Woodrow Wilson elected to another term against Republican opponent Charles E. Hughes. Wilson campaigned on a slogan that “He kept us out of war.”
December 7: David Lloyd George formed a new government in Great Britain and became a new prime minister.
December 31: Russian nobles murdered Grigori Rasputin, a Russian monk and confidant to the Russian Imperial family.

1917

1917: The first Red Cross chapter formed in Garland County.

January - February

January 19: British intelligence agents intercepted and decoded a telegram from German Foreign Affairs Secretary Arthur Zimmermann to the Mexican government. This message from Zimmermann encouraged Mexico to declare war on the United States and reclaim territory lost during the Mexican-American War.
February 1: Germany resumed unrestricted, submarine warfare.
February 7: The U.S. Senate voted on a resolution that supported President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to sever the country’s ties with Germany. Senator William F. Kirby of Arkansas was one of four nay votes on the motion.

March

March 1: Newspapers across the country published the Zimmermann Telegram.
March 3: Melchior Eberts of Little Rockand a West Point graduate received his rank of junior military aviator.
March 4: In the early morning as the Senate debated the Armed Ship Bill, which would allow the government to arm merchant vessels, Senator Joe T. Robinson confronted Senators Robert LaFollette, Sr., of Wisconsin and Wesley Jones of Washington in a boisterous tirade. With spectators including foreign diplomats in the gallery, Robinson accused Jones of hypocrisy and declared, “Let men of courage rise to speak. The hour has arrived.”
March 4: Members of the U.S. Senate led by Senator Robert LaFollette, Sr. of Wisconsin launched a filibuster against the proposed bill allowing the government to arm merchant vessels. Senator William F. Kirby of Arkansas was among the opposition that killed the bill, although he did not take part in the filibuster. In response, President Woodrow Wilson unilaterally armed American merchant ships.
March 5: Arkansas Governor Charles H. Brough sent a message to the General Assembly expressing his support for President Woodrow Wilson’s policies and congratulated Wilson for his inauguration. The General Assembly responded favorably to Brough’s message. In addition, the State Senate commended Senator Joseph T. Robinson for being “true to the people of Arkansas on the ‘Armed Neutrality Resolution’,” in an indirect reproach to Senator William F. Kirby.
March 15: Russian Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. Alexander Kerensky, a lawyer, led a provisional government.

April

April 2: President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to declare war on the German Empire due to revelations from the Zimmermann Telegram.
April 6: The United States Congress declared war on Germany and entered an alliance with Great Britain and France.
April 7: The day after Congress declared war on Germany, police arrested a Helena man because he “uttered sentiments disloyal to the United States.”
April 7: At the dedication of a Confederate monument in front of the White County Courthouse, speakers urged young White County men to enlist in the armed forces. Twenty-five men from White County died in the war and are honored on a granite war monument located at the courthouse lawn.
April 13: Logan County government officials stormed the Subiaco Abby; in suspicion, that the German government sent covert messages to the monks. As a result, Logan County destroyed the Abby’s radio.
April 15: The Pulaski County Guard, a patriotic men’s society, held a mass meeting at the Circuit Courtroom at the Pulaski County Courthouse. Speakers spoke about the war and asked men to enroll in the organization.
April 16-17: The Arkansas Gazette reported that Little Rock “preparedness boosters” toured Pulaski County to solicit foodstuff donations. Two hundred traveled in automobiles and visited 2,500 homes within two days.
April 17: Girls of Ouachita College joined a military organization that included drill instructions. Captain W.D. Geary of the U.S. Army managed the group.
April 18: One hundred boys of Little Rock High School participated in military drills in the high school auditorium. Sargent Joseph Savage of the U.S. Army instructed the boys, who were ages eighteen and older.
April 18: A Harrison man displayed the German flag, although neighbors riddled it with bullets.
April 20: Governor Charles Hillman Brough presided over a flag raising in Argenta (present-day North Little Rock). Two thousand attended the ceremony at the corner of 4th and Olive streets.
April 20: Alice Ellington, president of the Arkansas Equal Suffrage Central Committee, announced that “considerable progress is being made in organizing suffrage workers over the state for special service during the war.” Also, she expressed her happiness that several Red Cross chapters had begun across the state.
April 20: Josephine Miller, a prominent Arkansas suffragette, volunteered as a Red Cross nurse. She organized war-work groups in Desha, Chicot, Ashley, Union, Bradley and Dallas counties, a sign that some suffragettes were setting aside the political movement to support the war effort.
April 21: The Council of National Defense appointed the Women’s Committee to aid the war effort.
April 23: Police arrest John Turner of Hot Springs for suggesting that President Woodrow Wilson be tarred and feathered due to high food and clothing prices. Prosecutors later dropped charges.
April 24: Alice Ellington, the president of the Arkansas Equal Suffrage State Central Committee, called for women to join the Red Cross at 217 Louisiana Street in Little Rock. The location’s owner, Fred Hotze, offered the property and its large storeroom to the local Red Cross chapter, and C.J. Griffith of the Little Rock Electric Company donated the lights. Dues to join the Red Cross included $1 for annual membership, $25 for life membership or $100 to become a patron. All supplies from Little Rock and other cities went to Chicago, then to a New York City terminal for shipping to overseas. Boxes, which were stored in the Little Rock storeroom, included sterilized surgical dressings, bedding, clothing, and comfort bags for those on the front line.
April 24: The National League for Women’s Service hosted a military ball at the Hotel Marian.
April 25: Anti-German sentiment overtook Calhoun County when police arrested many within the black community, as whites feared that German and Mexican agents were infiltrating black organizations to sabotage the American war effort.
April 26: A group ofVan Buren citizens demanded that Senator William F. Kirby resign over his opposition to the war draft. This call resulted from an exchange of telegrams between Kirby and the Van Buren Business Men’s Club. Kirby refused to resign, although he faced more calls to resign over the following months.
April 26: The U.S. Navy reported that Conway, Arkansas, has produced more naval recruits than any other city in the country with a similar size.
April 28: An Argenta man (present-day North Little Rock) donated 7,000 cabbage plants to the National League of Women’s Service at its headquarters, located at 605 Main Street in Little Rock. The organization used the opportunity to encourage more Arkansans to grow foodstuffs.
April 30: Margaret Woodrow Wilson, daughter of President Wilson, headlined a recital at an Osceola Baptist church to benefit the Red Cross.

May

May 1: Col. Robert Bullard arrived in Little Rock to take command of Fort Logan H. Roots and prepare it as a base to train U.S. Army officers.

May 4: In a meeting at the Little Rock City Hall, the Navy League – Arkansas Chapter organized with Governor Charles Brough as its president. The organization’s mission was to supply winter clothing to sailors of the U.S.S. Arkansas and draftees at naval training stations.

May 7: Margaret Woodrow Wilson led a recital in Jonesboro to benefit the Red Cross.
May 8: The Arkansas Gazette reported that Fort Roots, a U.S. Army post in Argenta (present-day North Little Rock), would be an important training facility for World War I. The Gazette stated that 2,500 would train as army reserve officers. After the recruits’ 90-day training period at Fort Roots, they graduated and became company officers for the 97th Army Division. Fort Roots’ notable graduates included George C. Marshall, a future Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II and a critical figure in American foreign policymaking during the Cold War.
May 10: The Red Cross held a mass meeting at Christ Church in Little Rock, located at Capitol and Scott Streets. Its purpose was to help Red Cross chapters in Arkansas better organize and grow.
May 14: The Saline County Defense Council screened a patriotic film, Life and Training in the U.S. Navy, at the Imperial Theater in Benton, Arkansas. As a result, three men enlisted in the Navy.
May 15: Melchior Eberts was killed during a routine flight.The Army named the airfield in Lonoke in his honor.
May 18: The United States established the Selective Service Act, which required all eligible men twenty-one to thirty-five to register for military service.
May 21: Margaret Woodrow Wilson sang at Little Rock’s Kempner Theater. Governor Charles Hillman Brough invited the first daughter, and all proceeds went to the Red Cross.
May 22: The Arkansas Third Regiment led a parade at Little Rock beginning at the Old State House and down Main Street, where a mass meeting took place at 605 Main Street. Governor Charles Hillman Brough, Adjunct General Lloyd England, Mayor Charles E. Taylor and Mayor D.M. Pixley of Argenta (now present-day North Little Rock) attended the event. Additionally, a recruiting station encouraged men to volunteer for military service.
May 24: A rally is held on the Saline County Courthouse lawn in Benton. Speakers included John Rison Gibbons, a Confederate Army general.

June

June: A Red Cross drive in Saline County raised $17,816. In 2016 dollars, that equates to just under $335,000.
June: Alice Ellington, a leading Arkansas suffragette, organized war work-activities in Columbia County. This included registering women to contribute to the war effort, child welfare, organizing community musical programs, and raising $340,150 in Liberty Loan drives.
June 1: Jefferson County draft officials requested that Pine Bluff ministers explain the draft, registration and the June 5th deadline in their sermons.
June 2: Police arrestedAlvin Dode of Fort Smith, Arkansas, for using “treasonable language.”
June 3: Bishop J.M. Connor, the head of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Arkansas and Oklahoma, requested that pastors explain the draft in their sermons.
June 5: A total of 149,207 Arkansans registered for military service (only 600 eligible men did not register).
June 8: Before a baseball game at Kavanaugh Field, the Arkansas Travelers’ stadium in Little Rock, three speakers gave five-minute speeches simultaneously through megaphones: George A. McConnell, J. Frank Keeley and Vincent Miles.
June 8: A Liberty Bond rally occurred at Fourth and Main Streets in Little Rock with Florence Brown Cotnam and Rabbi Louis Witt among the speakers.
June 11: The Federal Government awarded Little Rock the money needed to purchase the 6,480 acres of land for Camp Pike. The money came from public donations, which amounted to $9 million in 2016 dollars. Construction began that month, ended in November and employed over 10,000 laborers. James Stewart & Company of St. Louis and New York won the contract-bidding process and used workers from Texas, Oklahoma and Puerto Rico.
June 11: To encourage the war effort and reach wide audiences, speakers gave short “Four Minute Talks” at any public gathering they could find including school assemblies, entertainment programs and fraternal-lodge meetings. The first known of these addresses in Arkansas included motion-picture theaters and vaudeville houses in Little Rock and Argenta.
June 12: Little Rock Chamber of Commerce President W.B. Smith, Florence Brown Cotnam, and J. Frank Keely addressed employees of the Gus Blass Company in Little Rock to raise Liberty Bonds.
June 12: Liberty Bond fundraisers occurred at seven theaters in Little Rock and Argenta.
June 13: Liberty Bond rallies occurred at Fourth and Main streets and Eighth and Main streets in Little Rock. Governor Charles Hillman Brough, Colonel C.D. James and Florence Brown Cotnam were among the speakers, along with bands playing musical numbers.
June 15:Some 3,500 marchers gathered in a patriotic parade in Little Rock. It began at the Old State House, and included likes of people dressed as Uncle Sam and members of the First Arkansas Regiment. A dance then commenced on Capital Avenue, between Scott and Cumberland streets, where soldiers danced with young Little Rock women.
June 15: Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917.
June 17: Little Rock women focused on making hospital supplies for the Western Front. An Arkansas Gazette article detailed that “one complete outfit consists of six sheets, four draw shirts, two spreads, four pillow cases, four pajama suits, three hospital bed shirts, one convalescent gown, four pairs of socks, two pairs [of] bed socks, four bath towels, three face towels, one wash cloth, one pair [of] slippers, one hot water bag cover, one ice water bag cover and six handkerchiefs.” In addition, the Gus Blass and M.M. Cohn companies displayed a full ensemble needed for hospitalized soldiers.
June 17: A Red Cross meeting assembled at the Hotel Marion in Little Rock, where women readied their plans for a week long campaign
June 22: The Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense distributed letters stating women’s role in food conservation and its importance to the war effort.
June 30: Members of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity organized a dinner party at the Hotel Marion to honor members of the fraternity training at the Fort Logan H. Roots camp. Governor Brough, an alumnus of the fraternity, was present.

July

July 1: Arkansas Governor Charles H. Brough formed the Arkansas Women’s Committee of the Council of Defense. First Lady Anne Brough served as honorary chairman, while Ida Frauenthal of Conway led the organization until the end of 1918.
July 2: Arkansas Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense met at the Hotel Marion in Little Rock to organize. Twenty-five women attended, and elected six permanent officers and the chairmen of three of the sixteen total departments: education, welfare of women and children and registration. The assembly also set the goal to send 250,000 pledge cards to follow the government’s conservation guidelines.
July 6: Women gathered at the Little Rock Board of Commerce building and discussed preparations of a food conservation campaign.
July 23: The U.S. Army closed Fort Roots’ officer training school because of overcrowding and poor facilities, which dated back to the establishment’s opening in 1893. Trainees moved to a new officer’s school at Leon Springs, Texas, near San Antonio.
July 27: Propaganda and entertainment merged for one night at Little Rock’s Royal Theater. Betty Brooks, a native of Hot Springs and mainstay on the musical stages of New York City and Chicago, sang a four-minute talk titled “We Will Make the Kaiser Wiser” to aid the war effort. She took over the slot from E.J. Brodman, a secretary for the Union Trust Company, who had planned to just speak it to the audience.

August

August 1: The Arkansas Gazette reported that women were working on seawalls in Arkansas because of the war and the resulting labor shortage.
August 5: The First Battalion of the Arkansas National Guard, just back from the Mexican border as part of General John J. Pershing’s expedition to find Pancho Villa, is federalized again and becomes the 142nd Field Artillery, Thirty-ninth Division.
August 9: At its annual convention in Russellville, the Arkansas Farmer’s Union pledged $5,000 to the Red Cross for the purchase of an ambulance. Florence Brown Cotnam and Lula Scruggs, two workers in the women’s suffrage movement, secured the measure as well as the Farmer’s Union endorsement for women’s suffrage. The Red Cross presented the ambulance, named after former U.S. Senator Jeff Davis, to Arkansas soldiers leaving the state for Europe.
August 10: At the Little Rock Mayor’s office, Deputy U.S. Marshall C.W. Stegall arrested Charles E. Taylor, Jr., the son of Mayor Taylor, for failing to register for the draft. The arrest occurred at 2:45 p.m. and resulted in confusion over the young Taylor’s age. Mayor Taylor decried the arrest and pointed to an Arkansas Gazette article from September 1, 1896, which stated that “a ten-pound boy was a Sunday arrival at the home of Mr. and Mrs. C.E. Taylor.” This made the young Taylor’s arrest weeks shy of his twenty-first birthday, the age that the federal government designated as when all eligible men must register under the Selective Service Act.
August 10: A German-language newspaper, the Arkansas Staatszeitung, published its last issue.
August 11: Law enforcement arrested the Arkansas Staatszeitung editor, Curtis Ackerman, and charged him with violating the Espionage Act.
August 14: The Little Rock Country Club hosted a farewell dinner for members of the Twelfth Provisional Regiment as they prepared to leave for Europe.

September

September 7: The first African American soldier arrived at Camp Pike. His name was Lambert Hayes from Magee, Mississippi. Other recruits from Louisiana, Missouri and Nebraska came to the post later on.
September 12: Arkansas suffragist and active participant in war work Florence Brown Cotnam echoed President Woodrow Wilson’s call to “Americanize the American Woman.”

“There never was a time when the love of nationality was more alive than now, and yet a married woman may not choose her nationality in the United States. If she is married to an alien, though he is the enemy of her country, she cannot claim American citizenship. This is working a hardship against the woman of this county who are eager to serve and giving the enemy a decided advantage…President Wilson says: ‘We are a nation mobilized for war.’ Wouldn’t it not be nice at this time to strengthen the weak links in the national chain? Americanize the American woman.”

September 19: Thirty-five organizations, including the Board of Commerce and women’s clubs, met in the Little Rock YMCA gymnasium to form the Health and Recreation Association.
- September 23: The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville announced that over 150 students, alumni and members of the facility joined the military services, many of whom earned high-ranking commissions.

October

October 6: Senator Joseph T. Robinson made a speech encouraging the war effort stating that “There is no compromise…there are only two sides – Germanism and Americanism.”
October 16: The Union Trust Company sponsored an advertisement in the Arkansas Gazette titled “On to Berlin, We’re in to Win,” as part of a war bond effort.
October 24: By October 24, 1917, the Mosaic Templars of Arkansas donated more than $100,000 of Liberty Loans. This included a public event at which Scipio Jones, a renowned Little Rock attorney, handed $50,000 to Treasury Secretary William Bibbs McAdoo.
October 24: African American soldiers from Camp Pike orchestrated a parade in Little Rock along with two local bands. Following the parade, W.A. Singfield, a prominent black attorney in Little Rock, made an address on “The Liberty Loan and Democracy.”

November

November 2–3: A substantial force of German troops “staged a fierce raid” on the isolated “small salient” occupied by the Americansin the first active combat between elements of the American and Germans armies during World War I. Lt. William Heber McLaughlin of Lonoke County became one of the first American officers wounded in WWI.
November 3: The first World War I monument in Arkansas was erected on the lawn of the Crawford County Courthouse in Van Buren. Colonel Sam Chew, a local attorney, placed it. The monument commemorated the first three U.S. soldiers to die in combat: Merle D. Hay, Thomas Enwright and James B. Gresham.
November 7: Bolshevik socialists, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian provisional government.
November 13: The Scottish Rites Masons gathered for a reunion at the Albert Pike Masonic Temple in Little Rock. Attendees came from across the state, with the Little Rock newspapers noting that a large number of men wore their military uniforms.
November 18: While Mrs. Ernest Henderson of New York was in Little Rock visiting her mother and sister, she gathered donations of marmalade from Little Rock residents for the use of American soldiers in France. She led similar campaigns in New York and New Jersey and worked in Arkansas under the auspices of the Nicholas Heading Chapter of the Daughters of 1812. After a month in the city, she collected 3,000 pounds of the Arkansas fruit and shipped it to New York for transport across the Atlantic Ocean.
November 19: The Federal Government accepted an offer from Lonoke for an aviation training facility to be called Eberts Field. The Army paid Lonoke $1 a year for renting the property. By the war’s end, the military invested $2 million on the site.
November 22: The National Farmers’ Union concluded its annual convention in Jonesboro, Arkansas, with a proclamation supporting the war effort. Its leadership included A.C. Davis of Rogers, Arkansas. The organization “pledged our upmost loyalty to our government in the great struggle in which our nation is now engaged.”
November 23: The first Craighead County meeting of the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Defense was held in Jonesboro. Earl Brannon of the State Agricultural School (now Arkansas State University) spoke on the topic, “Feeding a Nation at War.” Every county would have a similar organization that aided the war effort in various ways.
November 23: Reverend S.O. Odom, a resident of Brinkley and vice president of the Arkansas Negro Baptist Convention, urged blacks in Arkansas to enlist before being drafted. “Go right into the game and come out of it with honor,” Odom said.
November 27: ConcernedArkansans organized a state chapter of the Fatherless Children of France. They met at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Edward G. Thompson in Little Rock.

December

December: Camp Pike experienced a forty percent rise of disease cases.
December 1: The women of the Navy League of the United States-Arkansas Chapter set the goal to prepare comfort kits and woolen garments for the crew of the USS Arkansas (BB-33). With officers and enlisted men, that included 1,600 people.
December 3: Soviet Russia signed an armistice with Germany.
December 16:The Rogers Red Cross chapter sent a shipment to the St. Louis branch of $300 worth of supplies including 12 knitted sweaters, 115 wash cloths, 38 bed shirts, 130 napkins, 70 handkerchiefs, 6 pairs of knitted socks, 25 bath robes, among other things.
December 16: The Conway Commercial Club announced plans to plant a memorial tree on behalf of displaced children in Belgium and France.
December 18: The Red Cross begins a campaign across Greene County beginning in Paragould. Workers included County Judge J.L Light and other prominent local figures.
December 19: Construction began on Eberts Field. The first cadets and soldiers arrived in the spring of 1918, but they never trained pilots fully in time for combat duty.
December 23: Governor Charles Brough declared the week of December 23rd as Loyalty Week. Its purpose was to encourage women to take jobs in industry.

1918

1918: The Northeast Arkansas Red Cross chapter formed.

January

January: The Arkansas Gazette encourages its readers to buy Liberty Loan subscriptions and admonished those who did not. “If every man did his duty the county would absorb the Liberty Loan issues with the greatest ease, but selfishness stands in the way. Too many men jeopardize their fortunes and their country by failing to do their duty, hoping that other and nobler men will do their duty so well that the slackers will be carried through to safety.”
January 8: President Woodrow Wilson issued his Fourteen Points in his effort to achieve world peace.
January 9: Little Rock women organized the Joan of Arc Service Club, which sewed garments for the soldiers at three Knights of Columbus buildings in the city.

February

February: The Benton Red Cross chapter shipped supplies to St. Louis for the war effort. This included 100 pajama sets, 100 bed shirts, thirty pairs of bed socks, a dozen pairs of bed socks, five helmets, thirteen pairs of socks, and one muffler.
February: Arkansas’s War Savings organization appointed Florence Brown Cotnam, leader of the Arkansas Equal Suffrage Central Committee, as vice-chairman of the Arkansas effort to sell war savings stamps. Moorhead Wright served as state chairman.
February 3: The First Presbyterian Church in Little Rock hosted a large flag celebration in honor of the twenty-seven members of the congregation that served in the military and to raise donations for army chaplains.
February 18-26: The Arkansas Women’s Committee of National Defense, specifically its Department of Registration, organized a week long woman-only registration campaign. The purpose being to show Arkansas women’s usefulness in the war effort. Some 43,000 women signed-up in more than sixty-five counties. Jobs included agriculture, clerical, industrial and Red Cross work.