Germany Declares War on France: WWI Escalates
Germany declared war on France on August 3, 1914, two days after declaring war on Russia, and immediately invaded Belgium to execute the Schlieffen Plan's sweeping right flank through the Low Countries. The invasion of neutral Belgium, whose independence was guaranteed by an 1839 treaty that Britain had signed, gave London the legal and moral justification to enter the war the following day. Germany's chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg infamously dismissed the Belgian treaty as "a scrap of paper." Within a week, five of Europe's six great powers were at war. The conflict that started as an Austrian ultimatum to Serbia had escalated into the most destructive war humanity had ever experienced.
August 3, 1914
112 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on August 3
Tiberius crushed the Dalmatae resistance along the river Bathinus, ending the three-year Great Illyrian Revolt. This victory secured the Roman Empire’s Balkan f…
Emperor Theodosius II banished the deposed Patriarch Nestorius to a remote Egyptian monastery, enforcing the Council of Ephesus's condemnation of his Christolog…
Louis III of France crushed a Viking raiding force at Saucourt-en-Vimeu, a victory so celebrated that court poets immortalized it in the Ludwigslied, one of the…
Hungarian cavalry shattered the East Frankish lines at Eisenach, killing Duke Burchard of Thuringia and exposing central Germany to decades of raids. This defea…
Bishop Grimketel canonized Olaf II of Norway, elevating the fallen king to sainthood just a year after his death at the Battle of Stiklestad. This formal recogn…
Frederick of Lorraine became pope in 1057, taking the name Stephen IX, and immediately pushed church reform with a zeal that rattled the Roman aristocracy. He b…
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