World War I Map — Day by Day, 1914–1918

How to use the World War I map

This interactive map follows World War I one day at a time, from the assassination in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919. Drag the slider and the map redraws: each country takes the colour of its alliance on that date, occupied countries are hatched, and the front lines move as they did on the Western, Eastern, Italian, Balkan and Romanian fronts.

The panel beside the map lists every recorded battle, campaign, naval action and political turning point that began that day, along with the operations still running. Select any event to read a short summary, see where it happened and who took part.

• 1,827 days, 1914-06-28 to 1919-06-28
• 893 dated events
• 46 states and territories at war
• 43 changes of alignment

Turning points of World War I

Each turning point below opens the map on the day it happened.

Sarajevo and the July Crisis

28 June 1914

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was shot in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and, backed by Germany, issued an ultimatum on 23 July. Its declaration of war on 28 July set the alliance system in motion: Russia mobilised to support Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August and on France on 3 August. Within a week a Balkan quarrel had become a continental war.

View 28 June 1914 on the map →

Germany invades Belgium and Britain enters the war

4 August 1914

Germany’s war plan aimed to defeat France quickly by sweeping through neutral Belgium before turning east against Russia. The invasion on 4 August brought Britain into the war the same day. Liège’s forts fell to heavy siege guns, Brussels was occupied on 20 August, and the Battle of the Frontiers cost the French army more than a quarter of a million casualties in a few weeks. On the map, Belgium turns from Entente blue to occupied as the German armies pass through.

View 4 August 1914 on the map →

Tannenberg and the opening of the Eastern Front

26 August 1914

Russia attacked East Prussia sooner than Germany expected, but at Tannenberg (26–30 August) the German Eighth Army encircled and destroyed the Russian Second Army. Further south, Russia had more success against Austria-Hungary in Galicia, taking Lemberg (Lviv) and besieging the fortress of Przemyśl. The Eastern Front stayed far more mobile than the Western Front throughout the war, which the shifting front line on the map shows clearly.

View 26 August 1914 on the map →

The Marne, the Race to the Sea and the trenches

6 September 1914

French and British forces halted the German advance on the Marne, less than 50 km from Paris, between 6 and 12 September. Both sides then tried to outflank each other northwards in the “Race to the Sea”, ending at the Belgian coast after the First Battle of Ypres. By the end of 1914 a continuous line of trenches ran from the North Sea to Switzerland. It would move only a few kilometres in most places for the next three and a half years.

View 6 September 1914 on the map →

The Ottoman Empire joins the Central Powers

1 November 1914

After its fleet bombarded Russian Black Sea ports, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on Germany’s side. That opened new fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Sinai and Palestine, and closed the Dardanelles, Russia’s main sea route for trade and supplies. Fighting in the Middle East drew in British, Indian, Australian and New Zealand troops and, from 1916, the Arab Revolt.

View 1 November 1914 on the map →

Gallipoli and Italy’s entry

25 April 1915

Allied troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April 1915, hoping to force the Dardanelles and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. The campaign stalled on the beaches and was abandoned in January 1916. In May 1915 Italy, previously neutral, joined the Entente under the Treaty of London and opened a new front along the Isonzo river and in the Alps against Austria-Hungary.

View 25 April 1915 on the map →

Gorlice–Tarnów and Russia’s Great Retreat

2 May 1915

A combined German and Austro-Hungarian breakthrough at Gorlice–Tarnów in May 1915 broke the Russian line in Galicia. Over the summer Russia gave up Russian Poland, Lithuania and parts of Belarus; Warsaw fell on 5 August. Watch the Eastern Front line on the map sweep hundreds of kilometres east between May and September 1915.

View 2 May 1915 on the map →

Bulgaria joins the war and Serbia is overrun

14 October 1915

Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in October 1915. Attacked from the north by German and Austro-Hungarian armies and from the east by Bulgaria, the Serbian army retreated across the mountains of Albania and Montenegro to the Adriatic coast in winter. Serbia, then Montenegro and Albania, appear as occupied on the map from late 1915.

View 14 October 1915 on the map →

Verdun, Brusilov and the Somme

21 February 1916

1916 was the year of the great battles of attrition. Germany attacked Verdun in February; the battle lasted ten months. Russia’s Brusilov Offensive in June was one of the most successful attacks of the war and nearly broke Austria-Hungary. The British-led attack on the Somme began on 1 July with the worst single day in British military history and ended in November having advanced about 10 km.

View 21 February 1916 on the map →

Romania enters and is defeated

27 August 1916

Encouraged by Brusilov’s success, Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary and invaded Transylvania in August 1916. A German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and Ottoman counter-offensive followed, and Bucharest fell on 6 December. Romania held out in Moldavia until Russia’s collapse forced it to sign an armistice in December 1917.

View 27 August 1916 on the map →

The United States declares war

6 April 1917

Germany’s return to unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram, which proposed a German alliance with Mexico, led the United States to declare war on Germany on 6 April 1917. American troops arrived in France in growing numbers through 1918. Several Latin American countries, China, Siam and Liberia also joined the Allies in 1917–18, which the map shows as they change colour.

View 6 April 1917 on the map →

Caporetto and the Italian Front

24 October 1917

With German help, Austro-Hungarian forces broke through at Caporetto in October 1917 and drove the Italian army back to the Piave river, close to Venice. The line held, and a year later the Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto (24 October – 3 November 1918) completed the collapse of Austria-Hungary.

View 24 October 1917 on the map →

Revolution in Russia and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

7 November 1917

The February Revolution of 1917 ended the monarchy; the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution (7 November in the Western calendar) and sought peace. An armistice followed in December, and on 3 March 1918 Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, giving up Poland, the Baltic lands, Ukraine and Finland. Russia leaves the war on the map from that date.

View 7 November 1917 on the map →

Germany’s Spring Offensive

21 March 1918

Freed from the Eastern Front, Germany launched a series of offensives in France from 21 March 1918, starting with Operation Michael. They gained more ground than any attack since 1914 and brought German guns within range of Paris, but at enormous cost and without breaking the Allied line. Follow the Western Front line on the map bulging west from March to July 1918.

View 21 March 1918 on the map →

The Hundred Days Offensive

8 August 1918

The Allied attack at Amiens on 8 August 1918 began a continuous advance that pushed the German army back across France and into Belgium. Germany’s allies collapsed in turn: Bulgaria signed an armistice on 29 September, the Ottoman Empire on 30 October and Austria-Hungary on 3 November.

View 8 August 1918 on the map →

The Armistice

11 November 1918

Facing defeat, revolution at home and the abdication of the Kaiser, Germany signed the Armistice at Compiègne, effective at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918. Fighting stopped along the Western Front. The map marks the Central Powers as defeated from their armistice dates.

View 11 November 1918 on the map →

The Treaty of Versailles and a new map of Europe

28 June 1919

The Paris Peace Conference opened in January 1919, and Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June, five years to the day after Sarajevo. On the last day of the timeline the map switches to the post-war borders: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Baltic states and Finland appear, and Austria-Hungary is gone.

View 28 June 1919 on the map →

Chronology of major events, 1914–1919

The 320 most significant battles, campaigns and political events of World War I, by the date they began. Select one to see it on the map.

Who fought in World War I, and when

Every state and territory the map shows at war, with the date it entered and the date it left the war (armistice, surrender or peace). Dates link to the map.

World War I: frequently asked questions

Sources and method

Country alignments in Europe, the five front lines and the battle areas come from WWI Explorer by Xiaokai Ye (MIT License). Front lines change on the dates they were mapped there, typically every few weeks, and hold until the next mapped date. Inside Europe, 1914 borders are used throughout the war, as in the source; the post-war map appears on the final day.

Outside Europe, territory comes from Cliopatria (Seshat Global History Databank, CC BY 4.0). Its borders change once a year, so colonial campaigns in Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific are shown at yearly resolution. Each state takes its alliance colour from the date it declared war or entered hostilities.

Events are every battle, campaign, naval action and political event that Wikidata records as part of World War I with a known day or month, merged with the WWI Explorer timeline. Event summaries are the opening sentences of the matching English Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0). Events known only to the month are listed as ongoing for that month rather than pinned to a day.

Front lines and borders are simplified for a world-scale map. They show the broad course of the war, not the exact position of every trench.

• WWI Explorer (Xiaokai Ye) — European borders, alignments, front lines, battle areas, timeline (MIT License)
• Cliopatria — Seshat Global History Databank — territory outside Europe (CC BY 4.0)
• Wikidata — events, dates, locations, participants (CC0)
• Wikipedia — event summaries and images (CC BY-SA 4.0)
• Natural Earth — coastlines and lakes (Public domain)

Last updated 14 October 2026.