A Polish chronicle of the Great War, written day by day.

TheGreatWar.pl tells the story of the First World War in the order in which it really happened. Instead of one long lecture, the timeline is built from single events: battles, declarations of war, orders, government decisions and events that changed the lives of ordinary people. Read in sequence, they show how the assassination in Sarajevo grew into a war that engulfed the whole world.

The chronicle is written in Polish, with Polish readers in mind. That is why it pays particular attention to the Polish lands, across which much of the fighting on the Eastern Front was fought, and to the Poles who served in the three armies of the partitioning powers and in the Legions.

How the articles are written

The backbone of the timeline is the British day-by-day chronicles of the war. Every article, however, is checked against several independent sources. Where the sources give different dates, figures or times, we do not pick one version blindly: we say openly that they disagree, or we phrase the account more cautiously.

The length of an article depends on the weight of the event. Minor episodes take a few paragraphs, while the turning points of the war, highlighted on the timeline, have extensive articles. Links lead to Wikipedia, where you can read more about the people, places and terms.

The English edition

The English edition is a full translation of the Polish chronicle. It covers all 2760 events and 327 battles. New articles may appear in Polish first; links to them lead to the Polish version and are marked “(PL)”.

Authors

The articles are written by Łukasz andNatalia.