1914 in the United Kingdom

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Events from the year 1914 in the United Kingdom. This year saw the start of the First World War, ending the Edwardian era.

Incumbents

Events

Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at the outbreak of war
August: London recruits for Kitchener's Army
September: Lord Kitchener Wants You: London recruiting poster
First Battle of Ypres: aftermath
  • 19 October–22 November – World War I: First Battle of Ypres: British and French forces are victorious against the Germans at Ypres in Belgium.
  • 27 October – World War I: the British super-dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious (23,400 tons), is sunk off Tory Island, north-west of Ireland, by a minefield laid by the armed German merchant-cruiser Berlin, a loss not officially admitted until the end of the war.
  • 30 October – the SS Rohilla, requisitioned as a military hospital ship, is lost by grounding in a storm on rocks off Whitby with the loss of 85 lives.
  • 1 November – World War I: Battle of Coronel fought – a Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock is met in the eastern Pacific and defeated by superior German forces led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee in the first British naval defeat of the war, resulting in the loss of HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth and 1,660 fatalities (including Cradock).
  • 3 November – World War I: German naval raid on Yarmouth.
  • 5 November – World War I: Britain annexes Cyprus and declares war on the Ottoman Empire.[6]
  • 6 November – World War I: German reservist Carl Hans Lody becomes the first spy to be executed for war treason during the War, suffering execution at dawn by firing squad in the Tower of London, the first execution for treason here since 1747.
  • 11–24 November – World War I: Battle of Basra results in British Empire forces taking Basra from the Ottoman Empire.
  • 17 November – announcement that income tax is to be doubled as a result of the War.[21]
  • 26 November – HMS Bulwark (1899) is blown apart by an internal explosion at her moorings on the Medway off Kingsnorth, Kent, killing all but nine of her 805 crew.[22]
Raid on Scarborough used as a propaganda poster

Unknown dates

Publications

In fiction

Births

Deaths

See also

References

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