Zimmermann TelegramThe Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note or Zimmerman Cable) was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany. With Germany's aid, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The telegram was intercepted by British intelligence. Revelation of the contents enraged Americans, especially after German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann publicly admitted on March 3 that the telegram was genuine.
TogolandTogoland was a German Empire protectorate in West Africa from 1884 to 1914, encompassing what is now the nation of Togo and most of what is now the Volta Region of Ghana, approximately 90,400 km2 (29,867 sq mi) in size. During the period known as the "Scramble for Africa", the colony was established in 1884 and was gradually extended inland. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the colony was invaded and quickly overrun by British and French forces during the Togoland campaign and placed under military rule.
German colonial empireThe German colonial empire (Deutsches Kolonialreich) constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in the early 1870s, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Bismarck resisted pressure to construct a colonial empire until the Scramble for Africa in 1884. Claiming much of the remaining uncolonized areas of Africa, Germany built the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French.
Pan-SlavismPan-Slavism, a movement which crystallized in the mid-19th century, is the political ideology concerned with the advancement of integrity and unity for the Slavic people. Its main impact occurred in the Balkans, where non-Slavic empires had ruled the South Slavs for centuries. These were mainly the Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice. Extensive pan-Slavism began much like Pan-Germanism: both of these movements flourished from the sense of unity and nationalism experienced within ethnic groups after the French Revolution and the consequent Napoleonic Wars against traditional European monarchies.
DodecaneseThe Dodecanese (UKˌdəʊdɪkəˈniːz, USdoʊˌdɛkəˈniːz; Δωδεκάνησα, Dodekánisa ðoðeˈkanisa, twelve islands) are a group of 15 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Turkey's Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the wider Southern Sporades island group. Rhodes has been the area's dominant island since antiquity.
Sea laneA sea lane, sea road or shipping lane is a regularly used navigable route for large water vessels (ships) on wide waterways such as oceans and large lakes, and is preferably safe, direct and economic. During the Age of Sail, they were determined by the distribution of land masses but also by the prevailing winds, whose discovery was crucial for the success of long maritime voyages. Sea lanes are very important for seaborne trade.
QingdaoQingdao (tʃɪŋˈdaʊ , also spelled Tsingtao; , Mandarin: AUDzh-Qingdao.oggqing1dao3) is a city in eastern Shandong Province. The city's name in Chinese characters literally means "Cyan Island". Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, it is a major nodal city of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that connects Asia with Europe. It has the highest GDP of any city in the province. Administered at the sub-provincial level, Qingdao has jurisdiction over seven districts and three county-level cities (Jiaozhou, Pingdu, Laixi).
KamerunKamerun was an African colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1920 in the region of today's Republic of Cameroon. Kamerun also included northern parts of Gabon and the Congo with western parts of the Central African Republic, southwestern parts of Chad and far northeastern parts of Nigeria. The first German trading post in the Duala area on the Kamerun River delta was established in 1868 by the Hamburg trading company C. Woermann. The firm's primary agent in Gabon, Johannes Thormählen, expanded activities to the Kamerun River delta.
Treaty of Brest-LitovskThe Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, which followed months of negotiations after the armistice on the Eastern Front in December 1917, was signed at Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus). The Soviet delegation was initially headed by Adolph Joffe, and key figures from the Central Powers included Max Hoffmann and Richard von Kühlmann of Germany, Ottokar Czernin of Austria-Hungary, and Talaat Pasha of the Ottoman Empire.
Aide-de-campAn aide-de-camp (UKˌeɪddəˈkɒ̃, -ˈkaemp; French expression meaning literally "helper in the [military] camp") is a personal assistant or secretary to a person of high rank, usually a senior military, police or government officer, or to a member of a royal family or a head of state. An aide-de-camp may participate at ceremonial functions, and the first aide-de-camp is typically the foremost personal aide. This is not to be confused with an adjutant, who is the senior administrator of a military unit.
