THE First World War it began in 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and lasted until 1918.
During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Powers Allies).
Thanks to new military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. When the war ended and allied forces claimed victory, more than 16 million people – soldiers and civilians – were dead.
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Tensions had been spreading across Europe – especially in the troubled Balkan region of southeastern Europe – for years before the First World War.
A series of alliances involving European powers, the Ottoman Empire, Russia and other parties existed during years, but political instability in the Balkans (particularly in Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to destroy these agreements.
The spark that triggered World War I was hit in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand – heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire – was gunned down with his wife Sophie by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on 28 June of 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Franz Ferdinand's assassination set off a fast-rising chain of events: Austria-Hungary, like many countries in the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as a justification to resolve the issue of Serbian nationalism once and for all.
As powerful Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders received an assurance from the German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia, France and possibly Britain.
On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called “carte blanche” or “blank check” guarantee of Germany's support in the event of war. The Austria-Hungary Dual Monarchy then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, in terms so harsh that it was almost impossible to accept.
Convinced that Austria-Hungary was preparing for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and asked Russia for help. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the fragile peace between Europe's great powers quickly collapsed.
Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.
In keeping with an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named by his mentor, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through Belgium in the west and confronting the Russia in the East.
On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans attacked the heavily fortified city of Liège, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal – huge siege cannons – to capture the city on 15th of August. Leaving death and destruction in their wake, including the shooting of civilians and the execution of a priest Belgian, whom they accused of inciting civil resistance, the Germans advanced through Belgium towards the France.
At the First Battle of the Marne, fought September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading army of Germany, which was then penetrating deep into northeastern France, at 30 miles from Paris. Allied troops verified the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back north of the Aisne River.
The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both sides dug trenches, and the Western Front was the scene of a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years.
Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and at the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties at the Battle of Verdun alone.
The bloodshed on the Western Front battlefields, and the hardships of its soldiers for years after the conflict ended, inspired works such as All Silence on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, and the poem In Flanders Fields, by the Canadian doctor Lieutenant Colonel. John McCrae
On the eastern front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the regions of East Prussia and Poland, held by the Germans, but were held by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914.
Despite this victory, Russia's attack forced Germany to move two bodies from the Western Front to the Eastern Front, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.
Combined with fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia's massive war machine to relatively mobilize fast in the east ensured a longer and more exhausting conflict rather than the quick victory Germany hoped to gain under the Plan Schlieffen.
From 1914 to 1916, the Russian army mounted several offensives on the Eastern Front of World War I, but failed to break the German lines.
Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and shortages of food and other essentials, led to a growing discontent among the majority of the Russian population, especially the workers and peasants affected by the poverty. This growing hostility was directed at the imperial regime of Tsar Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.
Russia's latent instability exploded in the Russian Revolution of 1917, headed by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who ended tsarist rule and interrupted Russian participation in World War I World.
Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early December 1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western Front.
With the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained behind the scenes of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality defended by President Woodrow Wilson, as they continued to engage in trade and shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.
Neutrality, however, was increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of Germany's uncontrolled underwater aggression against neutral ships, including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the waters around the British Isles a war zone, and German submarines sank several commercial and passenger ships, including some of the USA.
Widespread protests over the sinking of the British submarine Lusitania – traveling from New York to Liverpool, England, with hundreds of American passengers on board - in May 1915 helped turn the tide of American public opinion against the Germany. In February 1917, Congress passed a $250 million weapons endowment bill designed to make the United States war-ready.
Germany sank four more merchant ships in the US the following month, and on April 2, Woodrow Wilson appeared in Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.
By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts.
Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt combined to destroy the Ottoman economy and devastate its lands, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.
Austria-Hungary, dissolved from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on 4 November. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the home front and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I World.
At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Allied leaders would declare their desire to build a postwar world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such a devastating scale.
Some hopeful participants even began calling World War I "the war to end all wars." But the Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve this grandiose goal.
Plagued by war guilt, heavy reparations and prohibited entry into the League of Nations, Germany felt cheated by signing the treaty, believing that any peace would be "peace without victory," as Wilson asserts in his famous 14-point speech. January. 1918
Over the years, hatred of the Treaty of Versailles and its authors turned into resentment. latent in Germany that, two decades later, would be considered one of the causes of World War II World.
THE First World War which is also known as (Great War or War of Wars) began on the 28th of July 1914 and ends on the 11th of November 1918.
Jul 28, 1914 – Nov 11, 1918
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