World War I, also known as the Great War, began in 1914 after the

assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder

catapulted into a war across Europe that 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 Allied Powers). Thanks to new
military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw
unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was
over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million
people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe—especially in the troubled
Balkan region of southeast Europe—for years before World War I actually
broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the ​Ottoman Empire​,

Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the
Balkans​ (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to
destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where
Archduke Franz Ferdinand​—heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was
shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo
Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to
end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of
events: ​Austria-Hungary​, like many countries around the world, blamed the
Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as
justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II
Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to
declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader ​Kaiser
Wilhelm II​ that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian
leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia’s ally,
France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving

Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or “blank check” assurance of
Germany’s backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of
Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms
as to make it almost impossible to accept.

World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian
government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia
for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and
the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed.

Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined
up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.
The Western Front
According to an aggressive military strategy known as the ​Schlieffen Plan
(named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal ​Alfred von Schlieffen​),
Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France
through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting 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 assaulted the heavily fortified city of
Liege​, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege
cannons—to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and
destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France,
shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of
inciting civilian resistance.

First Battle of the Marne

In the ​First Battle of the Marne​, fought from September 6-9, 1914, French
and British forces confronted the invading Germany army, which had by
then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris.
The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful
counterattack, driving the Germans back to north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France.
Both sides dug into ​trenches​, and the Western Front was the setting for 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 the ​Battle of the Somme​ (July-November
1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in
the ​Battle of Verdun​ alone.

World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties
its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works
of art as “​All Quiet on the Western Front​” by ​Erich Maria Remarque​ and “​In
Flanders Fields​”​ ​by Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel ​John McCrae​. In
the latter poem, McCrae writes from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of
remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham
Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as
soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench
warfare and exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes
decimated by war.
The Eastern Front
On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the
German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland, but were stopped short
by German and Austrian forces at the ​Battle of Tannenberg​ in late August
1914.

Despite that victory, Russia’s assault had forced Germany to move two
corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German
loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s
huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a
longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had
hoped to win under the ​Schlieffen Plan​.
READ MORE: ​Was Germany Doomed by the Schlieffen Plan?

Russian Revolution
From 1914 to 1916, Russia’s army mounted several offensives on World
War I’s Eastern Front, but was unable to break through German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the

scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the
bulk of Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and
peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime
of ​Czar Nicholas II​ and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia’s simmering instability exploded in the ​Russian Revolution​ of 1917,

spearheaded by ​Vladimir Lenin​ and the ​Bolsheviks​, which ended czarist
rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.

Russia reached an ​armistice with the Central Powers​ in early December

1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western
Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the
sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by
President ​Woodrow Wilson​ while continuing to engage in commerce and
shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, was increasing difficult to maintain in the face of

Germany’s unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships,
including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the
waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and ​German U-boats
sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S.
ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner
Lusitania​—traveling from ​New York​ to Liverpool, England with hundreds of
American passengers onboard—in May 1915 helped turn the tide of
American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress
passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United
States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on
April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a
declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign
With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the
Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which
entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of
Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a
large-scale land invasion of the ​Gallipoli​ Peninsula in April 1915. The
invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces
staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering 250,000
casualties.
Did you know?​ The young Winston Churchill, then first
lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after
the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a
commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and

Mesopotamia​, while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in
a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between
the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The ​First Battle of the Isonzo​ took place in the late spring of 1915, soon
after Italy’s entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of
the Isonzo, also known as the ​Battle of Caporetto​ (October 1917), German
reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy’s allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British

and French—and later, American—troops arrived in the region, and the
Allies began to take back the Italian Front.

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain’s Royal Navy was
unchallenged by any other nation’s fleet, but the Imperial German Navy
had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval
powers. Germany’s strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal
fleet of U-boat submarines.
After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British
mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German
navy chose not to confront Britain’s mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for
more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its
U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the ​Battle of Jutland​ (May
1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany
would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the
remainder of the war.

World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes.
Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany’s U-boats,
the use of planes in World War I presaged their later, pivotal role in military
conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the ​Wright
brothers​ took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903.
Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions. During
the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the
allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push
Germany out of France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of

1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet
could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from. The
Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was
armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The
Morane-Saulnier Type L was used by the French, the British Royal Flying
Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service and the
Imperial Russian Air Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another
popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system
in 1915. His “interrupter” synchronized the firing of the guns with the
plane’s propeller to avoid collisions. Though his most popular plane during
WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds
of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-engine

bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long-range heavy
bombers like Germany’s Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917) were used to
strike cities like London. Their speed and maneuverability proved to be far
deadlier than Germany’s earlier Zeppelin raids.

By war’s end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft than the
Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF,
the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the
navy or army.

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the
armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German
offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to
arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last
German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000
American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the
Second Battle of the Marne​. The Allies successfully pushed back the
German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days
later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a

planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between
France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany’s best hope of
victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards
the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the
months that followed.

Role of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions

By the time World War I began, there were four all-Black regiments in the
U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry. All
four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the
Spanish-American War​ and ​American-Indian Wars​, and served in the
American territories. But they were not deployed for overseas combat in
World War I.
Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was
inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first African American troops
sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial
roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their
duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train
depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance,
removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for
its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the
military formed two Black combat units in 1917, the ​92nd and 93rd
Divisions​. Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the
divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their
performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September 1918. The
93rd Division, however, had more success.

With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and

General ​John Pershing​, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces,
sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience
fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial
army. The 93 Division’s, 369 regiment, nicknamed the ​Harlem Hellfighters​ ,
fought so gallantly, with a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than
any AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their
heroism. More than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in
World War I in various capacities.

READ MORE: ​A Harlem Hellfighter's Searing Tales from the WWII

Trenches
Toward Armistice
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 that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its
land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist

movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on
November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on
the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to
seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles
At the ​Paris Peace Conference​ in 1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to
build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of
such devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I “the War to
End All Wars.” But the ​Treaty of Versailles​, signed on June 28, 1919, would
not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the
League of Nations​, Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having
believed any peace would be a “peace without victory,” as put forward by
President Wilson in his famous ​Fourteen Points​ speech of January 1918.
As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled
into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be
counted among the causes of ​World War II​.

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more
were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two
nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some
80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into
battle.

READ MORE: ​The Perilous But Critical Role of World War I Runners

The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall
of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia
and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women
entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who
never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the
world’s deadliest global pandemics, the ​Spanish flu​ epidemic of 1918,
which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of
the technologies now associated with military conflict—machine guns,
tanks​, aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a
massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that ​chemical weapons​ such as mustard gas and
phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized
public and military attitudes against their continued use. The ​Geneva
Convention​ agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and
biological agents in warfare and remains in effect today.

Photo Galleries
World War I In Color

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World War I Leaders

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World War I: Trench Warfare

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Haunting Photos from the Battle of the

Somme
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Dog Heroes of World War I

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World War I Technology

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Dazzle Camouflage
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World War I Inventions Still Used Today

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Citation Information
Article Title

World War I

Author
History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history

Access Date

September 30, 2020

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 7, 2020

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009

TAGS​WORLD WAR I BATTLES

BY ​HISTORY.COM EDITORS

World War I, also known as the Great War, began in 1914 after the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder
catapulted into a war across Europe that 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 Allied Powers). Thanks to new
military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw
unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was
over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million
people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe—especially in the troubled
Balkan region of southeast Europe—for years before World War I actually
broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the ​Ottoman Empire​,

Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the
Balkans​ (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to
destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where
Archduke Franz Ferdinand​—heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was
shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo
Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to
end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of

events: ​Austria-Hungary​, like many countries around the world, blamed the
Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as
justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II
Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to
declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader ​Kaiser
Wilhelm II​ that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian
leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia’s ally,
France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving

Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or “blank check” assurance of
Germany’s backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of
Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms
as to make it almost impossible to accept.

World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian
government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia
for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and
the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed.
Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined
up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

The Western Front

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the ​Schlieffen Plan
(named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal ​Alfred von Schlieffen​),
Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France
through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting 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 assaulted the heavily fortified city of
Liege​, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege
cannons—to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and
destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France,
shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of
inciting civilian resistance.

First Battle of the Marne

In the ​First Battle of the Marne​, fought from September 6-9, 1914, French
and British forces confronted the invading Germany army, which had by
then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris.
The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful
counterattack, driving the Germans back to north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France.
Both sides dug into ​trenches​, and the Western Front was the setting for 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 the ​Battle of the Somme​ (July-November
1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in
the ​Battle of Verdun​ alone.

World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties
its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works
of art as “​All Quiet on the Western Front​” by ​Erich Maria Remarque​ and “​In
​ y Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel ​John McCrae​. In
Flanders Fields​”​ b
the latter poem, McCrae writes from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of
remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham
Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as
soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench
warfare and exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes
decimated by war.
The Eastern Front
On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the
German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland, but were stopped short
by German and Austrian forces at the ​Battle of Tannenberg​ in late August
1914.

Despite that victory, Russia’s assault had forced Germany to move two
corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German
loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s
huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a
longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had
hoped to win under the ​Schlieffen Plan​.
READ MORE: ​Was Germany Doomed by the Schlieffen Plan?

Russian Revolution
From 1914 to 1916, Russia’s army mounted several offensives on World
War I’s Eastern Front, but was unable to break through German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the

scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the
bulk of Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and
peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime
of ​Czar Nicholas II​ and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia’s simmering instability exploded in the ​Russian Revolution​ of 1917,

spearheaded by ​Vladimir Lenin​ and the ​Bolsheviks​, which ended czarist
rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.

Russia reached an ​armistice with the Central Powers​ in early December

1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western
Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the
sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by
President ​Woodrow Wilson​ while continuing to engage in commerce and
shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, was increasing difficult to maintain in the face of

Germany’s unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships,
including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the
waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and ​German U-boats
sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S.
ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner
Lusitania​—traveling from ​New York​ to Liverpool, England with hundreds of
American passengers onboard—in May 1915 helped turn the tide of
American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress
passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United
States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on
April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a
declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign
With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the
Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which
entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of
Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a
large-scale land invasion of the ​Gallipoli​ Peninsula in April 1915. The
invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces
staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering 250,000
casualties.
Did you know?​ The young Winston Churchill, then first
lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after
the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a
commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and

Mesopotamia​, while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in
a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between
the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The ​First Battle of the Isonzo​ took place in the late spring of 1915, soon
after Italy’s entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of
the Isonzo, also known as the ​Battle of Caporetto​ (October 1917), German
reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy’s allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British

and French—and later, American—troops arrived in the region, and the
Allies began to take back the Italian Front.

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain’s Royal Navy was
unchallenged by any other nation’s fleet, but the Imperial German Navy
had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval
powers. Germany’s strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal
fleet of U-boat submarines.
After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British
mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German
navy chose not to confront Britain’s mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for
more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its
U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the ​Battle of Jutland​ (May
1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany
would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the
remainder of the war.

World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes.
Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany’s U-boats,
the use of planes in World War I presaged their later, pivotal role in military
conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the ​Wright
brothers​ took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903.
Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions. During
the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the
allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push
Germany out of France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of

1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet
could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from. The
Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was
armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The
Morane-Saulnier Type L was used by the French, the British Royal Flying
Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service and the
Imperial Russian Air Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another
popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system
in 1915. His “interrupter” synchronized the firing of the guns with the
plane’s propeller to avoid collisions. Though his most popular plane during
WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds
of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-engine

bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long-range heavy
bombers like Germany’s Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917) were used to
strike cities like London. Their speed and maneuverability proved to be far
deadlier than Germany’s earlier Zeppelin raids.

By war’s end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft than the
Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF,
the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the
navy or army.

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the
armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German
offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to
arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last
German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000
American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the
Second Battle of the Marne​. The Allies successfully pushed back the
German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days
later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a

planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between
France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany’s best hope of
victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards
the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the
months that followed.

Role of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions

By the time World War I began, there were four all-Black regiments in the
U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry. All
four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the
Spanish-American War​ and ​American-Indian Wars​, and served in the
American territories. But they were not deployed for overseas combat in
World War I.
Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was
inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first African American troops
sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial
roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their
duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train
depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance,
removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for
its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the
military formed two Black combat units in 1917, the ​92nd and 93rd
Divisions​. Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the
divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their
performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September 1918. The
93rd Division, however, had more success.

With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and

General ​John Pershing​, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces,
sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience
fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial
army. The 93 Division’s, 369 regiment, nicknamed the ​Harlem Hellfighters​ ,
fought so gallantly, with a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than
any AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their
heroism. More than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in
World War I in various capacities.

READ MORE: ​A Harlem Hellfighter's Searing Tales from the WWII

Trenches
Toward Armistice
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 that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its
land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist

movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on
November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on
the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to
seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles
At the ​Paris Peace Conference​ in 1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to
build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of
such devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I “the War to
End All Wars.” But the ​Treaty of Versailles​, signed on June 28, 1919, would
not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the
League of Nations​, Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having
believed any peace would be a “peace without victory,” as put forward by
President Wilson in his famous ​Fourteen Points​ speech of January 1918.
As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled
into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be
counted among the causes of ​World War II​.

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more
were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two
nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some
80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into
battle.

READ MORE: ​The Perilous But Critical Role of World War I Runners

The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall
of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia
and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women
entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who
never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the
world’s deadliest global pandemics, the ​Spanish flu​ epidemic of 1918,
which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of
the technologies now associated with military conflict—machine guns,
tanks​, aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a
massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that ​chemical weapons​ such as mustard gas and
phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized
public and military attitudes against their continued use. The ​Geneva
Convention​ agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and
biological agents in warfare and remains in effect today.

Photo Galleries
World War I In Color

12
GALLERY

12 IMAGES

World War I Leaders

12

GALLERY

12 IMAGES

World War I: Trench Warfare

 11

GALLERY

11 IMAGES

Haunting Photos from the Battle of the

Somme
 10

GALLERY

10 IMAGES

Dog Heroes of World War I

 26

GALLERY

26 IMAGES

World War I Technology

 13

GALLERY

13 IMAGES

Dazzle Camouflage
 8

GALLERY

8 IMAGES

World War I Inventions Still Used Today

 10

GALLERY

10 IMAGES

Citation Information
Article Title

World War I

Author
History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history

Access Date

September 30, 2020

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 7, 2020

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009

TAGS​WORLD WAR I BATTLES

BY ​HISTORY.COM EDITORS

World War I, also known as the Great War, began in 1914 after the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder
catapulted into a war across Europe that 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 Allied Powers). Thanks to new
military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw
unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was
over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million
people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe—especially in the troubled
Balkan region of southeast Europe—for years before World War I actually
broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the ​Ottoman Empire​,

Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the
Balkans​ (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to
destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where
Archduke Franz Ferdinand​—heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was
shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo
Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to
end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of

events: ​Austria-Hungary​, like many countries around the world, blamed the
Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as
justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II
Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to
declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader ​Kaiser
Wilhelm II​ that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian
leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia’s ally,
France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving

Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or “blank check” assurance of
Germany’s backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of
Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms
as to make it almost impossible to accept.

World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian
government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia
for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and
the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed.
Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined
up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

The Western Front

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the ​Schlieffen Plan
(named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal ​Alfred von Schlieffen​),
Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France
through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting 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 assaulted the heavily fortified city of
Liege​, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege
cannons—to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and
destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France,
shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of
inciting civilian resistance.

First Battle of the Marne

In the ​First Battle of the Marne​, fought from September 6-9, 1914, French
and British forces confronted the invading Germany army, which had by
then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris.
The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful
counterattack, driving the Germans back to north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France.
Both sides dug into ​trenches​, and the Western Front was the setting for 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 the ​Battle of the Somme​ (July-November
1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in
the ​Battle of Verdun​ alone.

World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties
its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works
of art as “​All Quiet on the Western Front​” by ​Erich Maria Remarque​ and “​In
​ y Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel ​John McCrae​. In
Flanders Fields​”​ b
the latter poem, McCrae writes from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of
remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham
Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as
soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench
warfare and exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes
decimated by war.
The Eastern Front
On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the
German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland, but were stopped short
by German and Austrian forces at the ​Battle of Tannenberg​ in late August
1914.

Despite that victory, Russia’s assault had forced Germany to move two
corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German
loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s
huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a
longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had
hoped to win under the ​Schlieffen Plan​.
READ MORE: ​Was Germany Doomed by the Schlieffen Plan?

Russian Revolution
From 1914 to 1916, Russia’s army mounted several offensives on World
War I’s Eastern Front, but was unable to break through German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the

scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the
bulk of Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and
peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime
of ​Czar Nicholas II​ and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia’s simmering instability exploded in the ​Russian Revolution​ of 1917,

spearheaded by ​Vladimir Lenin​ and the ​Bolsheviks​, which ended czarist
rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.

Russia reached an ​armistice with the Central Powers​ in early December

1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western
Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the
sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by
President ​Woodrow Wilson​ while continuing to engage in commerce and
shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, was increasing difficult to maintain in the face of

Germany’s unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships,
including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the
waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and ​German U-boats
sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S.
ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner
Lusitania​—traveling from ​New York​ to Liverpool, England with hundreds of
American passengers onboard—in May 1915 helped turn the tide of
American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress
passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United
States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on
April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a
declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign
With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the
Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which
entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of
Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a
large-scale land invasion of the ​Gallipoli​ Peninsula in April 1915. The
invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces
staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering 250,000
casualties.
Did you know?​ The young Winston Churchill, then first
lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after
the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a
commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and

Mesopotamia​, while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in
a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between
the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The ​First Battle of the Isonzo​ took place in the late spring of 1915, soon
after Italy’s entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of
the Isonzo, also known as the ​Battle of Caporetto​ (October 1917), German
reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy’s allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British

and French—and later, American—troops arrived in the region, and the
Allies began to take back the Italian Front.

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain’s Royal Navy was
unchallenged by any other nation’s fleet, but the Imperial German Navy
had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval
powers. Germany’s strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal
fleet of U-boat submarines.
After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British
mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German
navy chose not to confront Britain’s mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for
more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its
U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the ​Battle of Jutland​ (May
1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany
would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the
remainder of the war.

World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes.
Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany’s U-boats,
the use of planes in World War I presaged their later, pivotal role in military
conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the ​Wright
brothers​ took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903.
Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions. During
the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the
allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push
Germany out of France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of

1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet
could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from. The
Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was
armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The
Morane-Saulnier Type L was used by the French, the British Royal Flying
Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service and the
Imperial Russian Air Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another
popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system
in 1915. His “interrupter” synchronized the firing of the guns with the
plane’s propeller to avoid collisions. Though his most popular plane during
WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds
of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-engine

bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long-range heavy
bombers like Germany’s Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917) were used to
strike cities like London. Their speed and maneuverability proved to be far
deadlier than Germany’s earlier Zeppelin raids.

By war’s end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft than the
Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF,
the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the
navy or army.

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the
armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German
offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to
arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last
German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000
American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the
Second Battle of the Marne​. The Allies successfully pushed back the
German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days
later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a

planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between
France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany’s best hope of
victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards
the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the
months that followed.

Role of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions

By the time World War I began, there were four all-Black regiments in the
U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry. All
four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the
Spanish-American War​ and ​American-Indian Wars​, and served in the
American territories. But they were not deployed for overseas combat in
World War I.
Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was
inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first African American troops
sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial
roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their
duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train
depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance,
removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for
its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the
military formed two Black combat units in 1917, the ​92nd and 93rd
Divisions​. Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the
divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their
performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September 1918. The
93rd Division, however, had more success.

With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and

General ​John Pershing​, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces,
sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience
fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial
army. The 93 Division’s, 369 regiment, nicknamed the ​Harlem Hellfighters​ ,
fought so gallantly, with a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than
any AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their
heroism. More than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in
World War I in various capacities.

READ MORE: ​A Harlem Hellfighter's Searing Tales from the WWII

Trenches
Toward Armistice
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 that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its
land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist

movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on
November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on
the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to
seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles
At the ​Paris Peace Conference​ in 1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to
build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of
such devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I “the War to
End All Wars.” But the ​Treaty of Versailles​, signed on June 28, 1919, would
not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the
League of Nations​, Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having
believed any peace would be a “peace without victory,” as put forward by
President Wilson in his famous ​Fourteen Points​ speech of January 1918.
As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled
into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be
counted among the causes of ​World War II​.

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more
were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two
nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some
80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into
battle.

READ MORE: ​The Perilous But Critical Role of World War I Runners

The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall
of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia
and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women
entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who
never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the
world’s deadliest global pandemics, the ​Spanish flu​ epidemic of 1918,
which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of
the technologies now associated with military conflict—machine guns,
tanks​, aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a
massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that ​chemical weapons​ such as mustard gas and
phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized
public and military attitudes against their continued use. The ​Geneva
Convention​ agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and
biological agents in warfare and remains in effect today.

Photo Galleries
World War I In Color

12
GALLERY

12 IMAGES

World War I Leaders

12

GALLERY

12 IMAGES

World War I: Trench Warfare

 11

GALLERY

11 IMAGES

Haunting Photos from the Battle of the

Somme
 10

GALLERY

10 IMAGES

Dog Heroes of World War I

 26

GALLERY

26 IMAGES

World War I Technology

 13

GALLERY

13 IMAGES

Dazzle Camouflage
 8

GALLERY

8 IMAGES

World War I Inventions Still Used Today

 10

GALLERY

10 IMAGES

Citation Information
Article Title

World War I

Author
History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history

Access Date

September 30, 2020

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 7, 2020

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009

TAGS​WORLD WAR I BATTLES

BY ​HISTORY.COM EDITORS