Did You Know These Interesting Facts About World War 1

The First World War was a global conflict fought from 1914 - 1918.Also known by other names such as the Great War and World War One, this global war was a predecessor to World War II. World War One was the first official major conflict in human history, in which countries all around the world became directly or indirectly engaged in the war effort.At the advent of the twentieth century, Europe was marred with many geopolitical conflicts. To the east of mainland Europe, there lay the troubles between the weakening Ottoman Empire and the countries that were formerly members of it. Greece was already independent of Ottoman rule since 1821 but was engaged in a bitter rivalry with its erstwhile rulers for a long time.There was a growing nationalistic movement in the east European nations from the nineteenth century. Countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, along with Greece, were seeking more territorial sovereignty from their surrounding imperial dominions. The Ottoman Empire had to bear the bulk of the heat coming from these increasingly vocal nationalistic nations to the east of the continent.So read on to learn more about this devastating war that changed the lives of so many young men and women. However, all was not doom and gloom! Did you know that a US army doctor created the first blood bank for soldiers on the western front?Start Of World War 1In central Europe, the major tussle involved Serbia and Austria-Hungary. It would be pertinent to note here that Serbia was at the forefront of the Pan-Slav movement, which aimed at uniting the Slavic countries of central and eastern Europe such as Serbia, Albania, Romania, Croatia, Slovakia.The only problem that the leaders of the Serbian government were facing was the constant pressure from Austria-Hungary towards its goal. Austria-Hungary, at this point, was the focal point of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was ruled by the Hapsburg dynasty. With the increasing popularity of the Slavic Movement next door, the upper echelons of Austria-Hungary were facing a challenge to their imperial ambitions in Europe. A clash between Serbia and Austria-Hungary became imminent in the early part of the twentieth century when Serbian nationalism became very powerful.Around this time, an underground Serbian terrorist group named The Black Hand came into existence in Serbia. What one of its members did on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) may well be the single-most-important event that caused the outset of World War I.It was on the morning of June 28, 1914, that a young Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, did what many consider the immediate cause of the Great War. On that day, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, visited the city of Sarajevo, along with his wife, Sophie. Princip approached the car in which the royals were traveling and fired shots directed at the two of them. Both Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife died on the spot.Many historians are of the view that the first bullet of the Great War was fired not on any battlefield but here but in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.Countries That Participated in World War 1With the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the major political powers in Europe were all but certain that war was close. It took exactly a month for Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia.On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The official announcement was made from the imperial capital Vienna. This was a time when alliances and secret pacts were a common feature in European politics. So, as soon as the announcement of war was made from Vienna, the Russian Imperial Empire declared war on the Austro-Hungarian side. This was because Russia had pledged itself to the cause of Serbia sometime before 1914. It was sympathetic to the Pan-Slav movement, mainly due to its resistance to the other imperial powers of Europe then- the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.Under these circumstances, Serbia and Russia became one team against the Central Powers consisting of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy. Italy, however, changed sides midway and joined the cause of the Allies. While the Central Powers were also designated by the term ‘Triple Alliance’, the group of Great Britain, Russia, and France came to be known as the ‘Triple Entente’.After the declaration of war from both sides, war broke out in different sectors of mainland Europe. The German Army had been the largest in Europe since the last decades of the nineteenth century, and the German Empire was second only to the British Empire in the world.The German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was belligerent by nature and had for a long while wanted to build the strongest military forces in Europe. In his quest of becoming the most powerful monarch in Europe, he was leaving no stones unturned to match the strength of the British Navy. The British Navy was the undisputed power of the seas at the turn of the twentieth century. The German Navy was not really as powerful as their British counterpart but had submarines in their arsenal.Early on in World War I, the German Army had the objective of achieving a quick victory over the French forces on its western front and then concentrating its powers to check the advances of the Russian Army to its east. The French Army, however, halted the march of the Germans on its territories and forced the latter two to fight on two fronts. Even before the Germans had reached French territories, they had invaded Belgium.The German entry into neutral Belgium triggered a treaty between Great Britain and the Belgian government. The understanding between the British and the Belgian governments was that, in the face of German aggression, the British would come to the aid of the Belgians.The British government lived up to its word and joined the side of the French, Russians, and Serbia. By this time, the Triple Entente had grown to become the Allied Countries. Italy, which was on the friendlier side of Germany and Austria-Hungary at the outset of World War I, changed sides and became an allied country.As the war raged on in Europe, the United States of America chose to observe the hostilities from a distance. America, under President Woodrow Wilson, remained neutral for most of the war. However, it finally joined World War I in 1917, after German U-boats sank several American merchant vessels and civilian ships off its east coast.One such incident was particularly severe when a German U-boat submarine bombed an American civilian ship named Lusitania. More than 200 US citizens were killed in the attack, and that angered the whole American nation. It was around the same time that the US Congress declared war on Germany.After-Effects Of World War 1By the middle of the year 1916, the war in Europe had reached its height. The British Army was aiding the armed forces of the Allied countries on the western front, where full-scale trench warfare was underway on the German lines in France and Belgium.As per the records found in the British War Office, the British forces consisted of more than one million British Indian troops, as well as regular British soldiers. It was mainly with the aid of these unsung Indian soldiers that the British Army was able to beat the Germans on the western front.After a series of defeats all over Europe and Africa, the Germans were beginning to wear out by the beginning of 1918. The Allied forces had orchestrated a successful Allied naval blockade of the major German ports to cut off major supplies from reaching the German Army.On the eastern sector of the war, Russian forces were withdrawn from World War I by the new Lenin-inspired Communist regime that came to power in 1917. That, however, did not give any advantage to the Germans. They were already on the back foot following the coming of the Americans into the scene. The US, with their vast resources and military and might, gave the Allies the much-needed boost in their mission to end the war on a peaceful note.Back in Germany, the naval blockade by the Allied forces had caused the German economy to crash. This led to large-scale resentment among the German citizens and gave rise to country-wide riots and strikes. It was around this particular period that the German Emperor and King of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II, went on to abdicate his throne and fled to the Netherlands.The new government in Germany decided to call for peace and agreed to come to the table for signing peace terms. World War I officially concluded when Germany and the Allied powers signed a ceasefire accord on November 11, 1918, in France.In the aftermath of Germany’s defeat at the hands of the Allied forces, the Treaty of Versailles was signed between the representatives of Germany and victorious Allied powers. The Versailles Treaty was signed on June 28, 1919. However, it came into effect on January 10, 1920. In between, it was registered by the League of Nations Secretariat on October 21, 1919.You may be wondering what the League of Nations is. Let us inform you that the League of Nations was an international intergovernmental body tasked with maintaining peace the world over. It was born on January 10, 1919, after the Versailles Treaty became active, and was forfeited on April 20, 1946. It was the predecessor to the United Nations Organization.The Paris Peace Conference of 1919, where the Versailles Treaty was concluded, is seen by leading scholars as one of the chief reasons for the rise of fascism and Adolf Hitler in Germany. The Treaty of Versailles labeled Germany as the main culprit behind the outset of the war and put some extremely harsh conditions for Germany to fulfill. It was mainly France that wanted to see Germany reduced to a broken state.Apart from the insanely high amounts of war reparations that Germany was made to agree to pay to the victors, large parts of German land possessions were stripped from it and given to neighboring countries. All of Germany’s colonial possessions in Asia and Africa were taken away and distributed among the victorious countries. The German military was also reduced to a minimum, along with its air force and navy.The war had taken a major toll on the economy of Germany, like the rest of Europe. But nothing was taken into consideration before slapping Germany with the outrageous conditions in the Versailles Treaty. The seeds of the Second World War were surely sown at this Peace Conference, as the humiliation that Germany faced at the hands of the Allied powers went a long way the turning the German citizens towards the idea of totalitarianism. The meteoric rise of the ruthless dictator Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime could well have been avoided that fateful day in Paris.Soon after Adolf Hitler took control of Germany in 1933, he pushed the country toward the road of militarization. Intending to regain lost territories, Hitler continued increasing the German military complex.By the year 1938, Germany had withdrawn from adhering to the conditions of the 1919 treaty and had overturned most of them. It had occupied some of the parts that were taken away from it in 1919 and was eyeing even more territory to its east. It was, however, too late to check Hitler’s aggression at this point.Soon the world would get embroiled in another World War.World War 1 Facts For KidsThe First World War saw the first of many things. This was the first time that airplanes were introduced in the theater of war. This was a fascinating aspect of the war since it was only a decade ago that the Wright brothers had discovered the airplane.The First World War was, in many ways, a modern war. Along with the coming of aerial warfare, the First World war saw the coming of chemical weapons for the first time as well. If you watch World War I documentaries, you will find soldiers wearing special oxygen masks on the battlefields. This was the only way they could protect themselves from weaponized mustard gas.Other technological marvels that made their debut in the field of war were tanks and submarines.The First World War witnessed the loss of widespread loss and devastation of properties. More than eight million soldiers lost their lives in this military conflict. Close to 25 million were wounded in the major battles that were fought over four long years.Thousands of wounded soldiers were either left handicapped or mentally scarred for the rest of their lives. It was artillery fire that resulted in the maximum number of deaths in World war I.World War I provides the biggest example of modern trench warfare. While trenches were used before this war, they were never used to such an extent.The main characteristic of trench warfare was the enemy lines facing each other on opposite sides of the fighting field, where each side would advance and gain positions after eliminating soldiers from the opposing sides. The strips of land between two trenches were called no man’s land. To advance and gain territory, soldiers were required to take over enemy trenches. Two of the most iconic and famous battles of the First World War, the battles of Somme and Ypres, were fought over trenches.The First World War was a death blow to three of the leading powerhouses of Europe. To the extreme east of the European continent, the centuries-old Ottoman Empire collapsed completely. Its former territories went under the control of French and British soldiers, who became masters of this ancient part of the world for the next few years.The fates of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire were also similar. Both these empires saw the end of their road in the midst of turbulent times. The Austro-Hungarian Empire broke up into several countries, namely Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.The Russian Empire turned from being an empire to a socialist state under the first communist government of the world. The last Russian Tsar of the Romanov dynasty, Nicholas II, abdicated his throne and was later murdered along with his family members. The First World War showed the whole world what the uncontrolled belligerence of a handful of people could bring for the whole of humanity. Once the war had come to an end, the press had predicted that it would be the last time a war of such magnitude and proportion would consume the planet. We all know that was not the case.In the matter of two decades, a more deadly and vicious World War engulfed the globe one more time. Let us hope that the two World Wars are enough examples to warn our present world leaders about the perils of wars and conflicts.We hope future wars will be prevented by the lessons that First World War and World War II have taught us.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for facts about World War 1 then why not take a look at facts about world War 2 or World War 2 drafts facts.

The First World War was a global conflict fought from 1914 - 1918.