| World War I | |||||||
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| File:WW1 TitlePicture For Wikipedia Article.jpg Clockwise from top: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Allied (Entente) Powers | Central Powers | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Leaders and commanders | Leaders and commanders | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
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Military dead: 5,525,000 Military wounded: 12,831,500 Military missing: 4,121,000[1] ...further details. |
Military dead: 4,386,000 Military wounded: 8,388,000 Military missing: 3,629,000[1] ...further details. | ||||||
World War I, or the First World War, (often referred to as The Great War and The War to End All Wars) was a global conflict which involved the majority of the world's Great powers,[2] organized into two opposing alliances: the Entente Powers and the Central Powers.[3] Over 70 million military personnel were mobilized in the largest war in history.[4] The conflict was the first total war, in which the combatants mobilised their entire scientific and industrial capabilities to the service of the war effort. Over 15 million people were killed, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.[5]
The catalyst for the war was the 28 June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a Bosnian-Serb nationalist. Austria-Hungary's resulting demands against the Kingdom of Serbia led to the activation of a series of alliances which saw all of the major European powers at war within weeks. Because of the global empires of many European nations, the war soon spread worldwide.
By the war's end, four major imperial powers—Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia—had been militarily and politically defeated.[6] The Soviet Union emerged from the Russian Empire, while the map of central Europe was completely redrawn into numerous smaller states.[7] The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The European nationalism spawned by the war, along with the repercussions of Germany's defeat and the Treaty of Versailles, would eventually lead to the beginning of World War II.[8]
