World War 1 History
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World War 1 involved 2 opposing alliances, the Allies and the Central Powers. The countries of the Allies included Russia, France, the British Empire, Italy, United States, Japan, Rumania, Serbia, Belgium, Greece, Portugal and Montenegro. The countries of the Central Powers included Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. World War 1 was triggered on 28 June, 1914 by the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his pregnant wife Sophie. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was the nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the throne of Austria and Hungary. The assassination took place in in Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The assassination was planned by a Serbian terrorist group called The Black Hand. The man who shot Franz Ferdinand and his wife was a Bosnian revolutionary named Gavrilo Principal.There was a lot of alliances made between countries, to maintain a balance of power in Europe, which brought about the scale of the conflict. Austria-Hungary took over the former Turkish province of Bosnia in 1909. SerbiaCountries were building their military forces, arms and battleships, Countries wanted to regain lost territories from previous conflicts and build empires.
On the on the other hand the Germans were protesting in 1911 against the French possession of Morocco. The Major Leaders of World War 1 included Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II, Prince Alexander of Serbia, Sir Edward Grey British Foreign Secretary, President Wilson U.S. President, H. H. Asquith and David Lloyd George. WW1 included the first known use of chemical weapons (mustard Gas). The sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 bought the US into the war. The US entered the war on April 6, 1917 65 million troops were mobilized during WW1, 8 million troops died, 21 million troops were wounded, 58,000 British soldiers were lost on the first day at the Battle of the Somme.
Other names for World War 1 wereThe War to End All Wars, The War of the Nations and The Great War. By the end of the war there were 250,000 wounded British soldiers who suffered total or partial amputation. The U.S. was in the war in actual combat for only seven and a half months.During which time 116,000 were killed and 204,000 were wounded. During the course of the War War 1 approx 11% of Francess entire population was killed or wounded.
At the battle of Verdun in 1916, resulted in over a million casualties in ten months. Over 200,000 men died in the trenches of WW1. Trenches were infested with millions of rats, frogs and lice. 80,000 British troops suffered from shell-shock. Ww1 also had a lot of planes used in battle. They used them to shoot into trenches and drop bombs or other types of lethal weapons. In WW1 more than 70 different types of aircraft were used in the First World War.In 1917 Britain lost mor than 245 planes in a single month.
Also during this war the ships that they used were very important