World War I, often abbreviated as 

WWI or WW1, also known as the First World War or

the Great War, was an international conflict that began on 28 July 1914 and ended on 11 November
1918. It involved much of Europe, as well as Russia, the United States and Turkey, and was fought
in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, an estimated 9
million were killed in combat, while over 5 million civilians died from occupation, bombardment,
hunger or disease.[4] Genocides and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic spread by the movement of
combatants during the war caused many millions of additional deaths worldwide. [5][6]
In 1914, the Great Powers were divided into two opposing alliances, the Triple Entente, consisting
of France, Russia, and Britain, and the Triple Alliance, made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary,
and Italy. Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914 following the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian heir, by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb. Austria-
Hungary blamed Serbia and the interlocking alliances involved the Powers in a series of diplomatic
exchanges known as the July Crisis. On 28 July, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia; Russia
came to Serbia's defence and by 4 August, the conflict had expanded to include Germany, France
and Britain, along with their respective colonial empires. In November, the Ottoman Empire,
Germany and Austria formed the Central Powers, while in April 1915, Italy joined Britain, France,
Russia and Serbia as the Allied Powers.
Facing a war on two fronts, German strategy in 1914 was to defeat France, then shift its forces to
the East and knock out Russia, commonly known as the Schlieffen Plan.[7] This failed when their
advance into France was halted at the Marne; by the end of 1914, the two sides faced each other
along the Western Front, a continuous series of trench lines stretching from
the Channel to Switzerland that changed little until 1917. By contrast, the Eastern Front was far
more fluid, with Austria-Hungary and Russia gaining, then losing large swathes of territory. Other
significant theatres included the Middle East, the Alpine Front and the Balkans,
bringing Bulgaria, Romania and Greece into the war.
Shortages caused by the Allied naval blockade led Germany to initiate unrestricted submarine
warfare in early 1917, bringing the previously neutral United States into the war on 6 April 1917. In
Russia, the Bolsheviks seized power in the 1917 October Revolution and made peace in the March
1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, freeing up large numbers of German troops. By transferring these to
the Western Front, the German General Staff hoped to win a decisive victory before American
reinforcements could impact the war, and launched the March 1918 German Spring Offensive.
Despite initial success, it was soon halted by heavy casualties and ferocious defence; in August, the
Allies launched the Hundred Days Offensive and although the German army continued to fight hard,
it could no longer halt their advance. [8]
The Central Powers began to collapse; Bulgaria signed an Armistice on 29 September, followed by
the Ottomans on 31 October, then Austria-Hungary on 3 November. Isolated, facing revolution at
home and an army on the verge of mutiny, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on 9 November and the new
German government signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918, bringing the fighting to a close. The
1919 Paris Peace Conference imposed various settlements on the defeated powers, the best known
being the Treaty of Versailles. The dissolution of the Russian, German, Ottoman and Austro-
Hungarian empires led to numerous uprisings and the creation of independent states,
including Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. For reasons that are still debated, failure to
manage the instability that resulted from this upheaval during the Interwar period ended with the
outbreak of World War II in 1939.
The term world war was first coined in September 1914 by German biologist and philosopher Ernst
Haeckel. He claimed that "there is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European
War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word,"[9] citing a wire service report
in The Indianapolis Star on 20 September 1914.
Prior to World War II, the events of 1914–1918 were generally known as the Great War or simply
the World War.[10][11] In October 1914, the Canadian magazine Maclean's wrote, "Some wars name
themselves. This is the Great War."[12] Contemporary Europeans also referred to it as "the war to end
war" or "the war to end all wars" due to their perception of its then-unparalleled scale and
devastation.[13] After World War II began in 1939, the terms became more standard, with British
Empire historians, including Canadians, favouring "The First World War" and Americans "World
War I".[14]

Political and military alliances

Rival military coalitions in 1914: Triple Entente in green; Triple Alliance in brown. Only the Triple Alliance was a
formal "alliance"; the others listed were informal patterns of support.

For much of the 19th century, the major European powers maintained a tenuous balance of
power among themselves, known as the Concert of Europe.[15] After 1848, this was challenged by a
variety of factors, including Britain's withdrawal into so-called splendid isolation, the decline of the
Ottoman Empire and the rise of Prussia under Otto von Bismarck. The 1866 Austro-Prussian
War established Prussian hegemony in Germany, while victory in the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian
War allowed Bismarck to consolidate the German states into a German Empire under Prussian
leadership. Avenging the defeat of 1871, or revanchism, and recovering the provinces of Alsace-
Lorraine became the principal objects of French policy for the next forty years. [16]
In order to isolate France and avoid a war on two fronts, Bismarck negotiated the League of the
Three Emperors (German: Dreikaiserbund) between Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany. After
Russian victory in the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War, the League was dissolved due to Austrian
concerns over Russian influence in the Balkans, an area they considered of vital strategic interest.
Germany and Austria-Hungary then formed the 1879 Dual Alliance, which became the Triple
Alliance when Italy joined in 1882.[17] For Bismarck, the purpose of these agreements was to isolate
France by ensuring the three Empires resolved any disputes between themselves; when this was
threatened in 1880 by British and French attempts to negotiate directly with Russia, he reformed the
League in 1881, which was renewed in 1883 and 1885. After the agreement lapsed in 1887, he
replaced it with the Reinsurance Treaty, a secret agreement between Germany and Russia to
remain neutral if either were attacked by France or Austria-Hungary. [18]
Bismarck viewed peace with Russia as the foundation of German foreign policy but after
becoming Kaiser in 1890, Wilhelm II forced him to retire and was persuaded not to renew the
Reinsurance Treaty by Leo von Caprivi, his new Chancellor.[19] This provided France an opportunity
to counteract the Triple Alliance, by signing the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894, followed by the
1904 Entente Cordiale with Britain, and the Triple Entente was completed by the 1907 Anglo-
Russian Convention. While these were not formal alliances, by settling long-standing colonial
disputes in Africa and Asia, British entry into any future conflict involving France or Russia became a
possibility.[20] British and Russian support for France against Germany during the Second Moroccan
Crisis in 1911 reinforced their relationship and increased Anglo-German estrangement, deepening
the divisions that would erupt in 1914. [21]