World War I

The Background 

The First World War began in the year 1914 and ended in 1918. France, Britain, Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy were the six powerful European nations during that time. They had colonies all over the world. Gradually they began to sign secret pacts and began to form alliances with or against each other. A pact is a friendly understating between two or more countries.

By 1914, these six European countries were divided into two camps – the Allies and the Central Powers. Russia, France and Britain were the Allies. They signed Triple Entente, meaning treaty to help each other during war.  The other three countries – Germany, Italy and Hungary-Austria were called the Central Powers. Mutual mistrust and rivalry led to the First World War

Causes of the War

There were many reasons behind the war, the main being rivalry to hold onto more and more colonies and mutual mistrust. But the actual incident that started the war was the assassination of Archduke in Sarajevo in Austria-Hungary.

Before the First World War, Austria-Hungary was a huge empire in which Germans, Russians, Hungarians, Austrians and Serbs lived. The small city of Sarajevo was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Serbians, who were originally from Serb a neighboring country, living in Sarajevo hated Austro-Hungarian rule and were fighting for their independence. On June 28, 1914, the Heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Countess Sophie visited Sarajevo. They were driving through the streets of Sarajevo lined with cheering crowds in an open car. Suddenly, a young Serb Gavrilo Princep fired two shots from his pistol killing the Archduke and his wife instantly.

This incident took ugly turn when the Austria-Hungary empire attacked neighbor Serbia, thinking that this assassination was the handiwork of the Serb government. Soon it was a full fledged war. As per treaty Germany joined Austro-Hungary. Russian government offered Serbs help, and was dragged to war. Again, as per Triple Entity pact Britain and France joined Russia to help Serbia. In this way gradually most of the important countries of Europe were dragged into the war.

At first the United States of America kept out of the war. In 1917 German submarines bombed a passenger US ship by mistake leading the US to join the war against Germany. Britain and France defeated Germany with the help of the US in October 1918. The First World War ended with the Treaty of Versailles signed by Germany on one side and Britain, France and US on the other side. Germany had to pay a heavy fine of war and were told to cut down their navy and were not allowed to have submarines and air force.

Result of the War

The War caused a lot of damage to life and property. Many towns were completely destroyed. On the other hand many new powerful and destructive weapons had been invented, military tank being one such. A positive development was the formation of the League of Nations to help promote peace. Its headquarters was in Geneva in Switzerland. But it was not successful, as the world was dragged to the Second World War some years later.