- The World War 1 was fought by the Allies on one side, and the Central Powers on the other.
- World War 1 or the First World War, 1914 - 1918, was the first war that involved nations spanning more than half the globe.
- The World War 1 was commonly called “The Great War” or sometimes “the war to end wars” until World War II started .
- The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. He was the heir to the Austrian throne and was murdered by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. This was the spark that caused war to be declared.
- First known use of chemical weapons (mustard Gas) was in World War 1.
- More than 70 million military personnel were mobilized in World War 1.
- After the German march on Paris was brought to a halt, the Western Front settled into a static battle of attrition with a trench line that changed little until 1917.
- More than 9 million died on the battlefield, and nearly that many more on the home fronts because of food shortages, genocide, and ground combat.
- There were 70,000,000 men and women in uniform of that number one-half were either killed, wounded or became prisoners of war.
- Germany surrendered on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918.
- By the war's end, four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires—had been militarily and politically defeated, with the last two ceasing to exist.
- The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict.
12 facts about World War 1
