WWI – findings

First World War
known in some countries as the Great War, overcamein scope killing,the intensity of destructionand financial cost of all previous conflicts in human history. The horrors of the war also affected world politics in the post-war years, as the reluctance of the Western powers to go to another war led to a policy of appeasement, culminating in the Appeasement policy of the 1930s.

The clear causes of the conflict werethe imperial ambitions of the European powers. Germany was deeply dissatisfied with the division of the colonies and the German Kaisers toyed with the idea of German dominance in Europe. The Western powers Great Britain and France were unwilling to share their colonial empiresempires with the later unified Germany, so the dilemma was resolved by force, which was traditional for European powers.

The spark that ignited the flame of war wasassassinationthe heir to the Austro-Hungarian throneFranz Ferdinand d'Esteby the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914.

Timeline

End of the war

11 November 1918Germany signed an armistice, and World War I ended at 11 a.m.

The military defeat of the Central Powers on the fronts made possible widespread internal political and social changes in the territories of the former monarchies.

1. Even during the First World War. World War I, Tsarist Russia ceased to exist, and in January 1918 the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist (RSFDSR), on the basis of which (after the forced annexation of Ukraine, Transcaucasia and Belarus) the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formed.
   However, some parts of the former Russian empire (Finland, Lithuania, Latvia Estonia) gained and maintained their independence in the chaos of the civil war.
2. After the lost war (also important was the 14-point declaration of US President W. Wilson, whose 5. point uncompromisingly demanded the right to self-determination of nations and thus contributed very substantially to the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), the Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed and thestates based on the national principle and functioning as republics (Czechoslovakia, Austria) could be established on its former territory.

Cities and civilian targets lying behind the front were usually not bombed much, as the emerging combat aircraft and airships were not technically capable of carrying sufficient bomb loads. Although the Germans, using airships, and the British and French, using aircraft, tried to do so, they failed to bring the war to the front of the belligerent powers.
Approximately 8 million people died on the battlefields of World War I, and the destruction and cost of the war reached unprecedented proportions. The area of northern and north-western France was the most devastated, with the towns of Ypres, Albert, Verdun and Bapaume being the worst affected.