The First World War, also known as the Great War, was a warlike conflict that occurred between 1914 and 1918 , which faced two large blocks:

• The Triple Alliance : formed by the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Later his added Bulgaria. The main leaders of this group of countries, also known as the Central Empires, were the German Emperor Wilhelm II and the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I.
• The Triple Entente: later called Allies of the First World War, made up of France, the Russian Empire and Great Britain. Then Italy (which was part of the Triple Alliance but changed sides) and the United States, among others, joined. Its main leaders were French President Raymond Poincaré, Russian Tsar Nicholas II, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and American President Woodrow Wilson.

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The war began on July 28, 1914, after the assassination of Francisco Fernando , heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It ended on November 11, 1918 , when the German Empire, after suffering several defeats and besieged by a socialist revolution, requested an armistice that was accepted by its enemies.

The end of the first world war

On the morning of November 11, 1918, the history of the world turned upside down. After four years of long and hard fighting that took place on the western and eastern fronts of Europe, where the combatants were fighting in subhuman conditions behind the trenches, the cessation of hostilities finally came. This event would also mark the end of the Austro-Hungarian, Turkish-Ottoman, Russian and German empires. Inside a dark and cold train car, French and British representatives of The Triple Entente and representatives of the German and Austro-Hungarian empiresthey agreed to an armistice and hostilities ceased. The cessation of hostilities only affected the western front, as the war had in fact ended on the eastern front (Russia had already withdrawn from the war after the Brest-Litovsk armistice in March 1918; Bulgaria signed an armistice on 29 September; Turkey on October 30, and the Austro-Hungarians on November 3)

The First World War , a conflict that left more than 20 million civilians and military dead and more than 20 million wounded in European territory.

Countries that participated in the First World War

During the First World War the following states intervened:

Development of the First World War When did world war 1 end

Hostilities began with quick but ineffective offensives . In the east, the Russians advanced towards Berlin and Vienna, but were stopped by Germans and Austrians. In the west, the Germans occupied Belgium and marched on Paris, but were arrested very close to the French capital. From then on, each side built hundreds of kilometers of trenches, from which every so often it tried to advance into enemy territory. Those fights were fierce: when the officers blew their whistles, the soldiers raced towards the trench opposite under a hail of bullets from the machine guns. The few who reached the enemy lines were woven into hand-to-hand combat with knives and bayonets.

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The war had a turning point in 1917 , when a German submarine sank a passenger ship carrying hundreds of Americans. The United States declared war on the Triple Alliance and thus joined the Triple Entente. Soon after, a revolution overthrew the Russian monarchy and the new government decided to withdraw its troops from the war. Germans and Austrians concentrated their armies in the west and launched a great offensive on France. But the attack, which was stopped, exhausted all his strength. The counterattack, made possible by the troops and armaments provided by the United States, managed to break through the defenses of the Central Empires, which requested an armistice in November 1918. When did  world war 1 end

Most important battles of World War I When did world war 1 end

The most important battles of the war were the following:

Causes of the First World War

There are several causes that came together to unleash this global conflict:

• Constant dispute over the African and Asian colonies , arising from the desire of the great European powers to exploit the natural resources and cheap labor of those territories. This competition took place in the context of European imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries .
• Rise of nationalism : the European leaders of the time wanted their countries to be superior to the rest, to dominate large colonial territories and to have a hegemonic position in the world.
• Strong arms competition : Major powers wanted to be at the forefront of advances in war technology and test them on the battlefield. These innovations include tanks, submarines, airplanes, poison gases, flamethrowers, grenades and machine guns.
• Political destabilization of the Balkan region , due to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the expansionist policy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the territorial claims of Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Montenegro, and the interference of the Russian Empire, which promoted political, religious union and culture of all Slavic peoples (Pan-Slavic).
• The assassination of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Francisco Fernando and his wife Sofía, was the trigger for the conflict. As the perpetrator of the shots was a Serbian nationalist, the Austro-Hungarian Empire blamed Serbia and declared war on it. The Russian Empire supported Serbia and from then on, previously established political and military alliances were activated and war on each other was declared, until it acquired global dimensions.

Consequences of the First World War

This global warlike conflict caused important political, socioeconomic and territorial consequences .

Political consequences

The political consequences of the First World War were:

• At the end of the First World War , four great empires ceased to exist : the German Empire, the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. In this way, the monarchy fell back in Europe and the republican form of government gained ground.
• A period of revolutions and civil wars began in several countries. In the Empire of the Tsars, the Russian Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power , who in 1922 created a socialist state called the Soviet Union .
• A set of peace treaties were signed , in order to redesign the boundaries of European countries and their colonies. These treaties were agreed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and among them was the Treaty of Versailles . When did world war 1 end
• The United States displaced Great Britain as the first military and economic power in the West.
• The League of Nations was created in 1919 , an international body whose main objective was to prevent a new world war.
• The rise of Nazism in Germany, whose psychological roots were the climate of collective frustration due to the military defeat and the impositions of the Treaty of Versailles.

Socio-economic consequences When did world war 1 end

The socioeconomic consequences of the First World War were:

• The destruction of much of the infrastructure of European countries, especially roads, bridges, ports and railways.
• The death of 10 million combatants and the murder of some 8 million civilians . This death toll, never reached in previous wars, is attributed to the technological advances in weapons that were used during the fighting in the air, sea and on land.
• The spread of the 1918 flu pandemic (also known as the Spanish flu ), which was initially contracted by US soldiers and which killed about 40 million people.
• Population movements, both of people displaced by the war seeking to return to their homes, and of those affected by the redesign of the European map in 1919.
• The great growth of the female workforce in factories, banks, shops and public offices, since much of the male workforce was found on the battlefields.
• A drop in the birth rate and a female overpopulation, caused by the large number of males killed in combat.
• Recurring economic and financial crises due to the enormous economic expenses made by the belligerent countries.

Territorial consequences

Due to the signing of the treaties of Brest-Litovsk, Versailles, Saint-Germain, Neuilly, Trianon and Lausanne, between 1918 and 1923, the territorial consequences of the First World War were:

• Germany lost a large number of territories and all its colonies in Africa and Oceania.
• The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire gave rise to four independent states : Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia .
• The Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and was renamed the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The new state was reduced to Anatolia and eastern Thrace.
• The dissolution of the Russian Empire made possible the independence of the Baltic countries : Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. When did world war 1 end