The Great War

World War I, or the Great War, was a global war originated in Europe that lasted from 1914 to 1918. It is also considered one of the deadliest conflicts in history due to the use of trench warfare and chemical weapons.

Sides

For much of the 19th century, the major European powers had tried to maintain a tenuous balance of power among themselves. This resulted in a complex network of political and military alliances.

 The Triple Entente

Composed by the Russian Empire, the Third French Republic, the United Kingdom and their allies.

Joined by Italy, Japan and the United States as the war progressed.

The Central Powers

Composed by the triple alliance of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy.

The kingdom of Italy didn´t join the war when it started, but they joined the Entente in 1915.

They were later joined by the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria.

Prelude

This war started with the assasination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire by Gavrilo Princip and other Bosnian and Serb nationalists. This led to the July Crisis that ended when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

The Start

When the war started, Russia, the major ally of Serbia decided to defend them. Russia was a part of the Triple Entente so this also pulled Britain and France into the war. By the Austro-Hungarian side, Germany came to their aid, but Italy refused to join the war. Germany made treaties with the Ottoman Empire that later entered the war. Italy and Japan would join the Entente a few years later.

Trench Warfare and Chemical Weapons

The military techniques used in The Great War were mainly based in trench warfare, this technique mainly consists on digging large holes in the border and whenever any side decided to attack, it suffered enormous casualties, so the advancing of armies was very slow. The living conditions on the trenches were very bad and were perfect for the spawning of illnesses, this summed up with the constant chemical attacks with mustard gas (to armies and civilians) that sometimes lasted 5 days to kill someone that had been exposed made WWI one of the deadliest conflicts in history.

Treaty of Versailles

On 1919, at the end of World War I, the treaty of versailles was signed by the entente powers when the central powers surrendered. The entente decided to make Germany responsible for the actions of its allies.
The treaty took a lot of land from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires were dismantled from the inside with the Entente help due to people revolting against their emperor.

This is how europe looked like after the treaty of Versailles.