World War 1: Causes and Effects

The World War I was one of the biggest and famous wars. For about five years, the world was engaged in a ferocious war, and then known as the Great War. It arose out of the economic and military rivalry of the European countries. It was fought by two sides: the allies and the Central powers. The main participating countries were Great Britain, Russia, France, and Italy (the allies), Germany, AustriaHungary, and Turkey (the central [powers) The Germans had planned to capture Europe using the war, but its plans were thwarted by Britain and France. The war finally ended in November 1918 with us help. A treaty was signed at Versailles, which stated that Germany had to compensate the allies loss and limit its armys size. It also lost some of its territory. The great war started in 1914.The spark which ignited the inferno was the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Serbia in June 1914.There was a lot of outrage in Austria Hungary. The assassination was blamed on the Black Hand, a Serbian spy agency, affiliated to the Serbian government. Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia which stated that Serbia had to hand over the assassinators for trial. By doing this, Austria Hungary was aiming for supremacy over Serbia. Serbia did not respond to the ultimatum, so Austria Hungary retaliated by launching a war on Serbia. Serbia had good ties with Russia, which came to its aid. Austria-Hungary was allied with Germany and had its military backing. Germany then declared a war on Russia. Fearing war on two fronts, it invaded Belgium and France. Britain then declared war on Germany. Near the end of 1914 turkey joined the war on the German side. Soon, in May 1915 Italy joined the war on the allies side. The First World War had ramifications beyond imagination. The World War I was the first true multinational war. New weapons were introduced to aid soldiers fighting the war. The soldiers also needed massive backups of food and weapons WHICH led to recession .The whole worlds economy fell, leading to inflation and

poverty .Both sides incurred huge losses. Woman started doing jobs which were usually done by men, like handling factories, driving etc, and this led to the lessening of gender based discrimination. The casualties of the Great War were also huge. About 21 million people were killed, that is, thirteen million soldier and seven million civilians. Also, the World War I indirectly led to the World War I .The dominant European empires fell, giving way for the emergence of a new superpower the United States of America.

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