World War I

What happened

Austro-Hungarian assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 triggered alliances that turned a regional crisis into continental war. France, Russia, and Britain faced Germany and Austria-Hungary. Trench warfare on the Western Front (1914-1918) became a meat grinder—Verdun (1916) and the Somme (1916) each killed over 1 million combined. Eastern Front mobile warfare killed millions through combat and starvation. Central Powers collapsed by 1918 after resource exhaustion and mutinies. Roughly 17 million died; entire generations were decimated. Colonial troops from India, Africa, and the Middle East died for European powers.

Why it mattered

WWI shattered European confidence, killed empires (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Tsarist), and created conditions for the 1919 Versailles Treaty's punitive terms that fueled WWII. Marxist revolution triumphed in Russia; fascism emerged as a counter-ideology. Trench warfare's trauma redefined modern literature and art. Colonial participation in 'the Great War' later fueled independence movements that decolonized the world by 1960s.