The First World War
Open the interactive lesson
Decisions, questions and your own progress, in the app
British soldiers in a captured German trench, the Somme, 1916 · John Warwick Brooke · Public domain · Source page
The story
On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was shot in Sarajevo. Within weeks, alliances pulled Europe’s great powers into war.
What happened next
Trenches stretched from the Channel to Switzerland, and machine guns and artillery killed millions. By 1918 four empires had collapsed: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
Remember
- About 9 million soldiers died
- Tanks and aircraft were used on a large scale for the first time
- The fighting stopped at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918
Review question
Which event set off the First World War?
Answer: The killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Titanic sank in 1912, and the Russian Revolution came in 1917, during the war.
Image credits
- British soldiers in a captured German trench, the Somme, 1916 · John Warwick Brooke · Public domain · Source page
