"World War One", "Great War", and "WWI" redirect here.

For other uses, see World War One

(disambiguation), Great War (disambiguation), and WWI (disambiguation).

World War I

Clockwise from the top:

 The road to Bapaume in the aftermath of the Battle of the Somme, 1916

 British Mark V tanks crossing the Hindenburg Line, 1918

 HMS Irresistible sinking after hitting a mine in the Dardanelles, 1915

 A British Vickers machine gun crew wearing gas masks during the Battle of the

Somme, 1916
 German Albatros D.III biplane fighters near Douai, France, 1917
Date 28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918
(4 years, 3 months and 2 weeks)
show

Peace treaties
Location Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Pacific
Islands, China, Indian Ocean, North and South
Atlantic Ocean
Result Allied victory

 Central Powers victory on the Eastern

Front nullified by defeat on the Western
Front and Italian Front
 Fall of all continental empires in Europe
(including Germany, Russia, Ottoman
Empire and Austria-Hungary)
 Allied military occupation of the
Rhineland
  Russian Revolution and Russian Civil
War, with the subsequent formation of
the Soviet Union
 Widespread unrest
and revolutions throughout Europe and
Asia
 Creation of the League of
Nations (see Aftermath of World War I)
Territorial  Formation of new countries in Europe
changes and the Middle East
 Transfer of German colonies and
territories to other countries, partition of
the Ottoman Empire, dissolution of
Austria-Hungary, and the collapse of the
Russian Empire

Belligerents

Allied Powers: Central Powers:

 France

show  German Empire

 British Empire  Austria-Hungary

 Ottoman Empire

 Russian Empire[a]  Bulgaria (from 1915)

(until 1917) ... and others

 Serbia

 Belgium

 Japan

 Montenegro

 Italy (from 1915)

 United States

(from 1917)

 Romania (from 1916)

 Portugal (from 1916)

 Hejaz (from 1916)

 Greece (from 1917)

 Siam (from 1917)

 China (from 1917)

... and others

Commanders and leaders

 Raymond Poincaré  Wilhelm II

 Georges Clemenceau  Franz Joseph I[k]

  George V  Karl I

 H. H. Asquith  Mehmed V[l]

 David Lloyd George  Mehmed VI

 Nicholas II[j] †  Three Pashas

 Georgy Lvov  Ferdinand I

 Alexander Kerensky and others ...

 Victor Emmanuel III

 Vittorio Orlando

 Woodrow Wilson

 Emperor Taishō

 Albert I
 Peter I

 Ferdinand I

and others ...

Strength

Total: 42,928,000[1] Total: 25,248,000[1]

 12,000,000  13,250,000

 8,660,000[m]  7,800,000

 5,839,000 [n]  2,998,000

 5,093,000  1,200,000

 4,744,000

 1,680,000

 1,234,000
 800,000

 707,000

 629,000

 417,000

 380,000

 230,000

 200,000

 136,000

 129,000

 50,000

 50,000
 68,176,000 (Total all)

Casualties and losses

Military dead: 5,525,000 Military dead: 4,386,000

Military wounded: 12,832,000 Military wounded: 8,388,000

Total: 18,357,000 KIA, WIA and MIA Total: 12,774,000 KIA, WIA and MIA

Civilian dead: 4,000,000 Civilian dead: 3,700,000

further details ... further details ...

Military deaths by country:[2][3] Military deaths by country:[2]

 1,811,000  2,051,000

 1,398,000  1,200,000

 1,115,000  772,000

 651,000  88,000

 250,000–335,000

 275,000

 117,000

 59,000–88,000

 26,000

 7,000

 3,000

 <1,000

show
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Theaters of World War I

hideEvents leading to World War I

 Franco-Prussian War 1870–1871
Second Concert of Europe 1871
Congress of Berlin 1878
Campaign in Bosnia 1878
Dual Alliance 1879
Triple Alliance 1882
Franco-Russian Alliance 1894
Anglo-German naval arms race 1898–1912
Entente Cordiale 1904
Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905
First Moroccan Crisis 1905–1906
Pig War 1906–1908
Anglo-Russian Entente 1907
Bosnian Crisis 1908–1909
Agadir Crisis 1911
Italo-Turkish War 1911–1912
Balkan Wars 1912–1913
Assassination of Franz Ferdinand 1914
July Crisis 1914

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World War I: Mobilized forces per total population (in %)[citation needed]

World War I, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, also known as the First World War or the Great
War, was an international conflict that began on 28 July 1914 and ended on 11 November 1918. It
involved much of Europe, as well as Russia, the United States and Turkey, and was also fought in
the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, an estimated 9
million were killed in combat, while over 5 million civilians died from occupation, bombardment,
hunger or disease.[4] The genocides perpetrated by the Ottomans and the 1918 Spanish
flu pandemic spread by the movement of combatants during the war caused many millions of
additional deaths worldwide. [5][6]
In 1914, the Great Powers were divided into two opposing alliances, the Triple Entente, consisting
of France, Russia, and Britain, and the Triple Alliance, made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary,
and Italy. Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914 following the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian heir, by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb. Austria-
Hungary blamed Serbia and the interlocking alliances involved the Powers in a series of diplomatic
exchanges known as the July Crisis. On 28 July, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia; Russia
came to Serbia's defence and by 4 August, the conflict had expanded to include Germany, France
and Britain, along with their respective colonial empires. In November, the Ottoman Empire,
Germany and Austria formed the Central Powers, while in April 1915, Italy joined Britain, France,
Russia and Serbia as the Allied Powers.
Facing a war on two fronts, German strategy in 1914 was to defeat France, then shift its forces to
the East and knock out Russia, commonly known as the Schlieffen Plan.[7] This failed when their
advance into France was halted at the Marne; by the end of 1914, the two sides faced each other
along the Western Front, a continuous series of trench lines stretching from
the Channel to Switzerland that changed little until 1917. By contrast, the Eastern Front was far
more fluid, with Austria-Hungary and Russia gaining, then losing large swathes of territory. Other
significant theatres included the Middle East, the Alpine Front and the Balkans,
bringing Bulgaria, Romania and Greece into the war.