Great+War

=The Great War= toc

Often called World War I, this war was fought between nearly every country in Europe. Total casualties numbered up to 20,000,000. The fighting took place between the Entente Powers including the UK, Russia, France, and there provinces versus the Central Powers consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and there provinces. The war lasted from 1914 to 1918, and was ended by several treaties most noted The Treaty Of Versailles. It was the first real introduction of trench warfare, and said warfare continued on for many years.

Causes
= = The main cause of the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip, a Serb citizen of Austria-Hungary. Another cause was the arms race between Germany and England to see who could amass the largest fleet. Some including president Franklin Roosevelt believe that trade barriers caused both WW1 and WW2. The balance of powers is one of the more obvious causes of the Great War. The alliances between the warring countries were made to ensure their enemies didn't gain the upper hand or to balance the powers.

Trench Warfare
Trench Warfare was ultimately the the only way the war was fought in the early years of the war. This strategy in a nutshell is that two sides dig a long hole or trench and shoot each other until someone is dead. It was caused mainly because new heavy machine guns and artillery would completely obliterate them otherwise. One weapon utilized by the Germans frequently was poison gas dropped on enemies, though it never was a key in any major success. In the final battles trenches were easily defeated by tanks.

Battles
Many battles were fought between 1914 and 1918. Some of the major fighting took place in Africa, India, many areas in Asia, Serbia, Russia, and Germany. The African and Indian fighting took place in British colonies and were attempts to gain British territory. The Serbian conflict was fought between the Serbians and Russians trying to sandwich Austria between them. The German conflict was the Entente's try to conquer the Germans and take control of the conflict.

In Closing
The Great World War has been called the greatest conflict of all time. many find that untrue and believe it was World War II. But even if it is not the greatest it still has a spot in the history books. 20,000,000 people died as a result of this war and it caused several billion dollars in funding. As such the war did cause many alliances that would effect the war at a later date. Most on the Entente Powers side fought against the people on the Central Powers.