World War I, or what its original name was, The Great War, started off by an angered tension being so thick that it snapped like a rubber band after Franz Ferdinand and his wifes death in 1914.This was caused by 19 year old Gavrilo Princip. This wasn't their first time of trying to get rid of them, either. A different person that was also in the Bosnian Serb had tried to cause a bombing when they were leaving off to travel some place else.
After Franz Ferdinand and his wife were killed off, it caused a riot to break out; starting with Austria-Hungary demanding Serbia to arrest the leaders of the Black Hand. This, however, is what Nikola Pasic could not do. He claimed it "would be a violation of Serbia's Constitution and criminal in law". This sparked a livid fire in Austria-Hungary, and approxiately three days after they spoke Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
Because Serbia was dealing with an angered nation, they requested for Russia to help; forming an alliance. Russia did agree, even promised to help out if Austria-Hungary attacks them. During all of this, the Astro-Hungarian empire appealed to Germany to help as well, declaring war on France also at the time. Russia sent troops to Germany and Austria-Hungary's borders, too. On the third of August, when Germany declared war on France, Belgian neutrality was gauranteed by Britain under a treaty signed in the 1800s. Sir Edward Grey, Britains secretary, warns Germany that Britain will declare war if Belgium is ever invaded by them.
Germany, not listening to Britains warning, invades Belgium anyway and breaks out war between them and Britain. 24 hours later the Austro-Hungarian empire declares war between them and Germany's ally, Russia. Britain also breaks out war on Austria-Hungary. This is when France invades Lorraine, too.
How they decided to battle was forming trenches, which was where they would dig out long pathways that soldiers would have to stay in until its all over, and the trenches were not safe to live in; either. This was because of the rats, ankle-to-waist deep water/mud in the trenches, and even decomposing corpses in there. Since they had to be in ankle or even waist deep fluids, their skin would wrinkle up and most of the time fall off. This caused trench feet. Trench feet was when their feet would swell up at least 2-3 times its original size; and would have to be cut off from the skin peeling away, and that they would be no use. Most soldiers were scared of the rats as well, since they were only there to feed on the decaying, dead bodies or sometimes would eat off a sleeping persons skin. Soldiers would have to sleep in other dug outs because of how uncomfortable they were knowing that rats might take their lives in their sleep.
While all of this was happening, Germany was the first people to use warfare weapons (tanks, rockets, all that jazz) and they abused that privilege. Since they were in charge on looking at who gets near Britain's land, they'd make the opposing boats sink once they see that they are getting dangerously close to Britain. (note: this is because when America was neutral between all of the nations attacking each other, Britain and America would trade goods with each other. Germany didn't like this, so they warned Britain that if they ever move across waters out of their land, they would sink by Germany's submarines.) Because of this, They shot down Lusitania, which had 100 Americans onboard. This grew anger from America, and they declared war on Germany.
In 1918, an armastice was signed (specifically on the 11th day, in the 11th month, at the 11th hour) by Germany to end the war. Theres really nothing else to that, but except that a year later the Treaty of Versailles was signed as well, which caused Germany to surrender all of their colonies to the League of Nations mandates, The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, an acceptance of Germany's guilt in causing the war, German reparations of £6,600 billion, a ban on the union of Germany and Austria, limitation of Germany's army to 100,000 men with no conscription, no tanks, no heavy artillery, no poison-gas supplies, no aircraft and no airships, and more.
And that, the war was over! People were able to go back to their normal lives, and Germany would have to deal with the loss of money, and aggressive warfare. Every nation that joined in the war had to pay for their debt in general. But hey, at least no more trenches, rat infestments, trench feet, dealing with decaying corpses, and more. At least that is what everyone thought..
(A/N): Hey! Note that this is for a school project, so I do greatly thank you if you ever view this, but it is sort of awkward. I might delete this website after this is graded. Just felt like putting this out there!
Works Cited Page: https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWchronology.htm