World War I Facts
The First World War started on July 28 1914 and ended on Nov 11 1918.
It all started when the Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand was killed by a Serbian man called Gavrillo Princip. This triggered war between two groups; the Allies and the Central Powers.
The Allies included Belgium, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Japan and the United States.
The Central Powers included Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey).
World War I was also called The Great War, The War to End All Wars, and the War of the Nations.
The war was fought on nearly every continent, on land (tanks and guns), sea (submarines) and in the air (zeppelins and bombs).
Tanks used to be called landships before the British started using the codename ‘tanks’ because they tried to disguise them as water tanks!
Soldiers fought mostly from trenches (protective long deep rows of ditches dug in the ground), they even slept in the trenches.
German trenches were said to be quite luxurious, with beds, furniture, taps, lights, apparently some even had doorbells!
Over 65 million men from 30 countries fought in the war. Over 9 million soldiers died during the war. Some people think even more died!
The US joined the war on 6 April 1917, they drafted around 4million men to fight, Brazil was the only latin American country that fought in WW1.
In 1917 the British Royal Family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor to move away from the German ties.
Women had to take over lots of jobs while men were fighting; this led to big changes in equal rights with women being allowed to vote soon after the war.
