by Simon Wright

Created on: October 05, 2008

The great tragedy of human history is that we seem incapable of learning from previous mistakes when it comes to war. It is over ninety years since the First World War began and sixty-three years since the Second World War ended. It may be tempting to think that such global conflicts are now a thing of the past but it is sobering to reflect that the peoples of the world's major countries thought the same thing at the start of the twentieth century. The average man or woman on the streets of London, Paris or Berlin at the turn of the century can hardly have imagined the horror that would soon be inflicted on their generation and upon their children.

The Great War, 1914 1918:

The First World War came to be known as the Great War which sounds like an oxymoron. It was also called the war to end all wars, although sadly of course many of those who survived the war would find themselves embroiled in another terrible war all too soon. Indeed, the Second World War (including the dreadful Nazi Holocaust) has perhaps caused the First World War to be slightly overlooked. The scale of the devastation, however, and the fact that the aftermath indirectly led to the Second World War, means that the Great War is deserving of more prominence in history.

The war was precipitated by the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a potential heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire. The assassination was perpetrated by an organisation that wanted to see unification of the Slavic peoples, some of whom were within the Austro-Hungarian empire. The assassination was used as a pretext by the Austro-Hungarian government (with German backing) to deal with this Serbian problem. Demands were made of Serbia that were rejected and the Russians backed Serbia. Suddenly war was upon Europe, centred on the Eastern front which pitted the super powers of Russia and Germany against each other. The Germans violated Belgian neutrality when they decided to also launch an attack against France and this brought Britain into the fray. Suddenly five of the biggest European powers (Russia, Germany, France, Britain, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire) were engaged in war and hopes that it would be resolved quickly were soon dashed.

Huge scale of casualties:

It is estimated that 60 million soldiers were mobilised across Europe during the First World War, out of which there were 40 million casualties, of which there were 20 million deaths (including civilians). (1) That means that effectively two-thirds of

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