World War One; the Great War that would result in over 40 million casualties and the disintegration of empires. A hollow victory for the Allies (or the Entente Powers) over the Central Powers.

The assassination in 1914 of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo was to culminate in the progression to a full scale war. Fraught relations between Austria-Hungary and the Serbian peoples over the responsibility for their heirs murder would see alliances descend into a war with one another.

Europe was to become divided as two forces fought between 1914 and 1918 in an endless bloodshed that would incorporate countries around the globe.

Official statistics date the war as the 28th July 1914 - 11th November 1918 (Remembrance Day). Battles and campaigns in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and stretching as far as China and the Pacific Islands would see widespread suffering and contempt. An over reaction to events that had spiraled out of control and culminated in a war to end all wars.

History would see the continuing remembrance of traumatic and bloody battles. The Western Front, the Battle of Ypres, the Somme and Gallipoli are a small percentage of the encounters of boundless death and destruction, of human sacrifice.

The Allies, the forces of the British Empire, Russia and France, versus the Powers of the German, Ottoman and Austria-Hungarian empires.

Because of the numerous alliances among the countries of the world, the full list of the encompassing nations involved in the Great War were as follow:

The Entente Powers and Alliances:

*The British Empire (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and Crown Colonies - Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa and Newfoundland.

*France and its Colonial Forces.

*Greece

*United States of America.

*Italy

*Serbia

*Japan

*Portugal

*Romania

*Montenegro

*Andorra

*Armenia

*Brazil

*Albania

*Ecuador

*Bolivia

*Cuba

*Czechoslovakia

*Costa Rica

*China

*Honduras

*Haiti

*Uruguay

*Panama

*Peru

*Siam

*San Marino

*Guatemala

*Liberia

*Nicaragua

*Russia (the resulting Russian Revolution to leave the war in 1917)

The Central Powers:

*Bulgaria

*German and Ottoman Empires

*Austria Hungary

At the end of this conflict Germany would see itself lose its empire, countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, Estonia and Czechoslovakia. The other empires of Austria and Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire would also dissolve.

The end of the First World War saw the progression in the decline of the British Empire, as countries under its would begin the process in seeking independence.

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