World War I A Few Facts

Dates

July 28, 1914 – November 11, 1918

Location

Europe, Mideast, Africa, Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, North Sea, Baltic Sea

Generals/Commanders

Allied Powers:
King George V
President Raymond Poincare
Tsar Nicholas II
King Victor Emmanuel III
King Peter I
King Albert I
Emperor Taisho
Chief of General Staff Constantin Prezan
Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos
President Woodrow Wilson

Central Powers:
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Emperor Franz Josef I
Minister of War Enver Pasha
Tsar Ferdinand I

Casualties

Allied Powers casualties: 22 million
Central Powers casualties: 37.5 million

Results

End of Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman & Russian empires
Harsh surrender terms forced on Germany major cause of WWII
Redrawing of borders in Europe & Mideast

World War I summary

The war fought between July 28, 1914, and November 11, 1918, was known at the time as the Great War, the War to End War, and (in the United States) the European War. Only when the world went to war again in the 1930s and ’40s did the earlier conflict become known as the First World War. Its casualty totals were unprecedented, soaring into the millions. World War I is known for the extensive system of trenches from which men of both sides fought. Lethal new technologies were unleashed, and for the first time a major war was fought not only on land and on sea but below the sea and in the skies as well. The two sides were known as the Allies or Entente—consisting primarily of France, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, and later the United States—and the Central Powers, primarily comprised of Austria-Hungary (the Habsburg Empire), Germany, and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). A number of smaller nations aligned themselves with one side or the other. In the Pacific Japan, seeing a chance to seize German colonies, threw in with the Allies. The Allies were the victors, as the entry of the United States into the war in 1917 added an additional weight of men and materiel the Central Powers could not hope to match.

The war resulted in a dramatically changed geo-political landscape, including the destruction of three empires: Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian. New borders were drawn at its conclusion and resentments, especially on the part of Germany, left festering in Europe. Ironically, decisions made after the fighting ceased led the War to End War to be a significant cause of the Second World War.

As John Keegan wrote in The First World War (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), "The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict … the train of events that led to its outbreak might have been broken at any point during the five weeks of crisis that preceded the first clash of arms, had prudence or common goodwill found a voice."

Casualties in World War I

In terms of sheer numbers of lives lost or disrupted, the Great War was the most destructive war in history until it was overshadowed by its offspring, the Second World War: an estimated 10 million military deaths from all causes, plus 20 million more crippled or severely wounded. Estimates of civilian casualties are harder to make; they died from shells, bombs, disease, hunger, and accidents such as explosions in munitions factories; in some cases, they were executed as spies or as "object lessons." Additionally, as Neil M. Heyman in World War I (Greenwood Press, 1997) wrote, "Not physically hurt but scarred nonetheless were 5 million widowed women, 9 million orphaned children, and 10 million individuals torn from their homes to become refugees." None of this takes into account the deaths in the Russian Civil War or the Third Balkan War, both of which directly resulted from World War I, nor the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 that killed 50 million people worldwide, which was spread in part by conditions at the front and by soldiers returning home.

The highest national military casualty totals—killed, wounded, and missing/taken prisoner—in round numbers (sources disagree on casualty totals), were:

• Russia: 9,150,000
• Germany: 7,143,000
• Austria-Hungary: 7,000,000
• France, 6,161,000
• Britain & Commonwealth: 3,190,000
• Italy: 2,197,000
• Turkey (Ottoman Empire): 975,000
• Romania: 536,000
• Serbia: 331,000
• USA: 323,000
• Bulgaria: 267,000

Lurgan men figured prominently in the Honours Lists from time to time and the distinctions included the much-coveted Victoria Cross.