World War I (1914-1918)
was fought in Europe between France, the UK and its Empire, Russia, and the US
on the one side - known together as "the Allies" - and Germany
Austria-Hungary and Turkey on the other.
The
war started as a result of the murder in Sarajevo of the Arzduke Franz
Ferdinand, a member of the Austrian royal family. When the war started, it was
not expected to continue for very long and British politicians used the phrase
"it will all be over by Christmas". It continued for four years and
at least 10 million were killed.
World
War l was fought in many different areas, but for British people the
strongest image is of the "Western Front" in Belgium and Northern France,
where the armies of each side lived in trenches, with an area called
"no-man's land" in between. Many of the famous battles on the Western
front ended without either side gaining much land, and the names of these
battles especially the Somme, Passchendaele,
and Ypres, have come to represent
the fact that millions of young men were killed for no very good reason. For
people from Australia and New Zealand, the battle of Gallipoli is remembered
with great sadness. The war is also remembered for the use of chemical weapons
such as chlorine gas and mustard gas. After World War l many countries signed
an agreement that chemical weapons would not be used in future wars.
Source:
Jose Goris MA
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