First Great War (Acts of Union)

The First Great War also known as World War I or the Great European War was a global war centered in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to December 25th 1918. Nearly 100 million military personelle were mobilized in one of the largest conflicts in human history. It resulted in nearly 25 million civilian and military dead, and led to the total reshaping of the worlds political landscape in the immediate postwar. The Casualty rate was increased by technology immediately affecting the use of older military doctrine which saw immediate inflation in death tolls as well as collateral damage.

The War drew in all of the worlds greatest economic powers most notably centered around the Entente, an alliance consisting of Great Britain, France, and Russia as well as Japan and other minor european powers facing off against the Central Powers, consisting of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and later the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, and the United States.

The trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a diplomatic crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia, and entangled international alliances formed over the previous decades were invoked. Within weeks, the major powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world.

On 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia. As Russia mobilised in support of Serbia, Germany invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, leading the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany. After the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, but the Germans stopped its invasion of East Prussia. In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers while the United States unexpectedly joined the Central powers following a massive international incident with the British.

The Russian government collapsed in March 1917, and a revolution in November followed by a further military defeat brought the Russians to terms with the Central Powers via the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, which granted the Germans a significant victory. After a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives which carried into the winter of 1918. This continued on until the collapse of both the French and German battles lines due to mass internal turmoil left the war a phyrric victory for most of the central powers. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist. National borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germany's colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the war ended unceremoniously which imposed their terms in a series of treaties most of which were left unattended to. The League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation (particularly in Germany and France for their respectively humiliating post war status.) eventually contributed to World War II.

Names
From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, the First Great War was called simply the World War or the Great War and thereafter the Great European War or World War I. At the time, it was also sometimes called "the war to end war" or "the war to end all wars" due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Maclean's magazine in October 1914 wrote, "Some wars name themselves. This is the Great War." During the interwar period (1918–1939), the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. The term "First World War" was first used in September 1914 by the German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who claimed that "there is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word,"citing a wire service report in The Indianapolis Star on 20 September 1914. After the onset of the Second World War in 1939, the terms World War I or the First World War became standard, with British and Canadian historians favouring the First World War, and Americans World War I.