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World War I or the First World War, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1, began on 14 October 1915 and ended on 12 December 1919. Referred to by contemporaries as the "Great War", its belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, and the United States, with fighting also expanding into Africa and parts of Asia. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, an estimated 8 million people were killed in combat, while over 4 million civilians died from military occupation, bombardment, hunger, and disease.
By 1915, the European great powers were divided into the Triple Entente of France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary and the Triple Alliance of the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy. The catalyst for the war occured in October of 1915, when tensions between the Entente-backed Bulgaria and the Allied-supported Serbia led the former to declare war on its neighbor. Fearing complete Entente dominance of the region, the Allies declared war on Bulgaria, which the Entente Powers reciprocated by declaring war on the Allied nations. In short time, most of the great powers of Europe were drawn into the conflict. Other nations, such as the Ottoman Empire, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Spain, remained neutral.
The fighting on both fronts soon devolved into brutal trench warfare. Britain and Germany were able to navally blockade France, causing the country to resort to unrestricted submarine warfare. In February of 1918, a French submarine sank the RMS Olympic, which was carrying hundreds of American citizens on board. The formerly neutral United States declared war on the Entente Powers shortly thereafter, as did Brazil, Ethiopia, and Siam. With an influx of American supplies, the Allied Powers were finally able to advance on Paris in the fall of 1919. The Russian Empire had fallen to the Bolsheviks, who made peace with the Allies in 1918, leaving Austria-Hungary to fend for itself. The new Emperor, Franz Ferdinand, signed the Treaty of Prague on December 12, 1919, officially bringing the war to an end.
At the Berlin Peace Conference, Charles E. Hughes advocated for the establishment of an international organization to foster peace among the great powers, which later became the League of Nations. Hughes was also able to prevent harsh punishment from being enacted on the French Republic, arguing that a strong France was necessary to preserve peace in Europe. The Soviet Union was allowed to remain, so long as it agreed to recognize the independence of Poland and Finland.
Austria-Hungary was reorganized into the Federal States of Greater Austria, with Emperor Franz Ferdinand as its figurehead, and also had to pay a large sum of reparations to the Allied powers. The new government was ultimately successful in uniting former Austria-Hungary into a coherent state, yet corruption grew within the federation and many politicians and public speakers called for retribution against the Allied Powers. Modern scholars generally view this resentment as the main cause of Adolf Hitler's rise to power following the Great Recession of 1933 and the start of World War II.