The first world war is one of the major and significant incidents in the history of geopolitics. It was the first time the world witnessed an all-encompassing war where all the nation and all the races of the world were incorporated. The number of deaths from clashes happened between 1790-1913, from Napoleon’s war to Crimean war, was doubled only in the first world war with the use of different kinds of weapons, tanks, submarine, cannon, and toxic gases for the first time. The war began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. On 28 June 1914 at the capital of Bosnia. Four years later in 1918, the destructive war came to an end.
During the conflict Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire emerged as the central power, on the other hand, Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan, and the United States emerged as the Allied Powers. Before the assassination of the Archduke tension between Austria and Serbia was in paragon. It was presumed that Serbia somehow is related to the murder. An extreme agreement with some conditions to solve the case was sent to Serbia by Austria but Serbia seemed to deny the conditions. As a result, Austria with the association of Germany conducted an expedition in Serbia, and Russia and France immediately took a stand with Serbia. As a result. In the West, Germany attacked France and Belgium. In the East, Germany along with Austria and Hungary was attacked by Russia. By this time the battle of Marne from 6-12 September 1914 brought an allied victory against Germany in the west while the western front got ingrained in central France and remained the same till the end of the war. In late 1914Russia was tricked by Germany that turkey had attacked them(Russia) which resulted in the next year being dominated by allied actions against Turkey. In March 2015, British and French forces launched an attack on Turkish forces at Dardanelles of Turkey in order to take governance of the strategically major channel separating Europe from Asia which was failed. To ultimately knock Ottoman Turkey out of the war British invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula resulted in Britain nothing but loss. These two incidents certainly contributed to the British defeat. In early April, the United States, vexed by strikes on its ships in the Atlantic, proclaimed war against Germany. In November, the Bolshevik-Revolution caused Russia to quit the war. Gradually an outbreak of influenza, losing a number of individual battles, multiple rebellions from the military structure made the countries of the Central Powers sign Armistice Agreements in late 1918, and with that, the war came to an end.
Some of the major battles during the war included the First Battle of the Marne, Battle of the Somme, Battle of Tannenberg, Battle of Gallipoli, and the Battle of Verdun.
There have been multiple reasons against the first world war which might include extreme nationalism in Italy and Germany. Nationalism resulted in an ill competition between Britain and Germany to achieve the best military power. The second reason might be the emerging rival sets of power which included Bismarck’s anti-France psychology, triple entente, and the triple alliance. Also, there was an existing competition of military and economic power among countries which altogether led to the first world war.
More than 9 million soldiers died in the first world war. 21 million people were wounded. France and Germany had the maximum casualty rate and both of the countries sent 80% of their male young population to the war. With this high death toll and a lot of destruction, WWI teaches an important lesson that history should be remembered.
Further Readings
Editors, ND, World War I, history.com,
Rehman, Tarek Shamsur,2010,100 years of geopolitics ( বিশ্বরাজনীতির১০০বছর)