What was WW1 all about?

Question

What were key weapons & tactics they used? Who was involved in the conflict? What were the events & outcomes of it?

& any other information you may know!

Answer 1

this was the so-called war to end all wars and was the first truly modern war to be held on a large scale in europe.

how it started was about as preposterous as were the millions who lined up to volunteer to fight in this war for a world that would die with them.

europe at the time was a vast sphere of political alliances - alliances that stated things like 'if someone declares war on italy, we will automatically declare war on them.'

no one really thought this through - and almost all european nations became entangled in this web of alliances.

so when some serbians killed the archduke franz ferdinand, it touched off this chain reaction of alliances and before you knew it, 60 nations had declared war on one another.

even stranger was the mentality of the young people across the world were just thrilled to go off and fight in a war.

most of the govts were being egged on by the arms manufacturers:

krupp - german arms company that invented the maxim machine gun and u-boat. krupp was the largest arms creator in the world at the time, and the most advanced, creating such WWI weapons as the 'big bertha' and 'paris cannon.'

schneider - french arms manufacturer that invented the 'buckproof' automatic cannon (didn't need to be re-aimed after each shot) and in general competed with krupp and armstrong-vickers for all munititions contracts in europe and south america.

armstrong vickers - the british counterpart to krupp and schneider. vickers was well known for making large cannon and very good naval armor - and also competed and contributed to the european arms race as the other two in this triumvirate of merchants of death.

WWI marked the end of the europe that was ruled by princes, emperors and kaiser's and re-wrote the boundaries of many of the nations.

as an interesting side note, iraq was created in the post WWI war by the victorious powers, though you might want to check on those dates.

Answer 2

WWI began after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. It was also a war that began out of boredom, believe it or not. All sides had been creating new methods of waging war and wanted to use it. It had been a while since we had one and it was time. Believe it or not, sometimes, war does have a purpose.
Also, that was a web of alliances that brought it to the stage. That is why you have to watch where your allies stand, where they are located and why you indeed have them as your ally.
The US was not involved, directly, very long but still lost thousands. It was the war that became synonymous with trench warfare and the fighting was absolutely brutal.
Airplanes first showed their worth in this war as reconaissance and dropping bombs.
Tanks first came into play here along with the use of the machine gun. Gasses were used on the battlefield for the first time and the Germans perfected their use. (as later seen in WWII.)
The end of the war and the treaty signed really led us into the next world war, leaving the defeated with no other option.
Hope this helped.

Answer 3

World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, the War of the Nations, and the War to End All Wars, was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers or involved so many in the field of battle. It was then the second-bloodiest conflict of all time (resulting in about half as many deaths as the Taiping Civil War).

Answer 4

The roots of WW1 go back to the crimean war,i still havent all the details but the british and austrians blockaded the russian navy in the black sea.
This caused a lot of bad feeling between russia and her allies and the austrains.

Some years later an albanian serb(i think)assassinated ferdinand.
The austrians said to albania hand the man responsible over or we'll come in and get him,
Albania said no so austria declared war on albania,as a consequence albanias buddy russia declared war on austria,austrias buddy germany declared war on russia,
France and england long jealous of germanys rise declared war on germany.
I dont know when turkey came into it.
Russia dropped out in 1917 due to the russian revolution.
The germans sunk the luisitania off the coast of cork in 1917 so the americans entered into it.
Germany sued for peace in 1918.

During the peace talks the french and english really really big time screwed the germans over and blamed them for starting the war.
Germany and austriahungry were broken up into pieces and germany was forced to pay massive debts.
There was poverty and hardship everywhere and a feeling of being betrayed,
On top of this many jews were involved in money lending and were percieved as profiteering at the expense of the poorest.
Also the french were bullish to germany and there were many polish cavelery raiding germen farms near the border for years.

All this must have had built up inside the germans heads so maybe its no suprise hitler came to power.

Answer 5

One guy got shot (Franz Ferdinand) by a Serb nationalist and next thing you know, we have a World War. If he was not shot that day, the world would not have terrorism, or nuclear weapons. The United States would not be a superpower. World War I led to a financial depression and Germany, and one man (Adolf Hitler) spoke for the poor people, and stood up for them, so he got elected. If there was not a World War I, Hitler would be some average man, not a leader who started a World War.

Answer 6

go to the library and get a book. It was a horrendus war, characterized by massive loss of life, trench warfare. Thousands died over inches of land. It was also the first "modern" war with widespread use of machine guns, aircraft and tanks and chemical weapons. The germans also introduced the submarine into widespread use. It also set up, with the treaty ending it, the basis for ww2. Germany was so beaten down and hobbled with debt and conditions, the country was ripe for a takeover by a Hitler type.

Answer 7

WW I began with a Serbian assassination of an Austrian royal. This began the war of allikances. Germany had a pact with Austria and the battle lines were soon drawn. A previous answerer actually hit the rest of the key points, just left out that it really was all about who was allied with whom.

Answer 8

Well it was really much to do about nothing. What started it was the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand, but there were many underlying causes that people argue led up to it so noone can really say.