Photo Courtesy: Columbia University War Memorial
A gun crew from Regimental Headquarters, 23rd Infantry, U.S. Army

By K.P. Sander

On July 28, 1914, World War I began when the Austro-Hungarians fired the first shots in preparation for the invasion of Serbia after the assassination of heir-to-the-throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.  More than nine million combatants were killed during the more than four years of turmoil, which ended on Nov. 11, 1918, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in history.

At the time, it was simply called the World War, or Great War, and it included all the economic powers in the world divided into two alliances.  The Allies consisted of the United Kingdom, France and Russia; and the Central Powers were Germany and Austria-Hungary.  Italy, Japan and the United States joined the Allies, and the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and Bulgaria sided with the Central Powers.

After the Russian government collapsed in March of 1917, the war headed toward a resolution when the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany agreed to an armistice.  By the end of the war, the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires ceased to exist, with the latter two becoming dismantled.  This lead to the maps of Europe and Southwest Asia being redrawn, and some independent nations being restored and even created.

As a consequence, The League of Nations was formed with the goal of preventing further global wars.  Renewed European nationalism and the humiliation of Germany contributed to a rise in fascism, and any further hopes of prevention were dashed with the culmination of World War II.