World War I Samuel Guerra Zambrano

World War I - Samuel Guerra Zambrano

We have all heard about the First World War as one of the biggest international conflicts

to ever happen in our history, but do you know why it started? Because of the murder of only two

people, this originated the great war, how it was originally called, and many people was affected

by this war. The countries of Britain, France, Serbia, Russia, Italy, Greece, Japan, Portugal,

Romania, and the United States, fought against Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and

Bulgaria, but why did they join their team and not the other one? Well, there are a lot of reasons

as to why.

This huge event, that would be remembered until these days because of the huge impact

that had in our society, started because of the assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinand, and

his wife Sophie, in Sarajevo the 28th of June, 1914, the people was surprised about this but more

than surprised they were offended, because the Austria-Hungary killed their leaders in their own

country, this could not stay like this so Serbian government then prepared and attack and the

conflicts among themselves started time after, in August of the same year. This was because at

the time the people were not ready for a tragedy like this to occur, so they took some time

preparing their soldiers, and organizing the attacks, which were very harmful for every country.

It is estimated that 8 million soldiers died during this war and another 21 million men

were wounded during these conflicts, by the other hand it is calculated that 13 million civilians

died because of the consequences of this war, things like: starvation, diseases, military action,

and massacres were the mainly reasons why these people died. Also, a lot of money was invested

in the creation of the weapons such as long-range artillery, tanks, poison gas, and aerial warfare,

also the transport of huge groups of soldiers and machines affected the economy of the country.

We could say this war really affected all the countries in a negative way, in the economic,

political, social, and the international relationships aspects.

The war took part in all Europe from West to East and some parts of Asia, Africa, the

Pacific Islands in the sea and for the first time ever, the air. Both teams at the start were confident

that the victory would be fast and would not need the interventions of other countries. But later

when the United States joined declaring the war to Germany, a lot of other countries decided to

help the band they thought was right and that was going to win. When all these countries joined

the Allied force, Russia had two revolutions which did not let them have the power they initially

wanted, but when all the civil wars that were happening in Russia stopped, they started to win,

and a lot of countries in the central power started to surrender, leaving Germany the last one in

the war. Germany did not really want to surrender but when they saw that the loss was definitive,

they sent a request to negotiate the peace, which was accepting the Allies terms to end the war.

The German people were disgusted about this and did not want the government to accept

this, but when the decision was made, the German people made a revolt in a lot of places in

Germany, this did not affect the decision and Germany proclaimed as a republic accepted all the

terms of the Allies, the fighting end on November 11, 1918.

This chapter in the history was important for the development of the society nowadays,

not only because of the cultural impact, that made the relations between countries harsher, and

teach some leaders how to manage their country properly. But also, by inventing new things

while they were in conflicts, like more efficient ways of carrying heavy things, or new inventions

that were originated to be weapons or implements to them, but later with some changes they give

this a whole new use. That is the reason why this war was so important because thanks to it, we

now know some more things that we would not know if that war did not occur, and the society

would be different today.