Can someone explain World War I to me?

It goes like this:

In 1914 a group of Serb terrorists kill Franz Ferdinand, the guy who was gonna be the governor of Austria-Hungry. Ausria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. Serbia was an allied with Russia, so Russia declares war on Austria-Hungary. Germany was one of the most important countries and was allied with Austria-Hungary, so Germany declared war on Russia and Serbia. England and France were allys with Russia, so they declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. And so on and so on...
The sides were:
Russia, Serbia, England, France, Belgium and other less important countries (of wich many joined this alliance after the war started).
vs
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, the Otoman Empire, Rumania and other less important countries.
So the war started and the Germans invaded the French. This is called the western front. The Germans invaded Russia. This was called the eastern front. The phase that happened on land was called the trenches. Many new war tecnology was invented, like the submarine, the aeroplane and the tanks.
The USA helped England and France with troups and food, but they weren't oficialy in the war. In 1915 Italy changed sides fron Germany to England, because Germany was losing the war.
In 1917 Russia left the war because of the revolution.
Finaly the Germans surrendered and the war was over.
Germany had to pay for all the war, wich made a huge economic crisis in Germany. This leaded to the nazism and Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

Who, what, when, and where have already been covered. The why is much more complex.

Several books have been written about the beginnings, but I think that World War I began incubating between 1776 and 1783 (American Declaration of Independence and revolution) or between 1568 and 1648 (Dutch Declaration of Independence and revolution). These events, combined with the ideas of the "Age of Reason" started changing the concepts that people, including politicians, had about what constituted a nation.

Throughout the 18th century nation states developed along a new model. These new nation states went along with existing monarchies and empires to seize colonies, following the mercantilist belief in economies. When the colonial powers began bumping into each other (Caribbean Islands, Indo-China, South Africa, etc.) they sought alliances to harness more power and to keep the peace.

In the meantime, the industrial revolution accelerated. High explosives by 1870, brass cartridge cases about the same time, "smokeless" propellants also about the same time, high velocity - long range artillery by 1885, and machine guns, also by 1885. By the turn of the century man's ability to kill men was far more advanced than our ability to move men or to communicate with them on the battle field. The ground work had been laid.

Now, you only need to study Europe and the United States in the political upheavals at the turn of the century. The rapid decline of the Spanish Empire, the internal friction within the Russian Empire, the rapid rise of the United States (going unnoticed by Europe), the decline of the last caliphate, the Ottoman Turks, and the fragile shell called the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

World War I happens, ends with an armistice that leads, inexorably, to World War II. They are really one war with a 20 year (or 15 year, or 10 year, depending on how you count) armistice for all the players to rest, repopulate, and rearm.

I hugely recommend anyone to see a french-canadian documentary (it has a version in english) called «Apocalypse: World War I». Here's a trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52cTbhwU8NI

It's very enganging, shows never before seen footage like a young Winston Churchill in a public discourse, the last filmed moments of Franz Ferdinand, the belgians sabotaging their railways by clashing their own trains in it to stop german advancement. Not only that but the films are coloured, and in a very natural and realistic tone (no solid fake colours); yes it's "artificial", but it's also the closest thing to the real thing, or actually being there (because the world was never black and white, which is also artificial), and this brings those events and specially those people much closer to us than previously experienced.

No more that black & white, overexposed footage that seems to be centuries away, now some scenes seem no older than 50-60 years old, although the dress fashion it's still from the 19th "Belle Epoque" century, but these people you could almost met at the street tomorrow.
Not only that but sound was added, not generic gunshots and explosions, but the actual sounds and explosions made by those particular guns. As you can see many painstaking efforts were made to bring closer this time of history to us. In some, not all scenes the framerate was adjusted to make their movements more natural instead of accelerated like seen in old films.

Some snippets:
Germany Enables Revolution in Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3HxNBvV1Jo
The Rush to the Marne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFvEnjtaCOA

This is being broadcast by National Geographic in some countries.
Several "making of" here: http://tvo.org/program/204263/apocalypse-world-war-one
I cannot recomend this high enough.

Maybe now that 100 years have passed and the WWII theme is a little burn out, directors can dedicate some movies to this war. The war that:

- Ended 5 empires, some by erosion, others by total collapse
- Where contrary to WW2 there wasn't a clear definition of good and evil but only nation interests (in a parallel universe the British and German empires could very well allied themselves against France or Russia)
- The war that industrialized warfare (and death itself) being the 1st one that had tanks, machineguns, warplanes, artillery at massive scale (the shells from "Big Bertha" weighted 1 Ton!) and submarines
- Shaped the Middle East for what it is today
- Ended that previous image of being a place of heroes, cavalry with some romanticism associated, coloured uniforms, fighting the good fight as someone here said. Man, were they for a bad surprise, because no one knew then how powerful and deadly those new weapons really were.

There realy is material here for dozens of movies and tv-shows.

Some would venture to say that it was a royal family feud using the common man as fodder to carry out their vengeances and rivalries.

During the First World War (1914–1918), many monarchs of countries from both sides were closely related due to their mutual descent from either Queen Victoria, King Christian IX or both. The most commonly cited example is the fact that King George V of Great Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, empress consort of Tsar Nicholas II, were all first cousins via Queen Victoria.

I suspect it was quite the cofactor.




If it is not in the frame, it does not exist!

As simple as possible. Germany and Austro-Hungary, without provocation, viciously and hungry for new territories attacked Allied countries: Serbia, France, Russia, United Kingdom and Belgium. Later on US, Greece and Italy joined Allied Nations. I believe you know the result of The Great War ?

Try Encyclopaedia Britannica or Wikipedia (for free), good luck !

I'm sure it has already been covered, but the OP is correct when he says World War One was a "very significant part of history." Really, it's absolutely vital to understanding much of the world that we live in today. Most of us like to think we've got a good "handle" on World War Two, but it's impossible to understand World War Two without understanding World War One.

In movie terms (this is a movie site, after all!) studying World War Two without an understanding World War One is like watching the sequel without having seen the first film. Sure, you can follow the sequel's self-contained storyline elements well enough, but you'll be missing the backstory and the formative events which shaped the character of the main players.

I've seen it argued that World War One and World War Two should really be viewed as the two halves of one war - a war which happened to have a 21-year "half-time" break for resting, regrouping, rebuilding, and researching more advanced tech.

What's undeniable is that World War One was "Part One" of a conflict that wasn't truly settled for good and all until the end of World War Two. Many of the main players in World War Two (Hitler, Churchill, Mussolini, etc) were young soldiers in World War One, and it was the grim aftermath of World War One for Germany (redrawn borders, harsh economic reparations, loss of most of a generation of young men, loss of foreign colonies, national resentment at the humiliation and deprivation) that provided the setting for Hitler's rise to power on promises to return Germany to power, glory, and pride.

In short, without World War One there would not have been a World War Two; the 1939-45 conflict was a direct result of the "seeds" planted by the 1914-18 war.

The shortest version of WW1 that I can give is that a JFK-style assassination of the ruler of Austro-Hungary by a terrorist group led to a sort of "snowball" effect where alliances between various European nations quickly dragged more and more countries into the conflict on one side or the other. Germany invaded multiple neutral countries, and advanced into France, where they were halted and the war evolved into a grim stalemate that lasted years and cost countless lives in the "trench warfare" of the Western Front. On the Eastern Front, Russia experienced a revolution (the people rose up against the ruling elite) and conceded defeat to Germany, but eventually Austro-Hungary folded and signed an armistice - whereupon Germany could not continue, and signed the armistice a week or so later, ending the war in victory for the allies, i.e. Britain, America, Italy, and France.

The main characteristic of WW1 is that, as others have said, it was the first "mechanized" war. Previous wars had been more akin to the kind of warfare you'd associate with the Napoleonic or Revolutionary era - cavalry charges on horseback, rifles and bayonets, cannons, etc - the more "gentlemanly" brand of warfare from the previous century - but WW1 introduced the trappings of "modern" warfare like tanks, submarines, airplanes, bombings, machine-guns, landmines, barbed wire, biological warfare, propaganda campaigns, etc.

The sheer industrial scale of the slaughter was unprecedented, and like nothing the world had experienced before - and the relatively recent invention of film meant that the war was also documented as never before. For the first time, people at home saw raw documentary film of the war, and it brought the reality of the mechanized carnage home to people in a way that written accounts never could. It changed everything.

WW1 is a huge subject, and - just like WW2 - there are million stories, and multiple interpretations of each of them. I can only suggest that you read and watch as much as you can find on the subject, as it will all contribute in some way to your increased understanding of a complex subject.

I know I´m necroposting here...but if you are still interested...the best explanation I ever heard would be the one of captain E. Blackadder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGxAYeeyoIc

In the event you are still looking and have not read or seen all the other stuff other posters have suggested, I found this link a few days ago. There was a lot more to it than the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand. There are many books on the subject and one is pretty damning titled 11/11/11.

website: http://www.vox.com/a/world-war-i-maps -> Has a total of 40 maps to explain WW1. The text below is a sample of the actual reading required and it follows after map 4. This may fit in better with the short attention span generation. I have no affiliation with the site.

From 1881 right up until World War I, European countries competed to colonize as much African land as they could. Britain and France seized the largest parcels of territory during this so-called "scramble for Africa." German leaders concluded that their lack of naval power hampered their ability to compete in the race for colonies, and thus global influence. This was one of several factors that prompted the Kaiser to begin rapidly growing his fleet. That damaged British-German relations, as the great source of British strength was its naval superiority. Germany challenging that seemed like an existential threat. Colonialism, then, helped cause a destabilizing naval arms race between the two powers. And by bringing European problems to Africa, it also set the table for a truly global war.