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The International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1) is a collaborative international research project designed to develop a virtual English-language reference work on the First World War. Explore the comprehensive, peer-reviewed "1914-1918-online" encyclopedia.
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- Overview
- The outbreak of war
World War I began after the assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand by South Slav nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914.
Read more below: The outbreak of war
Balkan Wars
Read more about why the Balkans became the “powder keg of Europe.”
What countries fought in World War I?
The war pitted the Central Powers (mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey) against the Allies (mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, from 1917, the United States).
With Serbia already much aggrandized by the two Balkan Wars (1912–13, 1913), Serbian nationalists turned their attention back to the idea of “liberating” the South Slavs of Austria-Hungary. Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević, head of Serbia’s military intelligence, was also, under the alias “Apis,” head of the secret society Union or Death, pledged to the pursuit of this pan-Serbian ambition. Believing that the Serbs’ cause would be served by the death of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, and learning that the Archduke was about to visit Bosnia on a tour of military inspection, Apis plotted his assassination. Nikola Pašić, the Serbian prime minister and an enemy of Apis, heard of the plot and warned the Austrian government of it, but his message was too cautiously worded to be understood.
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At 11:15 am on June 28, 1914, in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife, Sophie, duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip. The chief of the Austro-Hungarian general staff, Franz, Graf (count) Conrad von Hötzendorf, and the foreign minister, Leopold, Graf von Berchtold, saw the crime as the occasion for measures to humiliate Serbia and so to enhance Austria-Hungary’s prestige in the Balkans. Conrad had already (October 1913) been assured by William II of Germany’s support if Austria-Hungary should start a preventive war against Serbia. This assurance was confirmed in the week following the assassination, before William, on July 6, set off upon his annual cruise to the North Cape, off Norway.
The Austrians decided to present an unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia and then to declare war, relying on Germany to deter Russia from intervention. Though the terms of the ultimatum were finally approved on July 19, its delivery was postponed to the evening of July 23, since by that time the French president, Raymond Poincaré, and his premier, René Viviani, who had set off on a state visit to Russia on July 15, would be on their way home and therefore unable to concert an immediate reaction with their Russian allies. When the delivery was announced, on July 24, Russia declared that Austria-Hungary must not be allowed to crush Serbia.
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Last Edited November 30, 2023. The First World War of 1914–1918 was the bloodiest conflict in Canadian history, taking the lives of nearly 61,000 Canadians. It erased romantic notions of war, introducing slaughter on a massive scale, and instilled a fear of foreign military involvement that would last until the Second World War.
The online encyclopedia is the result of an international collaborative project. Over 1,200 authors, editors and external referees from all over the world work together to bring the project to life. These experts, along with the editorial team and double peer-review process, ensure the academic quality of the encyclopedia.
The encyclopedia intends to summarize the latest knowledge of international experts and make it accessible to a general audience to a degree that is more comprehensive than has been the case so far. In this way, it aims to make a contribution to a post-national and global understanding of the First World War that includes the culture of remembrance.
First World War Timeline. The First World War of 1914–1918 was the bloodiest conflict in Canadian history, taking the lives of more than 60,000 Canadians. It erased romantic notions of war, introducing slaughter on a massive scale, and instilled a fear of foreign military involvement that would last until the Second World War.
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1914–1918 Online. 1914–1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War is an international, English-language online encyclopedia of the First World War. Deemed the largest research network of its kind, it officially went online on 8 October 2014. [1] The editorial office is staffed by historians and uses Semantic MediaWiki.
