FACTS ABOUT WORLD WAR 1

                                    

           

1914 will always be a watershed in not just European but world history. The first World War which spanned four years (1914-1918)
set the stage for unimaginable bloodshed and wanton destruction of lives and property. It is 100 years since WW1 started and the blog treads the bloodstained paths of its history.

The war purportedly began as a result of the murder of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, by an ethnic Serb and Yugoslav Nationalist named Gavrilo Princip. As a result of this, Austria-Hungary gave Serbia what is commonly known as the 'July ultimatum', a guise under which Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, culminating in the war. While the murder of Archduke Ferdinand triggered the war, several other underlying factors contributed to the war that engulfed most of Europe and the world by extension.

These other factors include Military and Economic rivalry, diplomatic crisis, Territorial disputes amongst others.

Having said that, below are brief facts about the world war 1.

1. The war began on 28th July, 1914 and ended at 11am on 11th November, 1918.

2.There were two main sides to the war- the ALLIED POWERS which comprised 25 nations led by France, Great Britain and Russia. Italy later joined the Allies despite having signed an earlier treaty with Germany,which she later recanted. The United States joined the Allies in 1917; the other side were the CENTRAL POWERS which comprised Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria.

3. A total of 30 countries with more than 65million men fought in the war.

5.By the end of WW1, over 9 million soldiers had been killed, and another 21 million wounded. Over a million soldiers were killed in the infamous Battle of 'the Somme' alone, including about 30,000 in just one day.

6.More than 950,000 civilians died a result of direct military action while deaths caused by disease and famine was about6 million.

7. Russia mobilized the highest number of troops- about 12million. Nearly 3/4 of them died, were wounded or were missing in action.

8. Germany had the highest military deaths(2.1 million)

9. Russia had the highest death toll (3.8 million)

10. Serbia had the highest percentage of population killed (16.11%) while about 11% of France's population was killed.

11. 250,000 British Soldiers suffered a partial or full amputation as a result of fighting in the First World War while about 116,000 Americans were killed, even though the US was only in the war for about 7 months.

12.King George V (Great Britain), Kaiser Wilhelm II (Germany) and Tsar Nicholas II (Russia) were cousins, and grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

13.During WWI, the Spanish flu caused about 1/3 of total military deaths.

14.Soldiers fought largely in trenches during the war, and thousands suffered from stress, known as shell-shock.  The British and French trenches were often squalid, whereas the German trenches were almost luxurious in comparison, with bunks and decent cooking facilities.

15. During World War 1, dogs were used to carry messages in capsules attached to their body. Dogs also carried and placed telegraph wires in important areas. About 1 million dogs died in service during the war.

16. Pigeons were also used during the war. About 500,000 pigeons were regularly dropped into enemy lines by parachute, and then sent back with messages. A pigeon called Cher Ami managed to carry a message to US soldiers 25 miles away despite having been shot.

17. Tanks were originally called 'Land ships' and were first used by the British on 15th September, 1916 at the Battle of the Somme and they were so called because of early attempts to disguise them as water tanks.

18. The British categorized their tanks as male and female. Male tanks had cannons and female tanks had machine guns.

19. Cannons and artillery were often extremely loud. In 1917, the explosives used to destroy a bridge in France could be be heard over 130 miles away in London.

20. On Christmas Eve, 1914, both sides declared an unofficial truce and sang Christmas carols to each other. A football match was played in no-man’s land (the area between the German and British) trenches, and German and British soldiers exchanged food and souvenirs.The following Christmas, sentries on both sides had orders to shoot any soldier who did this.

21. Many new weapons were invented or first used during World War 1. The Railway gun nicknamed 'Big Bertha' after the wife of the designer Gustav Krupp was one of the most famous; it was a 48 ton gun capable of firing a shell over 9 miles. It took 200 men several hours to assemble the gun. Germany had 13 of such huge guns.

22.Germans were the first to use flamethrowers in WWI. Their flamethrowers could fire jets of flame as far as 130 feet (40 m).

23.The most successful fighter of the entire war was Rittmeister von Richthofen (1892-1918) of German origin who fought on the side of the Central Powers. He shot down 80 planes, more than any other WWI pilot. He died after being shot down near Amiens.
France's René Fonck (1894-1953) was the Allies’ most successful fighter pilot, shooting down 75 enemy planes..

24.The trench network of World War I stretched approximately 25,000 miles (40,200 km) from the English Channel to Switzerland. The area was known as the Western Front. British poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote, “When all is done and said, the war was mainly a matter of holes and ditches.

25. Countless soldiers were disfigured during the war and Facial reconstruction surgery developed dramatically during the war. A special plastic surgery clinic in Sidcup, run by Harold Gillies, treated thousands of soldiers. Many soldiers had to live the rest of their lives in nursing homes.

26. During WWI, the Germans released about 68,000 tons of gas, and the British and French released 51,000 tons. In total, 1,200,000 soldiers on both sides were gassed, of which 91,198 died horrible deaths.

27. The Victoria Cross (Britain’s highest award for bravery in the face of the enemy) was awarded 628 times during World War 1. Only one man, Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse, was awarded it twice.

28. Geoffrey Keynes, a surgeon from Britain, designed a portable blood transfusion kit. It saved thousands of lives during the war.

29. At the end of the war, the total sum decided that was needed for reparations was about a huge 132 billion gold marks.

30. It cost the United States a total of 30 billion dollars to fund the war and sustain its troops.

31. As a result of the war Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia declared independence or came into their current day existence.

32. The German language in America was one of the earliest casualties of WWI. In 1914, German was the second most widely spoken language in the United States, and was taught in schools and used by some newspapers. As the war progressed, German street names were changed, German books burnt, German shepherd dogs killed and even one German-American kiiled.

33. French female pilot, Marie Marvingt, also known as the ‘La fiancée du danger’, was the first woman in the world to fly combat missions. She initially disguised herself as a man and joined the infantry. Once discovered as a woman, she was removed from the front and volunteered with the air force, flying bombing routes over Germany. At her death in 1963, she was the most decorated woman in the history of France.

34. Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, were developed in WWI. The Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane, devised as a kind of ‘aerial torpedo’, first flew on March 6, 1918.

35. The Germans' most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat, which was more sophisticated than any other similar weapon of any other nation at the time.

36. During the war, 274 German U-boats sank 6,596 ships. The five most successful U-boats were U-35 (sank 224 ships), U-39 (154 ships), U-38 (137 ships), U-34 (121 ships), and U-33 (84 ships).

37. During WWI, the Germans released about 68,000 tons of gas, and the British and French released 51,000 tons. About 1,200,000 soldiers on both sides were gassed, of which 91,198 died horrific deaths.

38. More than 200,000 African Americans served in WWI, but only about 11 percent of them were in actual combat. The rest were put in labor units, loading cargo, building roads and digging trenches.

39. The Harlem Hell Fighters were one of the few African American units that saw actual combat. For their extraordinary acts of heroism, the soldiers received the French Croix de Guerre, a medal awarded to soldiers from Allied countries for bravery in combat. However, in the United States, their deeds were largely ignored.

40. The most decorated American of WWI was Alvin Cullum York (1887-1964). York led an attack on a German gun nest, taking 32 machine guns, killing 28 German soldiers, and capturing 132 more. He returned home with a Medal of Honor, a promotion to Sergeant, the French Croix de Guerre, and a gift of 400 acres of good farmland.

41.The long-term effects of WWI include the formation of the League of Nations, which laid the groundwork for the United Nations and a worldwide arms race. Additionally, the Treaty of Versailles imposed severe sanctions on Germany, which drove the country into a deep recession, setting the groundwork for WWII.

While the World War 1 which was also called the Great War, the World War, the War of the Nations, and the War to End All Wars does not occasion nostalgia, learning something about it might just help us reminisce on whether war does humanity any good.

Something(s) about the World war II coming soon.

T.M. Ojo