Facts about World War I
- 13
General Edmund Allenby's 1917 campaign in Palestine used only 57,000 troops to defeat 400,000 Ottoman soldiers, capturing Jerusalem on December 11 and ending four centuries of Ottoman rule.
- 12
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, announced January 8, 1918, proposed self-determination for oppressed nationalities and a League of Nations to prevent future wars.
- 11
At 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918, the armistice ending World War I took effect after German military commanders signed the ceasefire agreement in a railway car near Compiègne, France.
- 10
By 1918, barbed wire entanglements stretched across the Western Front for over 400 miles, creating nearly impenetrable barriers that defined trench warfare stalemate.
- 09
Spain lost 385,000 soldiers during World War I despite remaining officially neutral throughout the conflict from 1914 to 1918.
- 08
Germany's war debt reached 192 billion gold marks by 1923, requiring the Weimar Republic to print trillions of paper marks and triggering hyperinflation that devastated the economy.
- 07
Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia on July 23, 1918, contained ten demands designed to be unacceptable, triggering the diplomatic crisis that sparked World War I.
- 06
In 1916, British tanks first saw combat at the Battle of the Somme on September 15, deploying 49 Mark I tanks to break the trench stalemate.
- 05
The Christmas Truce of 1914 saw British and German soldiers spontaneously cease fighting on December 25, emerging from trenches to exchange gifts and play football.
- 04
Poison gas killed approximately 90,000 soldiers during World War I, though chlorine and mustard gas wounded over 1 million combatants.
- 03
Between 1916 and 1918, the Battle of the Somme killed approximately 1 million soldiers, making it history's deadliest battle.
- 02
Approximately 116,000 American soldiers died in World War I, with 53,402 killed in combat between 1917 and 1918.
- 01
Over 65 million soldiers were mobilized across all nations during World War I between 1914 and 1918.