World War I

The second world war started from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918.

The first world war was fought between two power blocs. The Allies and The Central Powers.

• The Allies comprised Britain, France, Russia and U.S.
• The Central powers comprised Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turks.

The fighting involved world’s leading industrial nations which harnessed the vast powers of modern industry to inflict the greatest possible destruction on their enemies.
It was the 1^st modern war which saw the use of machine guns, tanks, aircraft, chemical weapons on a massive scale.  Approximately 9 million people perished and 20 million died.
The central power suffered a humiliating defeat and Germany was imposed with harsh compensating penalties in the treaty of Versailles. The economy of Germany shattered. The war transformed US from being an international debtor to an international creditor.