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- When: World War I was a major conflict fought between 1914 and 1918. Other names for World War I include the First World War, WWI, the War to End All Wars, and the Great War.
- The basics: World War I was fought between the Allied Powers and the Central Powers. The main members of the Allied Powers were France, Russia, and Britain. The United States also fought on the side of the Allies after 1917. The main members of the Central Powers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria.
- Where was most of the fighting? The majority of the fighting took place in Europe along two fronts: the western front and the eastern front. The western front was a long line of trenches that ran from the coast of Belgium to Switzerland. A lot of the fighting along this front took place in France and Belgium. The eastern front was between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria on one side and Russia and Romania on the other.
- How did it start? Although there were a number of causes for the war, the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the main catalyst for starting the war. After the assassination, Austria declared war on Serbia. Then Russia prepared to defend its ally Serbia. Next, Germany declared war on Russia to protect Austria. This caused France to declare war on Germany to protect its ally Russia. Germany invaded Belgium to get to France which caused Britain to declare war on Germany. This all happened in just a few days.
- Major Battles: A lot of the war was fought using trench warfare along the western front. The armies hardly moved at all. They just bombed and shot at each other from across the trenches. Some of the major battles during the war included the First Battle of the Marne, Battle of the Somme, Battle of Tannenberg, Battle of Gallipoli, and the Battle of Verdun.
- How did it end? The fighting ended on November 11, 1918 when a general armistice was agreed to by both sides. The war officially ended between Germany and the Allies with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
- Some facts: More than 65 million men fought in the war
- Dogs were used in the trenches to carry messages. A well-trained messenger dog was considered a very fast and reliable way to carry messages
- It was the first major war where airplanes and tanks were used
- Ninety percent of the 7.8 million soldiers from Austria-Hungary who fought in the war were either injured or killed
- When the British first invented tanks they called them "landships.”
- The terrorist group responsible for assassinating Archduke Ferdinand was called the Black Hand
- Famed scientist Marie Curie helped to equip vans with x-ray machines that enabled French doctors to see bullets in wounded men.
- The Indian Army during World War I contributed a large number of soldiers. More than 10 lakh Indian troops served overseas, of whom 62,000 died and another 67,000 were wounded.
- Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from 1942 asserted that the British "couldn't have come through both wars [World War I and II] if they hadn't had the Indian Army."
- In 1914, the Indian Army was one of the two largest volunteer armies in the world with a total strength of 240,000 men. By November 1918, the Indian Army contained 548,311 men, being considered the Imperial Strategic Reserve. It was regularly called upon to deal with incursions and raids on the North West Frontier and to provide garrison forces for the British Empire in Egypt, Singapore and China.
- Indian soldiers had not been eligible for the Victoria Cross until 1911, instead they received the Indian Order of Merit, an older decoration originally set up in the days of East India Company rule in India. The honour of being the first Indian recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC) in any conflict went to Khudadad Khan, 129th Duke of Connaught's Own Baluchis. When on 31 October 1914, at Hollebeke, Belgium, the British Officer in charge of the detachment having been wounded, and the other gun put out of action by a shell, Sepoy Khudadad, though himself wounded, remained working his gun until all the other five men of the gun detachment had been killed.
- In 1919, the Indian Army could call upon 491,000 men, but there was a shortage of experienced officers, most of the officers having been killed or wounded in the war. In 1921, the Indian government started a review of their military requirements with the protection of the North West Frontier and internal security their priority. By 1925, the Army in India had been reduced to 197,000 troops, 140,000 of them Indian.
- The end of World War I did not see the end of fighting for the Indian Army—they were involved in the Third Afghan War in 1919, and then the Waziristan Campaign in 1919–1920 and again in 1920–1924. Operations against the Afridis in 1930–1931, the Mohmands in 1933 and again in 1935 and finally just before the outbreak of World War II operations in Waziristan again in 1936–1939.
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