The First World War

1914–1918 CE — Europe, The European powers

Today: Europe (the Western Front ran through Belgium and France)

In June 1914 a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand — heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne — on a street in Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and declared war; Russia mobilized to defend Serbia; Germany backed Austria-Hungary and, to beat Russia's slow mobilization, invaded France first by marching through neutral Belgium — which brought Britain in. Within six weeks a regional quarrel had become a continental war: the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans, Bulgaria) against the Allies (France, Britain, Russia, later Italy, and the United States in 1917). Each side expected to win by Christmas. Instead, machine guns, artillery, and barbed wire made attacking suicidal, and the armies dug 400 miles of trenches from the Channel to Switzerland and stayed there for four years, killing roughly seventeen million people over a few miles of mud. Four empires — German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian — did not survive it, and the confident European order that had ruled much of the planet destroyed its own authority.

Worth knowing: Soldiers in the trenches of 1914 held a spontaneous Christmas truce, climbing out to swap food and play football with the men they had been shooting at. Commands on both sides made sure it never happened again.

Pattern: Imperial overstretch — A state's commitments outrun the resources and logistics needed to hold them; the margin fails first.

Entry 206 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.