97 Fun Facts About World War I

What event is often cited as the immediate cause of World War I?

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Habsburg throne, by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 set off the July Crisis that led to war.

Which country first declared war in World War I?

Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the crisis and declared war on 28 July 1914; Russia mobilised in Serbia's defence and Germany then declared war on Russia and France.

Which alliance of Britain, France and Russia faced the Central Powers in World War I?

The Triple Entente, consisting primarily of France, Britain, and Russia, formed the core of the Allied Powers against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and later the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria).

What did contemporaries call the 1914–1918 conflict before a second world war renamed it?

Contemporaries called it the Great War; the name World War I only took hold after a second world war began in 1939.

What was Germany's plan for a swift Western Front victory at the start of World War I called?

The Schlieffen Plan was Germany's strategic plan for a quick victory over France by invading neutral Belgium, aiming to avoid a two-front war.

In September 1914, Paris's military governor rushed reinforcements to the Marne in about 600 commandeered what?

Taxicabs: General Gallieni commandeered about 600 Paris taxis to carry troops toward the Marne on 6–7 September 1914; their meters ran the whole way, and historians rate their military effect as modest.

Which 1916 naval battle was World War I's only full-scale clash of battleships?

The Battle of Jutland, fought off Denmark on 31 May–1 June 1916 between Jellicoe's Grand Fleet and Scheer's High Seas Fleet, left the Royal Navy in control of the North Sea.

The Gallipoli Campaign was an Allied operation aimed at opening a new front against which power?

The Gallipoli campaign of 1915 aimed to force the Dardanelles, open a supply route to Russia and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war; British, French and ANZAC troops landed on 25 April 1915.

The Western Front during World War I was primarily characterized by what type of warfare?

The Western Front became synonymous with trench warfare, a brutal and stagnant form of combat where opposing armies faced each other from elaborate systems of fortified ditches.

Which August 1914 Eastern Front battle was a decisive German victory over the Russian Second Army?

At Tannenberg, 26–30 August 1914, the German 8th Army encircled and destroyed the Russian 2nd Army; its commander Alexander Samsonov shot himself, and the victory made Hindenburg and Ludendorff famous.

Which 300-day 1916 battle was the longest of World War I, with immense French and German casualties?

The Battle of Verdun, fought between February and December 1916, was the longest battle of World War I and became a symbol of the war's destructive attrition.

The Battle of Cambrai in 1917 is notable for the first large-scale use of what new weapon by the British?

The Battle of Cambrai in November 1917 saw the first massed use of tanks by the British, demonstrating their potential for breaking through enemy lines.

Which Allied nation's casualties on the first day of the 1916 Battle of the Somme were most staggering?

On 1 July 1916 the British suffered 57,470 casualties, 19,240 of them killed, against about 1,590 for the French Sixth Army alongside them.

Germany's last great 1918 Western Front gamble, launched before American strength arrived, is known as what?

The Spring Offensive, also called the Kaiserschlacht or Ludendorff offensive, ran out of steam by July 1918, when arriving American troops restored the Allies' numerical edge.

Who was the President of the United States during World War I?

Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president, won re-election in 1916 on the slogan 'He kept us out of war', won the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize, yet saw the Senate refuse to ratify the Treaty of Versailles he brought home.

Who was the German Emperor (Kaiser) during World War I?

Kaiser Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling from 1888 until his abdication in November 1918, at the end of World War I.

Who commanded the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front during World War I?

Pershing insisted the AEF fight as an independent American army rather than being fed piecemeal into French and British units.

Which British Prime Minister led the wartime coalition from December 1916 to the armistice?

David Lloyd George served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922, leading the country through the latter half of World War I and the subsequent peace negotiations.

How many confirmed aerial victories did Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, score?

Manfred von Richthofen was credited with 80 confirmed victories, the highest tally of any World War I pilot, before he was shot down and killed near the Somme on 21 April 1918.

Which French Marshal was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies in March 1918?

Ferdinand Foch was given authority to coordinate the Allied armies at the Doullens conference on 26 March 1918; until then the British and French armies on the Western Front had no single commander.

What new weapon was first used on a large scale at the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915?

The Second Battle of Ypres marked the first major use of poison gas by the German army on the Western Front, specifically chlorine gas, causing significant casualties.

What did Parisians first assume was attacking them when shells fell from a 120 km-distant gun in March 1918?

Parisians assumed a high-altitude Zeppelin, since no aircraft could be seen or heard; the Paris Gun was lobbing 106 kg shells about 130 km, the first landing on the Quai de la Seine at 7:18 a.m. on 23 March 1918.

As Germany's answer to the British naval blockade in World War I, what was the primary job of its U-boat fleet?

Sinking Allied merchant ships was the U-boats' job: the first attacks came in October 1914, and unrestricted warfare from 1917 aimed to starve Britain out.

The 1915 Fokker Eindecker was the first operational fighter with what device for firing a gun through the propeller?

Synchronization gear: Fokker's Stangensteuerung timed the machine gun to fire between the propeller blades, giving the Eindecker the 'Fokker Scourge' of 1915–16 and starting a race that ended with the hydraulic Constantinesco gear of 1917.

Alfred Leete's 1914 recruitment image showed which pointing British figure declaring he 'wants you'?

Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, was the pointing figure; Leete's image first ran on the cover of London Opinion on 5 September 1914 and later inspired James Montgomery Flagg's pointing Uncle Sam.

What nickname did British women who filled shells with TNT earn from the colour it turned their skin?

Canary Girls: the TNT they handled stained munitions workers' skin and hair yellow; hundreds of thousands of British women worked in munitions by 1918, and toxic jaundice from TNT killed some of them.

Which British nurse was shot by a German firing squad in 1915 for helping Allied soldiers escape occupied Belgium?

Edith Cavell had treated wounded men from both sides without discrimination and helped some 200 Allied soldiers escape; the Church of England commemorates her on 12 October, the day of her execution.

On what date did the armistice, ending hostilities in World War I, come into effect?

The armistice took effect at 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918, six hours after Foch and the German delegation signed it; it was a ceasefire, not a formal German surrender.

Which of these was a major provision of the Treaty of Versailles?

Germany had to pay war reparations, fixed in 1921 at 132 billion gold marks, and also disarm, cede territory and accept the 'war guilt' clause; the treaty was signed at Versailles on 28 June 1919.

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles is commonly known by what name?

Article 231 is the War Guilt Clause: it made Germany accept responsibility for the loss and damage caused by the war and opened the reparations section, though historian Sally Marks notes it never uses the words 'war guilt'.

What name was given to the peace programme the US president laid out to Congress on 8 January 1918?

The Fourteen Points called for open diplomacy, freedom of the seas, arms reduction and self-determination, and proposed a general association of nations; they partly answered Lenin's Decree on Peace of November 1917.

Which international body, founded in 1920, did the Paris Peace Conference create to keep the peace?

The League of Nations had its Covenant written into Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, yet its credibility suffered from the start because the United States never joined.

Which new state was proclaimed in Prague on 28 October 1918?

Czechoslovakia was proclaimed in Prague on 28 October 1918 by the National Committee, with Tomáš Masaryk becoming its first president; Slovak leaders endorsed the union in the Martin Declaration two days later.

What became of the Ottoman Empire after its defeat with the Central Powers in 1918?

Britain took mandates for Mesopotamia and Palestine and France for Syria and Lebanon, while the Turkish heartland became a republic in 1923.

Which territory, annexed by Germany after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, was restored to France by the Treaty of Versailles?

Alsace-Lorraine went back to France under the Treaty of Versailles, reversing its annexation by Germany after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871.

What did the Zimmermann Telegram propose in early 1917?

The telegram proposed a German-Mexican alliance against the US if America entered the war, with Mexico to recover Texas, Arizona and New Mexico; British codebreakers intercepted it, and its publication pushed the US toward war.

In what year did the United States officially enter World War I?

Congress declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, more than two and a half years after the fighting began.

Which British liner's 1915 sinking by a U-boat turned American opinion against Germany?

The RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by U-20 off Ireland on 7 May 1915; 1,198 of those aboard died, including 128 Americans, fuelling anti-German sentiment in the United States.

What term was used to describe the deadly, open ground between opposing trenches on the Western Front?

No Man's Land was the shell-torn ground between the opposing trench lines; the phrase is medieval, first recorded in 14th-century England for disputed or unowned ground.

Which trench condition, caused by prolonged cold and damp, could lead to gangrene if untreated?

Trench foot: prolonged cold and wet brought numbness, then swelling and, if untreated, gangrene; thousands of British cases in the winter of 1914–15 led to whale-oil rubs and enforced sock changes.

What were 'Pals Battalions' in the British Army during World War I?

Lord Derby's Liverpool appeal promised 'a battalion of pals'; the flip side was that a bad day such as 1 July 1916 could wipe out the young men of a single town at once.

Which late-1914 battle in Flanders closed the last open flank on the Western Front?

Neither side had actually raced for the coast; each was trying to outflank the other before the room ran out, and after Ypres the front settled into four years of stalemate.

Which final Allied offensive of 1918 convinced German commanders that defeat was inevitable?

The Hundred Days Offensive opened on 8 August 1918 and rolled on without pause to the armistice in November, breaching the Hindenburg Line at the end of September.

What unofficial event occurred on Christmas Day 1914 on parts of the Western Front?

Soldiers exchanged greetings and food, played football and asked one another for news of the football leagues back home.

What global pandemic swept the world during and just after World War I, killing millions?

The Spanish Flu pandemic, which lasted from 1918 to 1920, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide and caused between 20 million and 50 million deaths, exacerbated by wartime conditions.

Britain began compulsory food rationing in 1917-18 as its supply of which staple fell to six weeks' worth?

Wheat: by April 1917 unrestricted U-boat warfare had cut Britain's wheat stocks to about six weeks' supply; voluntary rationing followed, then compulsory sugar rationing in January 1918 and national ration books in July 1918.

Which neutral country joined the Allies in May 1915 and opened an Alpine front against a former partner?

Italy, though a Triple Alliance member, stayed neutral in 1914; the secret Treaty of London of 26 April 1915 promised it Austrian territory, and it declared war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May 1915.

What animals were extensively used for carrying messages in the trenches due to their reliability?

Homing pigeons were widely used in World War I to carry vital messages across dangerous battlefields, proving to be reliable communicators when other systems failed.

Which Serbian secret society armed and trained the Sarajevo assassins of June 1914?

Young Bosnia was the students' own circle; the Black Hand, tied to Serbian military intelligence, supplied the pistols and bombs.

Whose four divisions first fought together as one corps at Vimy Ridge in April 1917?

The ridge became a symbol of national achievement, and a 100-hectare slice of the battlefield is now a Canadian memorial park.

Under which March 1918 agreement did Russia withdraw from the war?

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on 3 March 1918 in the town now called Brest, Belarus, after Trotsky's 'neither war nor peace' stalling; Russia gave up Poland, the Baltic lands and Ukraine.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration took the form of a letter addressed to whom?

Walter Rothschild, a zoologist and former MP, was to pass it on to the Zionist Federation; it appeared in the press a week later.

A British-Indian garrison surrendered at Kut in April 1916, in what is now which country?

Kut sits on the Tigris in what is now Iraq, south-east of Baghdad; Townshend's besieged garrison of about 13,000 surrendered to the Ottomans on 29 April 1916, one of Britain's worst defeats of the war.

Off which country's coast did von Spee beat the Royal Navy at Coronel in November 1914?

Coronel lies on the coast of Chile; there on 1 November 1914 von Spee sank the armoured cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth with all hands for three Germans wounded, but spent half his irreplaceable ammunition.

How many mines were blown under the German lines to open the Battle of Messines in 1917?

Nineteen mines were fired at 3:10 a.m. on 7 June 1917 along the Messines Ridge; others were abandoned or left unfired, and the Spanbroekmolen crater, now the Pool of Peace, was about 250 feet across.

The 1917 rout at Caporetto is also counted as the twelfth battle of which river?

Caporetto, opened on 24 October 1917, is the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo; the town is now Kobarid in Slovenia, and German stormtroopers and gas collapsed the Italian Second Army, which fell back to the Piave.

Which Ottoman commander met the ANZAC landing of 25 April 1915 with fierce resistance?

He later became Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic; the campaign he helped stall dragged on for eight months.

What does the acronym ANZAC stand for?

ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, formed in Egypt in December 1914 under General Birdwood; its landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 is commemorated as Anzac Day.

T. E. Lawrence served as British liaison to which leader of the Arab Revolt?

Emir Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein, led the Arab army Lawrence advised from 1916; their partnership ended with the capture of Damascus on 1 October 1918, and Lawrence backed Faisal at the Paris Peace Conference.

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's undefeated guerrilla campaign was fought in which colony?

German East Africa (now Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi): with about 14,000 men, mostly African askaris, Lettow-Vorbeck tied down some 300,000 Allied troops and surrendered only on 25 November 1918, after the armistice.

The November 1914 Battle of Tanga took its nickname from swarms of which creature?

Bees: swarms of angry bees attacked both sides at Tanga on 3–5 November 1914, earning it the name 'Battle of the Bees'; British propaganda even claimed the Germans had rigged trip wires to agitate the hives.

Poet Wilfred Owen was killed in action how long before the Armistice?

Owen was killed crossing the Sambre–Oise Canal one week before the Armistice; his mother's telegram arrived on Armistice Day itself, as Shrewsbury's church bells rang out in celebration.

John McCrae's 'In Flanders Fields' was first published in December 1915 in which magazine?

Punch printed 'In Flanders Fields' anonymously on 8 December 1915; legend says McCrae discarded the draft and fellow soldiers rescued it, and its poppies became the Remembrance symbol.

The US Army's 369th Infantry Regiment of 1918 was mainly made up of which group?

The 369th was a New York National Guard regiment of African Americans who served under French command; the French called them 'Men of Bronze', and the 'Harlem Hellfighters' name may have been coined by the American press.

How many days did the Harlem Hellfighters spend in front-line trenches, a US record?

They also took the most losses of any American regiment, 1,500 casualties, and were first of the Allies across the Rhine.

Sergeant Alvin York's Medal of Honor action in 1918 ended with how many German prisoners?

York captured 132 German prisoners on 8 October 1918 in the Argonne; he was one of 17 men sent to silence a machine-gun nest, and the patrol also took 35 machine guns.

At which June 1918 battle did the US 4th Marine Brigade suffer nearly 10,000 casualties?

Belleau Wood, 1–26 June 1918, cost the 4th Marine Brigade about 9,800 casualties, including 6 June, the bloodiest day in Marine Corps history until Tarawa; the French renamed the wood Bois de la Brigade de Marine.

Where was the 1918 armistice with Germany signed?

The armistice was signed in Marshal Foch's railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne shortly after 5 a.m. on the day it took effect; Hitler made France sign its 1940 armistice in the very same carriage.

Which Centre Party politician signed the November 1918 armistice on Germany's behalf?

Matthias Erzberger led the German delegation and signed the armistice in November 1918; the High Command then pushed blame onto civilian politicians, feeding the 'stab-in-the-back' myth, and nationalists murdered him in 1921.

To which neutral country did Germany's emperor flee in November 1918?

The Treaty of Versailles said he should face trial, but the Dutch never handed him over and he died there in 1941.

In which room of the Palace of Versailles was the 1919 peace treaty signed?

The Hall of Mirrors was chosen deliberately: the German Empire had been proclaimed in that same room on 18 January 1871, and the treaty was signed there on 28 June 1919.

The 1920 Treaty of Trianon fixed the shrunken post-war borders of which country?

Hungary signed the Treaty of Trianon on 4 June 1920 under protest, losing about two-thirds of its pre-war territory; Hungarians long called it the 'Dictate of Trianon'.

The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, imposed on the Ottomans, was signed in what kind of building?

The treaty was signed on 10 August 1920 in the showroom of the Sèvres porcelain factory outside Paris; it was never ratified, and Atatürk's war of independence replaced it with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

French wartime premier Georges Clemenceau was known by which animal nickname?

Clemenceau was 'The Tiger' (le Tigre) for his ferocity in debate, and later 'Père la Victoire'; a physician turned journalist, he had first been premier in 1906 and returned to office in November 1917.

Mata Hari, shot by France as a German spy in 1917, was of which nationality?

Mata Hari was Dutch, born Margaretha Zelle in Leeuwarden in 1876; her stage name is Malay for 'sun', and later biographers argue the French Army needed a scapegoat when it shot her in October 1917.

The Easter Rising against British rule erupted in April 1916 in which city?

Dublin: about 1,200 Volunteers and Citizen Army members seized the General Post Office and other buildings on 24 April 1916; Eoin MacNeill's countermanding order had kept most of the country quiet.

What happened to the interned German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in June 1919?

Admiral von Reuter feared the British would seize the ships; 52 of 74 went down, and the wrecks now supply low-background steel.

Ludendorff called 8 August 1918 'the black day of the German Army' after which battle?

At Amiens the Allies advanced about 11 km on 8 August 1918 behind tanks and a surprise bombardment; Ludendorff was shaken less by the lost ground than by the mass German surrenders.

Which Allied nation led the 1914 siege that took the German port of Tsingtao in China?

It was the only major land battle of the Asian-Pacific theatre and the first time Japanese and German forces met.

What did the Germans themselves call the position the British named the Hindenburg Line?

The Germans called it the Siegfriedstellung, one of several positions named for Wagner characters; built in the winter of 1916–17, the shorter line let exhausted German armies hold the front with fewer troops.

Who replaced Nivelle as French commander-in-chief after the mutinies of 1917?

Philippe Pétain took over on 15 May 1917 after Nivelle's promised 48-hour victory had failed; he restored order with better leave and rations and few executions, and switched France to a defensive posture.

How did General Allenby enter Jerusalem's Old City on 11 December 1917?

The British PM had wanted Jerusalem as 'a Christmas present for the British people'; the walk through the Jaffa Gate was a gesture of respect.

Which mounted troops charged the Beersheba defences with bayonets on 31 October 1917?

The 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade were mounted infantry without swords, so they charged Beersheba with bayonets in hand and rifles slung, taking the town and its wells before dusk.

What did German soldiers nickname the British Brodie steel helmet?

Germans called the Brodie the Salatschüssel, 'salad bowl'; British troops called it the battle bowler or tin hat, and the US Army adopted a near-copy as the M1917.

What was dazzle ship camouflage actually meant to do?

Marine artist Norman Wilkinson gets the credit, though zoologist John Graham Kerr had pitched a similar idea to Churchill in 1914.

The word 'tank' was a cover name; the first hulls were described in shop orders as what?

The 'water carrier for Mesopotamia' prototype was nicknamed Little Willie and built at a Lincoln agricultural works.

Armoured vehicles first went into action on 15 September 1916 at which Somme battle?

Flers-Courcelette, 15 September 1916, saw the first tanks in action — 49 Mark Is were sent forward — and was also the Somme debut of the Canadian Corps and the New Zealand Division.

Which French pilot ended the war as the top Allied ace with 75 confirmed victories?

René Fonck's 75 confirmed victories made him the top Allied ace; he claimed 142, and counting probables his true tally may have topped 100, yet he was never once wounded.

Which Australian cruiser ran the German raider Emden aground at the Cocos Islands in 1914?

HMAS Sydney caught Emden at the Cocos Islands on 9 November 1914 and pounded her until she was beached on North Keeling; Emden's stranded landing party seized the schooner Ayesha and eventually made it back to Germany.

The first Zeppelin raid on Britain, in January 1915, bombed which coastal town?

Great Yarmouth was hit by L 3 on the night of 19 January 1915, with King's Lynn struck by L 4 after strong winds diverted both airships from the Humber; four people died and damage was put at £7,740.

The 'Big Bertha' howitzers that smashed Liège's forts in 1914 were built by which firm?

Krupp of Essen built the 42 cm 'Big Bertha' (M-Gerät); only two existed when war began, and they reduced Liège's forts in August 1914, though the name was later confused with the 1918 Paris Gun.

In which month and year did Tsar Nicholas II abdicate?

Nicholas abdicated on 15 March 1917 (2 March in the old Russian calendar) during the February Revolution, ending 304 years of Romanov rule; the family was shot at Yekaterinburg in July 1918.

Who wrote the 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front?

Erich Maria Remarque's novel sold 2.5 million copies in 22 languages in 18 months; the Nazis burned it in 1933 and stripped him of German citizenship in 1938.

The Lochnagar mine was blown at 7:28 a.m. on 1 July 1916 beside which village?

The Lochnagar mine, fired under the German line at La Boisselle, left a crater 21 m deep and about 100 m wide; Richard Dunning bought the site in 1978 to preserve it as a memorial.

Which fortress endured Europe's longest siege of the war, falling to Russia in March 1915?

Przemyśl, in Austrian Galicia, surrendered on 22 March 1915 after a 133-day siege; some 117,000 Austro-Hungarian troops went into Russian captivity, and historians have called it the Habsburg army's Stalingrad.

The Ottoman armistice of 1918 was signed aboard HMS Agamemnon off which Greek island?

Lemnos: the Armistice of Mudros was signed in Mudros harbour aboard HMS Agamemnon on 30 October 1918, taking the Ottoman Empire out of the war and opening the Dardanelles to the Allies.

Which battle of October-November 1918 ended the war on the Italian Front?

Vittorio Veneto, 24 October–3 November 1918, ended with the Austro-Hungarian army's collapse; some 448,000 troops were captured, and the Villa Giusti armistice took effect on 4 November as the empire dissolved.