What does WW1 stand for? 

ww1

World War I (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. It was fought between two coalitions, the first being the Allies, whose key members included France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, Japan and their respective colonial empires, with the United States joining as an associated power in 1917. They faced the Central Powers, primarily Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died as a result of genocide, while the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war.The first decade of the 20th century was a period of increasing diplomatic tension between the European great powers. This reached a breaking point on 28 June 1914, when a Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip carried out the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Austria-Hungary held Serbia responsible, and despite diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, declared war on 28 July. Russia came to Serbia’s defence, and by 4 August, over-lapping defensive alliances had drawn in France, Britain and Germany. German strategy in 1914 was to first defeat France, then shift its troops to the east and do the same to Russia. However, this failed, and by the end of 1914, the Western Front consisted of a continuous line of trenches stretching from the English Channel to Switzerland. The Eastern Front was more fluid, but neither side could gain a decisive advantage, despite a series of costly offensives. Attempts to bypass the stalemate caused fighting to expand into the Middle East, the Alps, the Balkans and overseas colonies, bringing Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and others into the war. The United States entered the war on the side of the Allies in April 1917, while the Bolsheviks seized power in the Russian October Revolution, and made peace with the Central Powers in early 1918. Freed from the Eastern Front, Germany launched an offensive in the west on March 1918, hoping to achieve a decisive victory in the West before U.S. troops arrived in significant numbers. Failure left the German Imperial Army exhausted and demoralised. When the Allies took the offensive in August 1918, the Germans could do nothing more than slow it.Between 29 September and 3 November 1918, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary agreed to armistices with the Allies, leaving Germany isolated. Facing revolution at home, and with his army on the verge of mutiny, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on 9 November. The Armistice of 11 November 1918 brought the fighting to a close, while the Paris Peace Conference imposed various settlements on the defeated powers, the best-known being the Treaty of Versailles. The dissolution of the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires resulted in the creation of new independent states, among them Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. For reasons still debated, failure to manage the instability that resulted from this upheaval during the interwar period contributed to the outbreak of World War II in September 1939.

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