Russia declared war against Austria-Hungary because of its alliance with Serbia, Germany entered the war because of its alliance with Austria-Hungary, and the British became involved after Germany had invaded the neutral territory of Belgium. The murder prompted Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia, which initiated the start of World War I as international allies followed their comrades into battle. The two sides found themselves and their interests increasingly at odds for decades leading up to the war.įinally, on June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austria-Hungary monarchy, was killed by a Serbian teenager named Gavrilo Princip who believed that Serbia should be in control of Bosnia, which was a colony of Austria-Hungary at the time. Meanwhile, The Triple Entente consisted of Great Britain, France, and Russia. In The Triple Alliance, Germany aligned itself with Austria-Hungary and Italy, eventually aligning with the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria as well. In the years before the war, Germany and Austria-Hungary were particularly aggressive in their takeovers and conquered small countries like Bosnia and Morocco in order to expand their empires quickly.Īnd as these ruling empires grew and carved up more of the world for their own, they formed alliances with each other. Naturally, some of these nations found themselves competing with others for territory and power. In 1914, the great powers of Europe still mostly maintained vast colonial empires around the world. The underlying causes of World War I are both complicated and forever in debate, but it largely comes down to a long-simmering, continent-wide power struggle between several allied groups across Europe. Underwood Archives/Getty Images French infantrymen face a curtain of fire in front of Fort Vaux during the Battle of Verdun. This is the bloody story of the Battle of Verdun. Some scholars even say that it was the first of its kind in history, the original modern instance of each side having only one true goal: to exhaust the enemy's forces. No matter the heroic figures who emerged in the aftermath, the Battle of Verdun itself was a ghastly conflict of attrition unlike anything ever seen before. The conflict even saw the first participation of any American forces during World War I. On the German side, the fearsome fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, dubbed "the Red Baron," saw his first combat in Verdun. French commander Philippe Petain, for example, made a name for himself during this battle as the "Lion of Verdun" and eventually became France's head of state during the Vichy years of World War II. While all this bloodshed resulted in no traditional "victory" for either side, at least some historic figures and legends emerged from the battle.
And they did, as did the French: In total, more than 700,000 people were killed or injured between the two sides, with the casualties split about evenly between them. Indeed, rather than take territory, the Germans ultimately resolved to simply take lives. The length of the battle, the bloody stalemate in which it ended, and the sheer scale of the military power on both the French and German sides made the Battle of Verdun perhaps the most brutally characteristic clash of World War I as a whole. 18, 1916, France's Battle of Verdun was not only the longest battle of World War I, but also the longest in all of modern military history.
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