the iron giants rumbled across the field toward the German occupied village Without warning the tanks began firing their machine guns which were mounted on both sides of each vehicle The bullets tore into the wood and brick buildings of the village where the German soldiers were positioned The tanks pushed down walls and flattened everything that stood in their way As they did the British commander ordered Chaney and his companions into the village There they overwhelmed the German troops and took hundreds of prisoners Chaney had witnessed the birth of a new battlefield weapon the armored tank This powerful fighting machine would come to dominate all future wars Yet it will always be remembered for making its debut on the bloody battlefields of World War I 1914 1918 A WORLDWIDE TRAGEDY World War I also known as the Great War was fought on a scale never before known or imagined It was the first truly world war fought by more than 65 million soldiers from five continents from North America to Asia Roughly 8 5 million soldiers sailors and airmen were killed and 21 million were wounded Another 5 million civilians are estimated to have died from warfare hunger and
The Great War was tremendously damaging to both people and landscapes The four years of brutal fighting changed the world in cataclysmic ways The great sprawling empires and monarchies of Europe Russia Germany and Austria Hungary were shattered and replaced by new forms of government The Ottoman Empire was defeated and split apart giving birth to new nations in the Middle East The United States which entered the war late began its rise as an international superpower In combat the Great War was a conflict of firsts It was the first war to make use of chemical weapons such as the poison gases chlorine and mustard gas Mass bombings of civilian populations from aircraft occurred for the
first time Tanks made their first appearance thundering across battlefields throughout Europe Some historians call World War I a tragic and unnecessary conflict Could the worldwide tragedy that toppled governments and caused millions of deaths have been avoided through diplomacy After all diplomacy had settled quarrels between these very same warring nations in the recent past Why didn't diplomacy work this time What events thrust the world's leading powers to the edge of conflict and then further into the chaos of bloody combat AMBITIONS FEARS AND ALLIANCES Historians often view the year 1870 as the starting point of major hostilities between the powerful nations of Europe In that year France fearful of a unification of independent German states declared war on several of those states The better trained and larger German army quickly defeated the French France was forced to turn over to Germany its northeast provinces of Alsace and Lorraine which lay on Germany's western border Otto von Bismarck the German chancellor used the victory to establish the German Empire In the years following the war German industry boomed As Germany gained industrial power it began competing with other European nations including France for overseas trade
Russia too had dreams of expansion especially in the Balkans a large region of southeast Europe Russia viewed itself as the protector of Serbia a Slavic nation wishing to free itself completely from the influence of Austria Hungary Austria Hungary was a union of the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary Many of its inhabitants were Slavic minorities such as Serbs who resented Austrian rule By the eve of war in 1914 Europe was THE ARMS RACE divided into two major alliances Nations in each alliance agreed to come to the aid of their partners should the parties be threatened by military aggression Germany Austria Hungary and Italy formed the Triple Alliance The United Europe's mounting tensions and rivalries led to a military buildup across the continent France increased its army from 611 000 to 850 000 between 1912 and 1913 and Germany's army grew similarly Other countries also increased military spending from 1900 until the war Fearful of war with the United Kingdom Germany began a program of building a navy to surpass the powerful British fleet The United Kingdom which had been the world's dominant naval force for 100 years responded by engaging Germany in a naval arms race Kingdom France and Russia came together to form the Triple Entente also known as the Allies Rival governments glorified their military strength and whipped up patriotic passions and distrust of other countries Europe was caught in the grip of fear national pride honor and the alliances each nation had
