Most people who know anything about World War 1 know about the Western Front. They know about the trenches of Flanders. They know about the Somme and Verdun. They know about the mud and the machine guns and the Christmas Truce and the poets who wrote about dying in foreign fields. What most people do…
In August 1914, cavalry officers rode to war on horseback, carrying swords. In November 1918, the war ended with tanks rolling across the battlefield, aircraft dropping bombs from the sky, poison gas drifting on the wind, and artillery shells falling from distances of more than twenty kilometres. In four years, warfare had been transformed more…
What Was the Western Front? The Western Front was the main battlefield of World War 1, stretching approximately 700 kilometres from the North Sea in Belgium to the Swiss border. It was defined by trench warfare, static front lines, and some of the deadliest battles in human history between 1914 and 1918. Draw a line…
The short answer is simple. World War 1 started on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. It ended on November 11, 1918, when the Armistice came into effect at 11 o’clock in the morning. Four years, three months, and fourteen days. Somewhere between 17 and 20 million people dead. The map of…
Imagine being told that your job — your entire purpose in the war — was to sit in a hole in the ground and wait. Not to charge heroically across open ground. Not to outmaneuver the enemy with brilliant tactics. Not to win decisive battles that would be remembered in history books. Just to sit….
For nearly three years, the United States watched the worst war in human history from a safe distance. While Europe tore itself apart — while the Somme consumed 57,000 British soldiers in a single day, while Verdun ground on for ten months and 700,000 casualties, while poison gas drifted across the trenches of the Western…
In June 1919, the most powerful men in the world gathered in the most extravagant building in the world to sign a document that was supposed to end war forever. The Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles — 73 metres long, lined with 357 mirrors, built by Louis XIV to demonstrate the absolute…
At exactly 11 o’clock on the morning of November 11, 1918, the guns stopped. After four years, three months, and fourteen days of continuous warfare — after the deaths of somewhere between 17 and 20 million people — the Western Front fell silent. Soldiers on both sides climbed out of their trenches, sat on the…
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the guns on the Western Front The Western Front Explained — The Main Battlefield of World War 1fell silent. After four years, three months, and fourteen days of fighting — after the deaths of somewhere between 17 and 20 million people…