FIRST WORLD WAR 1914 - 1918

A complex web of alliances drew most of the nations of Europe into
a cataclysmic war that ended costing millions of lives. Fought on 
three fronts by land - the Western Theatre in France and Belgium.
The Eastern Front in Russia and Poland, and the Southern Front in
Italy, the war was charactersied by an era of trench warfare and
stalemate. Battles in the West such as the various battles at Ypres,
Passchendael, Vimy Ridge, Verdun, Cambrai,the Somme, the Marne etc were
bloody and inconclusive.

On the Eastern Front the Russian Armies were ill-equipped and the ordinary
Russian soldier led a miserable existence - helping to foment the Revolution
of 1917, after which Russia and Germany signed an armistice. With troops
freed from the East, Germany tried one last push at Amiens in 1918 but
was stopped bu the French,Americans and British. Unrest in Germany led
to an armistice and the end of the war. The Treaty of Versailles which
followed settled new borders and created new European countries built in
doing so, sowed the seeds for a future conflict.....