It was a war that changed the world forever. But it may never have started, had it not been for this guy, Gavrilo Princip. On June 28, 1914, he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, of Austria, and it started a massive chain reaction. Austria declared war on Serbia. And countries supporting both sides came to help. Suddenly a small war became a big one. On one side were the Allies, including countries like France, Britain and Russia. On the other were the Central Powers. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, which is now Turkey.
At the time, Australia was still a member of the British Empire, so they were part of the Allies. The word went out for volunteers, and more than four hundred thousand young men enlisted. Some young teenagers also wanted to fight, so they lied about their age to get in. On April 25, 1915, Australian and New Zealand soldiers, by then known as the ANZACS, landed at Gallipoli. More than 50,000 Australians fought in the eight-month long campaign. It's remembered as the first real battle we took part in as a nation.
But most of the fighting didn't happen here. It happened on the Western Front, in France. From 1914 until the end of the war, both sides dug and fought from large trench and dugout systems. Trenches helped protect soldiers from guns and artillery, but life could be tough. A big threat was disease. The trenches weren't clean, there wasn't much medical help, and at times it got really cold. Many soldiers died because of the conditions they lived in, and the spread of disease.
As the war went on, more technology was designed to break the deadlock. The first fighter planes battled over the trenches, while bombers made raids behind enemy lines. The first ever tanks hit the frontlines to combat trench warfare. There was now fighting on the ground, in the air, and at sea.
In April 1917, America entered the war assisting the Allies. Hundreds of thousands of troops flooded the front lines. By early 1918, Germany, and its allies, had defeated Russia on the Eastern Front, and made a big push in France. But Germany's attack failed. The Allies mounted their own offensive, retaking territory from Germany. The tide was turning.
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