- The war was the result of a complex series of agreements made between European countries in the early years of the 20th century. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in June 1914 proved to be the spark that ignited the conflict.
- The nations at war included, on the Allied side, the British Empire, France, Belgium, Italy, Russia and, from 1917, the United States. Germany, Austro-Hungary and Turkey were among the countries which fought as the Central Powers.
- Most of the Great War's battlefields were in Europe. The Western Front stretched from the North Sea to Switzerland, and included infamous battlefields like the Somme and the Ypres Salient. The Central Powers fought against Russia on the Eastern Front, while the Allies engaged with the Turkish forces of Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean and North Africa.
- Millions of men died as a result of the Great War. According to Sir John Keegan, formerly of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Princeton University, British Empire deaths total around 1 million, while 1,700,000 French, 2 million German and 1,500,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers died in the conflict.
- The use of the word "Great" to describe the war was made concrete by the medal awarded to all the soldiers who served in the victorious Allied forces. Each army's medal had a slightly different design, but each called the conflict "The Great War for Civilisation."
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