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With this starts the First World War -
Germany planned to quickly defeat France in the west and then race back to fight Russia in the East. Speed was important because the Germans had to defeat France quickly before Russia was ready to fight -
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The British, with their overwhelming sea power, established a naval blockade of Germany immediately on the outbreak of war in August 1914, by issuing a comprehensive list of contraband that all but prohibited American trade with the Central Powers and in early November 1914 by declaring the North Sea to be a war zone -
According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan, Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east. -
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Italy entered into the First World War in 1915 with the aim of completing national unity -
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By 1915, German imports had fallen by 55% from pre-war levels. Aside from causing shortages in important raw materials such as coal and various non-ferrous metals, the blockade cut off fertiliser supplies that were vital to German agriculture. -
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A crisis starts -
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It removed Russia from the war and brought about the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), replacing Russia's traditional monarchy with the world's first Communist state. -
On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. ... The House concurred two days later. -
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The Spring Offensives of 1918 were Germany's last attempt to defeat the British and French armies on the Western Front, and thereby win total victory -
Concluded on 30 October 1918 and taking effect at noon the next day, the Armistice of Mudros ended hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I. -
The war ended with an armistice, an agreement in which both sides agree to stop fighting, rather than a surrender. ... With the United States able to send more and more fresh troops into combat, the Germans were outmatched. As Germany's allies crumbled around them as well, the war's outcome seemed clear -
The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly five years after the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, sparking the outbreak of the war