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A Serbian nationalist student, Gavrilo Princip, assassinated the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, when their open car stopped at a corner on its way out of the town.
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The Austrian government blamed the Serbian government for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife and declared war on Serbia. Although Russia was allied with Serbia, Germany did not believe that she would mobilise and offered to support Austria if necessary.
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Germany declared war on Russia. Germany declared war on France. German troops poured into Belgium as directed under the Schleiffen Plan, drawn up in 1905. The British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, sent an ultimatum to Germany demanding their withdrawal from the neutral Belgium. British also declare war on Germany.
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There outraged protests from the United States at the German U-boat campaign, when the Lusitania, which had many American passengers aboard, was sank. The Germans moderated their U-boat campaign.
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The Germans mounted an attack on the French at Verdun designed to 'bleed the French dry'. Although the fighting continued for nine months, the battle was inconclusive. Casualties were enormous on both sides with the Germans losing 430,000 men and the French 540,000.
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This was the only truly large-scale naval battle of the war. German forces, confined to port by a British naval blockade, came out in the hope of splitting the British fleet and destroying it ship by ship. However, the British admiral, Beatty, aware that the German tactics were the same as those used by Nelson at Trafalgar, sent a smaller force to lure the German's into the range of Admiral Jellicoe's main fleet. Although Beatty's idea worked, the exchange of fire was brief and the German's with
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The first German air raid on London took place. The Germans hoped that by making raids on London and the South East, the British Air Force would be forced into protecting the home front rather than attacking the German air force.
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In Germany, orders were given to step up the U-boat campaign. All allied or neutral ships were to be sunk on sight and in one month almost a million tons of shipping was sunk. Neutral countries became reluctant to ship goods to Britain and Lloyd George ordered all ships carrying provisions to Britain to be given a convoy.
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The United States of America declared war on Germany in response to the sinking, by German U boats, of US ships.
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At 11 am, in the French town of Redonthes, the Armistice was signed bringing the war to an end. A total of 65,038,810 troops were mobilized during the WW1, out of which 8,538,315 were either killed or they died. 21,219,452 were wounded. 7,750,919 were made prisoners. So, the total casualties of World War 1 were 37,508,686 which makes 57.6% of the total troops that were mobilized.
