People thought the war would be over quickly. Experts and leaders thought economies simply wouldn’t be able to keep up with the costs for long.<br /><br />On the other hand, powers had been building up for a war like this for years, and new rail transport in Europe would accelerate mobilisations. <br /><br />They had defence deals with others in case of attack. One was the Triple Alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary and Italy, another the Triple Entente of France, the United Kingdom and Czarist Russia. <br /><br />Austria-Hungary was junior to Germany in strength but both belligerents acted to bolster their prestige.<br /><br />Britain backed France under a prior agreement to stop Germany changing the balance of continental power. Swiftly, the whole world became involved. <br /><br />One key assassination — of the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne the Archduke Franz Ferdinand — flung the armies into battle. <br /><br />The prevailing mentality among war planners was to press massive attacks. Yet overwhelming strength was never enough. The lines bogged down in trench carnage for more than four years. <br /><br />Sixty million soldiers fought. More than nine million of them were killed, and almost the same number of civilians. The wounded and disabled counted 20 million. <br /><br />Then, Imperial Russia stopped fighting, leaving Germany free to concentrate on the western front. Then the Americans joined in.<br /><br />Before the mighty intervention of the United States, however, the killing brought mass mutiny among the French. Mutiny also threatened among the Germans as their efforts neared collapse. <br /><br />The German high command, renouncing the Kaiser (who fled into exile in the neutral Netherlands), sought an armistice.<br /><br />A few photos recorded the signing in a railroad carriage at Compiègne, outside Paris. On that day, on “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918, a ceasefire came into effect. <br /><br />The sides remained formally at war until the conclusive Treaty of Versailles of June 1919.<br /><br />Although the armistice was celebrated, entire societies were warped and shocked. So many men were gone. Many returned to their home countries permanently damaged. <br /><br />Whole nations, whether defeated or victorious, were less populated and poorer after the most ruinous war in history.
