![]() ![]() Unlike wars in past centuries, hapless combatants, armed mainly with bayonet-equipped rifles, faced unforeseen threats, which grew out of expanding mechanization and scientific research: As war fever swept England, fed by hate propaganda on both sides, feisty tommies sang "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" to their girls before leaving for places that many people had never heard of: the Marne and Somme rivers, Jutland, Bruges, Zeebrugge, Verdun, Flanders, Chateau-Thierry, Ypres, Calais, Gallipoli, the Ardennes Forest, and parts of the Falkland Islands. England, backed by Japan, supported Belgium and declared war on the aggressors. Germany and Austria-Hungary comprised the Central Powers that invaded Belgium. Late that summer, Germany and Great Britain, trade rivals, and France, which coveted the mineral-rich district of Alsace-Lorraine, entered the fray, which included Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Arabs, and, eventually, Italians and Turks as well. ![]() Spurred by Serbian terrorism, animosities spread to countries that were interlinked by pacts, treaties, and mutual aims. Called the "Great War" for its complex involvement of nations extending from northern Europe to northern Africa, western Asia, and the United States, World War I dates officially to Gavrilo Princip's shooting of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, as they crossed the River Miljachka in Sarajevo, Bosnia, June 28, 1914. ![]()
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