‘War to end all wars’

June 28 1914 — Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria, 50, heir to the Austria-Hungary throne, and his wife, Sofia, 46, are assassinated in Bosnia by a Serb nationalist as they ride through the streets of Sarajevo in an open touring car. This sets off a chain of events that plunge the world into a global war involving over 70-million military personnel and claiming about 10-million combatant and 13-million civilian lives. World War 1 had numerous causes: colonial competition, economic rivalry, and various ideological and cultural clashes among the rising states of Europe. The alliances among the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, joined by Bulgaria in the war) and the Allied Powers (Britain, France and Russia, joined by many others) placed peace in a delicate balance. The war sees the first large-scale use of chemical weapons. On April 22 1915, the Germans open the valves of over 6,000 steel cylinders in trenches along their defensive line at Ypres, Belgium, releasing 160 tons of chlorine gas over the French trenches and killing more than 1,000 French and Algerian soldiers within minutes. By the time the Central Powers sign an armistice on November 11 1918, the use of chemical weapons such as chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas has led to about 1.3-million casualties and 90,000 deaths. The “war to end all wars” officially ends with the June 28 1919 Treaty of Versailles.