Signifance of World War 1
On the 29th of July 1914 the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated this caused a chain of events which led to World War 1. The war went from 1914 to 1918 and weapons were introduced which caused casualties on a very large scale. Many parts of the world became involve with the fighting because they had empires around the world and this is why it was called World War.
About 10 million were killed and 20 million were wounded in a result of combat. Australia lost over 50 thousand men which was a huge toll in a population of 4.5 million. 4 major Europeon empires disappeared which were the Austro-Russian, German and Ottoman empires. Their royal families also lost their powers. As a result of the war new nations emerged as old empires were destroyed.
After the war a Peace Conference was held in Paris to work out a peace sediment so that they world could return to normal. At this conference Australia used the opportunity to secure its borders by gaining control of German New Guinea. Australia was also allowed to contine its racially discriminatory White Australia policy.
Britian was afraid as their was a large amount of German migrates in the USA that they might be influenced to enter the war on Germany's side. In 1917 through the Balfour Declaration Britian supported a Jewish home land in the Middle East as many of the German migrates were Jewish. Austria-Hungary was broken up into smaller states including Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Turkey became a morden republic after the break up of the Ottomam empire.
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