World War one trenches.
By: Logan Crim
How the war started
The simplest answer is that the immediate cause was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria-Hungary. His death at the hands of Gavrilo Princip – a Serbian nationalist with ties to the secretive military group known as the Black Hand – propelled the major European military powers towards war.
Casualties
World War I was over 38 million: there were over 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history. The total number of deaths includes about 11 million military personnel and about 7 million civilians.
How these casualties were caused.
A lot of the casualties were caused by weapons that would deliver unbearable pain. Some of these weapons were heavy machine guns poison gas, disease, explosives, or even of exhaustion. So many had suffered from these weapons and in the end millions had died.
poison gas
The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals, such as tear gas and the severe mustardgas, to lethal agents like phosgene and chlorine. This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century. You couldn't see smell or taste this gas the way most knew it was around was when they were choking on their own blood.
Trench foot
Many soldiers fighting in the first world war suffered from trench foot. This was an infection of the feet caused by cold, wet and insanitary conditions. In the trenches men stood for hours on end in waterlogged trenches without being able to remove wet socks or boots. The feet would gradually go numb and the skin would turn red or blue. If untreated, trench foot could turn gangrenous and result in amputation.