World War I

Throughout history, war has been the catalyst sparking change that ultimately shapes an era. World War I is no different in this sense. The Great War led to tremendous loss of life and property. Additionally, it prompted significant technological advancement and alterations in warfare strategies. Finally, World War I changed the power structure of the world, paving the way for World War II. World War I was a very pivotal event in the Twentieth Century, laying the roots for future conflicts such as World War II.

The Great War caused immense loss of life and destroyed millions of dollars of property. World War I resulted in approximately fifty million casualties, the most destructive war in history other than World War II. This significantly hurt the economies of the European countries because of the number of people taken out of the workforce. In France, millions of dollars of property was destroyed by the war due to the constant shelling on the Western Front. This also happened in Russia on the Eastern Front as well as in the other lesser known fronts of the war such as in Israel. Rebuilding became a long and expensive process, further impacting the economic health of these areas. The costs to recover from this world conflict had lasting effects impacting many nations, caused by the immense destructive nature of the Great War due to the new technological innovations that emerged.

Throughout the course of World War I, warfare tactics underwent a major evolution, which aided in the advent of new technologies. In the beginning of the war, the Allies and the Central Powers used Napoleonic tactics with twentieth century weaponry. This included massive cavalry charges against machine guns and artillery pieces. The result of this was devastating. All of the participants in the charge were usually either captured or killed. Soon, both sides learned that these attempts were futile so they decided to hunker down in trenches to fight the war out, but