I thought it was some guy named like a rock group.
If you want to hear what I know about WW1, then you’ll have to attend class in a few weeks. We are just getting to Imperialism. My WW1 lectures will start around Feb. 15th.
Some dude was all like, “Grrrrrr I hate things and stuff. And I don’t have enough cream cheese.” So he goes and steals some from this other dude. And that dude was all like, “Oh no he didn’t! He’s gettin bitch slapped.” So they start slapping each other on the bums.
As they were slapping each other they fell over onto some other dudes and they got their knickers in a twist and then they started slapping bums and next thing you know everyone is out of cream chese.
I was never really interested in history of wars and didn’t really pay attention in school.
-Somebody named Ferdinand was assassinated, tinderbox exploded.
-Trench warfare ensued
-The war helped spread influenza around the world which killed many more people than the war.
-The losers were made to pay for the war which led to WWII
It starts with Franz Ferdinand.
At Christmas, they play football.
At some point, my grandfather is gassed, and shot twice, leading to him being sent home. He meets a nurse who becomes my grandmother. So I’m here.
Congratulations. They drafted everyone in Arkansas and sent them with your grandfather, so they drafted my grandfather from Alabama and sent him to help with the harvest at a rice farm in Stuttgart, Arkansas, where he met my grandmother, and I am also here.
But back to the OP…
Duke Franz Ferdinand’s driver gets lost. Gavrillo Princeps, would be assassin is standing dejectedly in a street cafe drowning his sorrows when, son of a gun, the Duke’s chauffeur stops to ask for directions. Gavrillo shoots Mr. and Mrs. Duke.
The Austro Hungarian Empire makes demands of Serbia and attacks even though most of them are answered.
While Emperor Franz Joseph attacks the Serbians, German Emperor Wilhelm II and Russian Czar Nicholas II beg each other not to fight, but do anyway.
Nicholas tells his generals to demobilize, they respond, “Sir, we have no plans for demobilization.” Each Russian cartridge has to be carried by sled from Russia to the front. I believe Russia enters from agreements with the Serbians, and France enters from agreements with the Russians. England jumps in for…Christ, not Poland, that’s the next round in '38…
Cavalry discovers machine guns, infantry discovers machine guns, trenches, poison gas and tanks.
American joins up when the Lusitania, a passenger liner carrying British munitions and having new gun mounts that makes it appear to be armed, is sunk by a German submarine. My grandfather begins picking rice and admiring the pulchritudinous red head.
But I digress.
The Germans send Lenin back to Russia, and the Soviets withdraw from the war and murder the Tsar and his family at Ekaterinberg, ending the reign of the Romanovs. Their bodies are chopped up with axes, set afire, and burned with acid. Jewelry was a large industry in the area, but ceases because no more acid is available to etch metal. The Royal Family is eventually discovered with the remains of some servants in a mine. They are interned in St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s. I believe that was built by Peter the Great.
Germany almost beats the Royal Navy. The saga of flash doors and “Something seems to be wrong with our bloody ships today” has already been mentioned.
Germany can’t sustain the war with American soldiers too, and the government falls. A naval mutiny is put down by submarines, the crews of which remain loyal to each other.
Wilhelm flees to…Switzerland? Is visited there in WWII by German officers, although they are forbidden to do so by Hitler. Hey, if they could have won WWI except for traitors and Jews, the first thing he should do is welcome the Kaiser back to the throne, right? 
France insists on a terrible war debt for Germany. Germans carry their money around in wheel barrows. They pay it off, though, and a guy who was a message runner and counted gas masks in a warehouse becomes Chancellor.
Round two begins.
My Father and his brother join that one, Uncle Bill doesn’t come back.
I spent over half an hour typing all the unusual trivia I know about WWI, and when I hit “submit” the site told me my log-in had expired, though if I hit the back button I could re-submitt. It ate my post anyway. Sometimes I hate this site.
But anyway, maybe that’s for the best, so I was meant to submit this photo. Not an especially dramatic visual image, but, when I consider what I’m seeing, one of the most horrible:
In Flanders field the poppies blow …something something something something
Trenches
Machine guns
Black Adder
I’m American.
But the Ostrich died in vain!
I’m Dutch. We weren’t in WWI.
It was the best of times… Trenches, experiments with planes and blimps, machine guns, chemical warfare, shellshock, rotting feet. Actually, it was the worst of times.
I’m a Yank.
Well, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, as was somehow foretold by crows who had a habit of showing up whenever something bad was about to happen in his family.
Then there was a lot of warfare, none of which apparently solved anything, because we all ended up having to do it again 20-25 years later, depending on what country we were.
Then the soldiers all went home and accidentally killed more people than had died in combat.
O.k., just in case it didn’t eat my prior post, I forgot to mention WWI also gave us someone for Snoopy to pretend to battle while flying around on his doghouse.
If my prior post was lost, rest assured that I remember a few other details.
Dude, they’re the same guy. Did you skip my post upthread, or what?
OK, I’ll play. Off the top of my head, I know that the official explanation is that Duke Ferdinand (my closest recollection) was assasinated, setting off a series of events beginning in Serbia and eventually engulfing multiple nations in a war.
I know/have heard that the death toll was unprecidented, both due to the scope of the fighting, the conditions, and the emergence of a flu pandemic (which some researchers conclude had its epicenter among the troops due to their vulnerability due to overcrowded, dismall conditions and/or exposure to chemical toxins which lowered their immunity.)
I know that many in the US opposed involvement…there was a rather large movement of isolationism and/or pacifism (not always linked), and that the first woman elected to Congress, Jeanette Rankin, voted no to the US getting involved. (think that’s right…or was she of the WW2 era? Pretty sure WW1, but you said no peeking, so…)
And I know that a special Congressional investigation into the causes of the war afterwards concluded that the/a (?) primary cause was international arms dealing/war profiteers fueling regional/ethnic disputes.
That’s about it.
Oh yes, American. Film major, ftr, not history. 
Ah, yes, and Black Adder…
Invincible until he was shot dead by one Lord Flashheart.
After that, to honor this great warrior, they named a brand of frozen pizza after him.
There is some question as to whether he was killed by an aircraft or ground fire.
Um…
I’m guessing you didn’t watch Blackadder growing up.
May we suggest?
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
I’m going to talk about the background more than the war.
World War 1 was ultimately started not because of any one person or gorup. However, if we had to pick one, Kaiser WIlhelm is a good candidate. In actual fact, he wasn’t nearly as aggressive as generally protrayed. Both in his own day and after the british and French thought he was a psycho militarist, but he was more bombast than bomb blast, if you take my meaning.
The roots of it go back to Bismarck. He was able to forge a united Germany under the Hohenzollerns, and afterwards managed to create the Three Emperor’s League out of Germany, Austria, and Russia. This was a damn-near invincible alliance. However, it was always a bit shaky. The three sovereigns were partly related but had no real affection. Meanwhile, Austria was declining and Russia undergoing serious internal unrest. The League eventually broke down because Bismarck honestly brokered a conference of Euro-powers to decide the issue of Russia’s conquest of Turkish territory. He also added a lot of colonies, although they were primarily just to make sure Britain and France knew Germany was watching them.
Eventually, Kaiser Wilhelm got rid of Bismarck, although B. was old enough that he could not have continued too many more years anyhow. Wilhelm was anxious and had a HUGE chip on his shoulder over Britain. His mother was English and had a rather unpleasant attitude towards Wilhelm. An incompetent doctor had torn one shoulder ligament at birth and his right arm was crippled - and she never let him forget that he was “imperfect”. This probably contributed to his bombastiic need to make a splash and be admired. His desire to have the love of England (always insulted by his English royal relatives) came out of this, but also a certain hatred of England’s refusal to accept a united, strong Germany.
While Kaiser WIlhelm tended to put his foot in international diplomacy, he was partly a victim of England and France covering for each other and overreacting, too. He was a bit more showy and pushy, but not really mroe aggressive. In the run-up to WW1, he made a critical error in not pursuing Russia’s favor, who instead allied with Britain. Because fo this, Austria was really his only ally,and he was not going to let British and Russian threats force them to back down.
Taken this way, WW1 was essentially the world’s bloodiest family feud.