Germans were the first to use flamethrowers in WWI. Their flamethrowers could fire jets of flame as far as 130 feet.
More than 65 million men from 30 countries fought in WWI.
There were over 35 million civilian and soldier casualties in WWI. Over 15 million died and 20 million were wounded.
Nearly 2/3 of military deaths in WWI were in battle. In previous conflicts, most deaths were due to disease.
During WWI, the Spanish flu caused about 1/3 of total military deaths.
Russia mobilized 12 million troops during WWI, making it the largest army in the war. More than 3/4 were killed, wounded, or went missing in action.
During WWI, British tanks were initially categorized into “males” and “females.” Male tanks had cannons, while females had heavy machine guns.
Artillery barrage and mines created immense noise. In 1917, explosives blowing up beneath the German lines on Messines Ridge at Ypres in Belgium could be heard in London 140 miles away
The Pool of Peace is a 40-ft (12-m) deep lake near Messines, Belgium. It fills a crater made in 1917 when the British detonated a mine containing 45 tons of explosives.
During WWI, dogs were used as messengers and carried orders to the front lines in capsules attached to their bodies. Dogs were also used to lay down telegraph wires.
Tanks were initially called “land ships.” However, in an attempt to disguise them as water storage tanks rather than as weapons, the British decided to code name them “tanks.”
To increase the size of the U.S. Army during WWI, Congress passed the Selective Service Act, which was also known as the conscription or draft, in May 1917. By the end of the war, 2.7 million men were drafted. Another 1.3 million volunteered.
During WWI, people of German heritage were suspect in the U.S. Some protests against Germans were violent, including the burning of German books, the killing of German shepherd dogs, and even the murder of one German-American.
The total cost of WWI for the U.S. was more than $30 billion.
The war left thousands of soldiers disfigured and disabled. Reconstructive surgery was used to repair facial damage, but masks were also used to cover the most horrific disfigurement. Some soldiers stayed in nursing homes their entire lives.
WWI is the sixth deadliest conflict in world history.
World War I was also known as the Great War, the World War, the War of the Nations, and the War to End All Wars.
WWI was fought from 1914-1918 on every ocean and on almost every