World War 1

In the hundred years before 1914 there were no major conflicts in Europe. A balance of power between the great powers had kept the peace, but it was a peace fraught with rivalry and fear, and increasing German aggression.
When the peace was shattered – by an assassination in Sarajevo – all the major countries of Europe were plunged into a terrible war.
Most of the fighting was done by infantry in trenches. Men died in their thousands to gain a few metres of Belgian mud. After four years of futile fighting, Germany surrendered. The terms imposed on the exhausted and humiliated nation led directly to World War II.