Beginning of the war World war I began in the Balkans, which was the same place many small war took place. The assassination of the Archduke Archduke Francis Ferdinand was the heir of the throne of Austria-Hungary; he hoped that his sympathy for the Slavs would ease the tension between Austria-Hungary and the Balkans. He and his wife had arranged to tour Bosnia. As the couple rode through Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, an Asian by the …showed first 75 words of 1522 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1522 total…brought in the first primitive tanks but they didn’t make much difference because they were too unreliable and they didn’t have enough. The attack was stopped in November by Haig because it was useless. The allies had gained about seven miles and the battle caused more than one million casualties, 600,000 Germans, 400,000 British, 200,000 French. Even with the losses at Verdum and Somme the Western front stood as solid as ever at the end of 1916.