WW1 centenary: 20 fascinating facts behind the First World War

It has been one hundred years since Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia initiating WWI.

14:02 04 August 2014

1.Although World War One often conjures up images of horrific bloodbaths, did you know that on Christmas Eve in 1914, armies on both sides agreed to a truce? On Christmas day, they exchanged food and cigarettes. They even played a friendly game of football against each other, with Germany winning 3-2. It represented a brief moment that gave hope of peace during what had become a long and horrific conflict. 

 

2. How about this for carried sound? A group of miners, who were working in total secrecy, dug tunnels up to 100ft underground to plant and detonate mines beneath the enemy’s trenches. 900,000lbs of explosives were simultaneously detonated at Messines Ridge in Belgium and the subsequent explosions were heard by the British prime minister in Downing St. 

 

3.President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany, a month after he took office and after he campaigned with the slogan “He kept us out of the war.” 

 

4.Journalists who braved to report the realities of war faced the death penalty. 

 

5.During WWI, tanks coming from Great Britain were categorised as “males” and “females”. Female tanks were lighter and male tanks had heavier armament. 

 

6.Surprisingly, letters from Britain were delivered to the front of France in just two days during the war. In the end, there were two billion letters and 114 million parcels delivered during the conflict. 

 

7.Four empires crumbled under World War I – Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman. 

 

8.Many women, who had to work while men went to fight the war, were exposed to dangerous chemicals that gave them toxic jaundice turning their skin yellow. 

 

9.Native Americans in the Choctaw tribe were hired by US military to prevent the Germans from figuring out Allied codes. 

 

10.Surgeon Harold Gillies helped victims whose faces were damaged by shrapnel, pioneering the technique of plastic surgery. 

 

11.Although WWI was previously thought as the one to end all the wars, WWII began just 20 years after the first one. 

 

12.One of the best poets of WWI was Wilfred Owen, but he was unknown to many until as late as the 1960s when the literary elite decided to publish his works. 

 

13.France, with the goal to protect Paris from further bomb raids, built replicas of famous sites and buildings. However, the last German air raids ended before the “fake Paris” was finished. 

 

14.12-year-old Sidney Lewis was the youngest British soldier to fight WWI. Several young boys during that time were either motivated by patriotism or have enlisted to escape from their 'dreary' lives only to face the devastating reality of life (and death) on the frontline. 

 

15.Russia deployed 12 million troops, of which 75per cent became casualties. 

 

16.Britain faced the risk of financial meltdown during WWI. 

 

17.The US Navy used dazzle camouflage to make it difficult for the enemy to figure out the type, size, speed, and direction of travel of the ship. 

 

18.British Army, in the hopes to save as many of its soldiers as possible, began the routine of blood transfusions to treat wounded soldiers. Blood was transferred directly from one person to another. 

 

19.Generals were banned from fighting to keep them from getting killed, despite many of them being desperate to 'go over the top' (of the trenches and charge). 

 

20.Hitler, then a soldier, had to trim his full-sized mustache to the shape we know of today so he could easily wear a protective mask.