A French Trench
Douaumont Ossuary
The First World war was triggered by the assassination, in Sarajevo, of the archduke François-Ferdinand, heir of the throne of Austria, this event only crystallised existing tensions. It was the detonator of a war with deeper origins.
During the war of 1914-1918 Calais was targeted by the Germans, but the Allies fiercely defended their landing site and provisioning centre. The Germans never reached Calais. The front at Flanders on the Yser and the fronts of Artois and the Somme held the invaders firmly at a distance.
The human balance sheet of the First World war came to about 9 million dead and about 8 million wounded, that is about 6 000 deaths a day. Proportionately, France was the most affected country with 1.4 million killed and missing, that is 10 % of masculine working population.
Military deaths in World War I:
Russia 1,811,000
France 1,397,800
UK 885,138
America 116,708
Battle of Verdun
