Computer and video games

Development by committee rarely works. World War I has also been called "The Great War" (a title previously used to refer to the Napoleonic Wars) or sometimes "the war to end all wars" until World War II. The visionary for any game may come from any of the roles outlined. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or particularly harshly affected by the war, such as central Europe, Russia, Germany, and France. Now, development commonly requires a large team consisting of designers, graphic designers and other artists, programmers, sound designers, musicians, and other technicians; all of which are managed by producers. Communist and socialist movements around the world drew strength from this theory, enjoying a level of popularity they had never known before. Video games are made by developers, who used to do this as individuals or small teams in the 80's. Many people believed that the war heralded the end of the world as they had known it, including the collapse of capitalism and imperialism.

It's only a matter of time before video games will be as accepted as other forms of media and entertainment. Nihilism grew in popularity. In both cases, the attempts at censorship in the United States were struck down as a violation of First Amendment rights, and they have gone on to become fully integrated facets of society. Certainly a sense of disillusionment and cynicism became pronounced. Since these art forms have been around longer, the backlash against them occurred farther in the past, beyond the remembrance of today's youth. Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that only strength and military might could be relied on for protection in a chaotic and inhumane world that did not respect hypothetical notions of civilization. Moreover, it appears to be a question of age. Pacifism became increasingly popular.

The same situation has been applied to Comic books, music, and motion pictures. Some people were revolted by nationalism and what it had caused and began to work toward a more internationalist world through organizations such as the League of Nations. Historically, this type of controversy and criticism is not unique to video games. This social trauma manifested itself in many different ways. Proponents and opponents of censorship are often very passionate about their individual views. For the next few years, much of Europe began its mourning, memorials were erected in thousands of villages and towns. Video game controversy comes in many forms, and censorship is a controversial subject, as well as a popular topic of debate. The optimism of 1900 was entirely gone and those who fought in the war became what is known as "the Lost Generation" because they never fully recovered from their experiences.

Video game censorship is defined as the use of state or group power to control the playing, distribution, purchase, or sale of video games or computer games. The experiences of the war led to a sort of collective national trauma afterwards for all the participating countries. Among others, critics of video games sometimes include parents' groups, politicians, organized religion groups, and other special interest groups, even though all these can be found in all forms of entertainment and media.
. Computer and video games have been the subject of frequent controversy and censorship, due to the depiction of graphic violence, sexual themes, advertising, consumption of illegal drugs, consumption of alcohol or tobacco, propaganda or profanity in some games. Like their British counterparts, Canadians commemorate the war dead on Remembrance Day. Development of techniques are tested against an advanced computer player or online against other human players. Indeed, many Canadians refer to their country as a nation "forged from fire," as Canadians were respected internationally as an independent nation from the conflagarations of war and bravery.

A well-designed game will be easy to pick up but difficult to master, like chess. Similarly, Anglo-Canadians believe that they proved they were their own country, not just subjects of the British Empire. Games which encourage strategic thinking have well-honed rule sets that the player needs to thoroughly grasp. Anzac Day (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) is thus held in great reverence by many Australians and New Zealanders. For example an RTS game set in the past may require use of ancient armies or outwitting a famous world leader of the time. In Australian and New Zealand popular legend, the First World War is known as the nation's "baptism of fire", as it was the first major war which the newly established countrys fought, and is one of the first cases where Australian troops fought as Australians, not just subjects of the British Empire. More obvious benefits to the player is education on the game's subject matter. Their four dynasties, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the Romanovs, who had roots of power back to the days of the Crusades, all fell during or after the war.

It could be said that when players stare at a screen with a blank expression, it isn't one of hopeless mesmerization, but one of intense concentration. No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically--four empires were shattered: the German, the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman and the Russian. To win at a game, the player may devote his/her entire attention to it, and utilise newly-learnt skills or tactics. The direct consequences of World War I brought many old regimes crashing to the ground, and ultimately, would lead to the end of 300 years of European hegemony in the world. An experienced player will be able to do all this in a very short period of time upon first discovering a new game- such quick learning skills can easily be transferred to other areas of mental application. The First World War ended with a Europe scarred by trenches, spent resources, and littered with the bodies of the millions who died in battle. S/he must then learn the game controls and how the human-machine interface works, inclusing menus and HUDs. Dirigible balloons were part of the new found aerial warfare of World War I.

In order to experience the game, the player must first determine the objective(s), as well as how to complete them. The Germans conducted air raids during 1915 and 1916 on England and London with dirigible balloons with the intent of damaging the morale and will to fight of the British and cause aircraft to be reassigned to England away from the front lines. Computer and videogames differ from other forms of entertainment in that the person experiencing them is in control, one way or another. Blimps and balloons helped contribute to the stalemate of the trench warfare of World War I, and the dirigible balloons contributed to air to air combat among the aircraft to defend the skies for air superiority due to its significant reconnaissance value. Online shows are fast becoming the place to view live action gaming broadcasts such as Gamespot's 'On the Spot'. Recognized for their value as observer platforms, they were important targets of enemy aircraft; fixed, they were also heavily defended by antiaircraft guns. Other parodies have come in the form of amateur videos on Tetris or Ghosts and Goblins, such as those of Mega 64. Balloons commonly had a crew of two with parachutes: upon an enemy air attack on the flammable balloon the balloon crew would parachute out.

The success of Penny Arcade has attracted many people in the industry, including Ubisoft. Dirigible balloons were used as stationary reconnaissance points on the front lines. Here, the storylines or jokes revolve around current events in video gaming. Their first use proved tanks needed infantry support and massed formations, but within a year the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds and showed their potential during the Battle of Cambrai, in November 1917, breaking the Hindenburg Line while capturing 8000 enemy and 100 artillery guns. The other is a more traditional comic strip, containing original art, like Penny Arcade. The infantry was armed mostly with a bolt action magazine rifle, but the machine gun with the ability to fire hundreds of rounds per minute stalemated infantry attacks as a defensive weapon; therefore, the British sought a solution and created the tank. Sometimes these are original stories, but are often parodies of the game in which the sprite came from. Trenches, the machine gun, air reconnaissance, barbed wire, and modern artillery with fragmentation shells helped stalemate the battle lines of World War I by making massed infantry attacks deadly for the attacker.

The first one is the sprite comic, such as 8 Bit Theatre, in which the artist uses sprites from the earlier Final Fantasy games to tell stories. This was not as successful as intended, but as a start the tanks proved their value against the machine gun. Currently there are two varieties. The first use of tanks was during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916. On the Internet, gaming has also become a popular subject of many webcomics. The first tank was nicknamed Mother. Also, video games have found themselves on MTV2, in a popular show called Video Mod, where characters from popular video games perform songs from hit artists, such as characters from The Sims 2 performing the song "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains Of Wayne. Tanks were introduced in World War I by the British and created mechanized warfare that dominated the rest of the 20th century.

Some examples of this are the Catwoman and King Arthur movie games along with the entire television-to-game franchise. Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period until World War II revived the need. Some publishers believe that the success of the movie will help the game sell, and so may not have as lengthy a development schedule as needed to make a compelling game. To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines (1916). Even though movies have had more success in game conversion, not all movie games are popular amongst the gaming community. The deaths of British merchantmen and the invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of several countermeasures: depth charges (1916), hydrophones (passive sonar, 1917), blimps, hunter-killer submarines (HMS R-1, 1917), ahead-throwing weapons, & dipping hydrophones (both abandoned 1918). Most summer blockbuster films now have a simultaneous video game release; some of the most lucrative video games of recent times are based on movies, such as Electronic Arts' and Stormfront Studios' The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the series of EA LotR games that followed it, and Activision's two Spider-Man movie games. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare during the First Battle of the Atlantic, they were employed by the Kaiserliche Marine in a strategy of defeating the British Empire through a tonnage war.

Movies have had far more success moving the other direction, onto video games. U-boats (submarines) were used in combat shortly after the war began. Sometime, they even "help" more obscure/Japan-only games pick up popularity in America although rarely; To Heart would be the best example of such thing. Strategic bombing aircraft were created principally by the Germans and British, though the former used Zeppelins to this end as well. cartoons, Sonic SatAM, Captain N: The Game Master and Earthworm Jim while Sonic Underground, the American Mega Man cartoon and 4Kids Entertainment's dubs (although this isn't limited to their video game-based dubs) are cited as being poor. Initial uses consisted primarily of reconnaissance, though this developed into ground-attack and fighter duties as well. Some notable examples of major success includes the various Mario Bros. Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily during the First World War.

On the other hand, video games get much more success when adapted into cartoons/anime. Effective countermeasures to gas were found in gas masks and hence in the later stages of the war, as the use of gas increased, in many cases its effectiveness was diminished. The recently released Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children may change some people's minds though, even though it's a straight to DVD affair. Only a small proportion of total war casualties were caused by gas, but it achieved harassment and psychological effects. Films like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which has received mixed responses from audiences, with some saying it is a great movie, and others saying it is a very bad movie with excellent computer-generated imagery, but ultimately flopped in the box office, and Uwe Boll's House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark, which both ended up being horrible flops both in fan reactions and box office success and both ending up on the IMDB's bottom 100 movies, do not, in turn, give much confidence in whether these movies will be handled seriously. Gases used ranged from tear gas to disabling chemicals such as mustard gas and killing agents like phosgene. There is still debate in the movie industry on whether video games can consistently be turned into good, profitable movies. Chemical warfare was a major distinguishing factor of the war.

John Woo also has producing rights on a movie based on the popular Nintendo game Metroid. The First World War also saw the use of chemical warfare and aerial bombardment, both of which had been outlawed under the 1907 Hague Convention. Doom, a game which film makers were trying to cross over since the mid '90s, finally hit theatres 12 years after its initial release. Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties during the First World War. However, after the initial bunch, many projects materialized that were never finished, but the success of films like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider has led to more films materializing. Such battles include Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Marne, Cambrai, Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. Despite the ultimately poor performance of these movies, many studios still want to turn big games into movies, hoping that the popularity of the game will help the movie. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during the First World War.

Reviews have generally been poor. Much of the war's combat involved trench warfare, where hundreds often died for each metre of land gained. In the mid-90s, films for Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter, Wing Commander and Mortal Kombat were released. This time, millions of soldiers, both volunteers and conscripts fought on all sides, with Kitchener's Army being a notable all volunteer force. One of the first films based on a video game property was The Wizard, which some criticized as a 90-minute ad for Super Mario Brothers 3. The First World War was a clash of 20th century technology with 19th century tactics. Video game properties have had mixed success when migrating to the movies. In the aftermath of World War I, post-war economic depression and nationalist (retributionist) views were a prominent aspect of German public sentiment, an important cornerstone of what would become Nazi ideology.

The success of computer and online gaming there is usually credited to South Korea's push for broadband Internet connections in the home and earlier bans on Japanese products (these restrictions were removed by the late 1990s). It was proposed that Germany had been betrayed from within. StarCraft gosu (expert players) are celebrities in a game that some have called the country's national sport. Accounts from soldiers at the front, as well as the statements made by influential figures such as Ludendorff, seemed to confirm the theory that Germany had not really lost the war. Developers there boast MMORPGs such as Lineage and Ragnarok Online with millions of subscribers and a third of the world's MMOG revenue. At the same time, the nature of Germany's defeat became another topic of controversy. Take for example South Korea. Germany's new democratic government became associated with the Treaty in the public eye.

Computer games are huge business worldwide. The severity of the Treaty helped to raise suspicions about the Weimar Republic. A large number of summer blockbuster films spawn a companion game, often launching at the same time in order to share the marketing costs. Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden pushed through a Military Service Act that caused the Conscription Crisis of 1917. The game and film industries are also becoming increasingly intertwined, with companies like Sony having significant stakes in both. This issue was particularly explosive in Canada, and opened a political gap between the French-Canadians, who claimed their true loyalty was to Canada and not the British Empire, and the English-speaking majority which saw the war as a duty to both Empire and Canada, and a way of demonstrating leadership and high-contribution to the British Empire. This is untrue; in the United States, video game sales have exceeded the movies' total box office revenue each year since about 1996, but the movie studios trounce the video game publishers when the movies' "ancillary revenue" is counted, meaning sales of DVDs, sales to foreign distributors, and sales to cable TV, satellite TV, and broadcast television networks. As the war slowly turned into a war of attrition, conscription was implemented in some countries.

There is a commonly repeated, mistaken belief that video game sales now exceed the revenues of the movie industry. Since the German public had been under the impression that the war was a defensive measure all along, the harsh terms of the agreement did little to discredit this theory. Retail PC game sales have been declining slightly each year since about 1998, but this fact should be taken with a grain of salt: the retail sales numbers from NPD do not include sales from online downloads, nor subscription revenue for games like MMORPGs. For the defeated, the post-war world was an even greater disappointment, for the Treaty of Versailles was a bitter pill to swallow after the armistice. These figures are sales in dollars, not units; unit shipments for each category were higher than the dollar sales numbers indicate, as more software and hardware was sold at reduced prices compared to 2003. Instead of feeling jubilation, the victors entered a period of mourning. It reported that as of 2004:. For combatants and non-combatants alike, the war had been justified for reasons that future generations simply would not be able to understand without seeing the war in the context of the "spirit of 1914".

The NPD Group tracks computer and video game sales in the United States. In reality, the war failed to deliver on both sides. In South Korea, computer games are preferred, especially MMORPG games and real-time strategy games; there are over 20,000 PC bang Internet cafes where computer games can be played for an hourly charge. At the outbreak of the war, it was a widely held belief that the war would usher in a new age of humanity. Japanese consumers avoid computer games and instead buy video games, with a strong preference for games created in Japan, that run on Japanese consoles (1 reason the Xbox series is less popular). The impotence of military leaders, who could not, did not, adapt to modern warfare, and the breakdown of the three empires and subsequent redrawing of borders after the war created a leadership void that gave an extra impulse to new ideologies, including Bolshevism (in Russia), socialism (in the trenches) and Nazism (after the war). Sales of different types of games vary widely between these markets due to local preferences. The longlasting proximity of the trenches often created feelings of comradery across the lines.

[3]. In several places, shots were fired for form only, aimed to miss, even at executions for desertion. China is not considered a significant market, most likely because an estimated 95% of video games sold in the country are pirated. The pointlessness of many (suicide) actions had caused a loss of respect for the leaders. Other significant markets include Spain, Germany, South Korea, France, and Italy. From the first year, there had been spontaneous armistices (such as the 1914 Christmas truce), uprisings and mutinies (such as in France in May 1917) on both sides. The four largest markets for computer and video games are the United States, Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom. This aided the struggle for voting rights for women.

The average age of the video game player is now 30 [2], belying the myth that video games are largely a diversion for teenagers. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost laborers sent to war. The popularity of computer and video games, as a whole, has been increasing steadily ever since the 1984-1987 drop-off caused by the video game crash of 1983, and the popularity appears to be continuing to increase. With the death or absence of the primary wage earner, women were forced into the workforce in unprecedented numbers, at least in many of the Entente powers. This term has now expanded to include any game that has more direct action, with fewer long term objectives, focuses on time limits and, for the most part, shorter in-game levels. Families were altered by the departure of many men. Arcade games that are no longer profitable to lease can be purchased by private individuals, many of whom then explore the game dynamics by altering the programs in minor ways. Here, however, the long term effects were clouded by the defeat of these governments.

Controls are similar to those available for many consoles (albeit usually as peripherals) and range from the classic joystick and buttons (Pac-Man), to light guns (Duck Hunt), to pads on the ground that sense pressure (Dance Dance Revolution). At the same time, the war strained the abilities of the formerly large and bureaucratized governments such as in Austria-Hungary and Germany. These are programmed, equipped, and decorated for a specific game, consisting of a video display, a set of controls, and the coin slot. New taxes were levied, and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the war effort, many of which have lasted to this day. Arcade games, traditionally, are "coin-operated games", played on a standalone device originally leased to commercial entertainment venues. In order to harness all the power of their societies, new government ministries and powers were created. Because they are designed to be played on the go, they were traditionally small enough to carry conveniently in a bag or jacket (the Virtual Boy being an exception to this), but due to their small size, handheld consoles have reduced processing power compared to larger consoles, meaning that games are shorter, and until the release of the Nintendo DS, were largely limited to 2D. One of the most dramatic effects was the expansion of governmental powers and responsibilities in Britain, France, the United States, and the Dominions of the British Empire.

Handheld consoles act as their own controllers, which the player uses to interact with the game, as well as having in-built display and audio output devices. Many consider World War I to have been the first modern war, a total war where the civilian populations were deliberately endangered as a direct tactic of war, which has continued in all subsequent wars. Handheld games are played on handheld game consoles, such as the Nintendo Game Boy line, the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. One of the most distinguishing impacts of the war was that the reality of totality set in. Consoles themselves branched off from personal computers around two decades ago, a fact which is still evident not only in the name, but also in many of the peripherals available for many consoles, like the keyboard and mouse peripherals released for the Sony PlayStation 2 and the Sega Dreamcast. This circular system collapsed in 1931 and the loans were never repaid. The player usually interacts with the game through a controller, and video and sound are typically delivered to the player via a television through composite A/V cables, although most modern consoles support additional outputs, such as surround sound, progressive scan, and High Definition setups through the use of component cables. After 1919, the US demanded repayment of these loans, which, in part, were funded by German reparations, which, in turn, were supported by American loans to Germany.

Console games are played on a video game console,or "home console", a specialized computer specifically designed to play games of a certain format. Wilson was on the verge of cutting off the loans in late 1916, but with war imminent with Germany, he allowed a massive increase in US government lending to the Allies. Some of these games, such as Runescape, however, have expanded far beyond this, and can often be considered on the same level as "mainstream" PC games. To pay for purchases in the US, the UK cashed in its massive investments in American railroads, then began borrowing heavily on Wall Street. Some are on going user-based games that have no ending. All nations had increases in the government's share of GDP, surpassing fifty percent in both Germany and France and nearly reaching fifty percent in the UK. These games generally do not share the same magnitude of development costs, depth, or seriousness of PC and console games, and are generally quick to complete by comparison. In Austria, for example, most of the hogs were slaughtered and, at war's end, there was no meat.

The Internet is also host to thousands of small web-based games, written using formats like Flash and Javascript. The shrinkage in GDP in Austria, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire reached 30 to 40 percent. Online games need to allow several people to play at the same time, so not all genres are suitable; the most popular genres include MMORPGs, FPSs, racing/driving games, strategy games, and sports titles. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased for the main Allies (the UK, Italy, and U.S.), but decreased in France and Russia, in neutral Netherlands, and in the main three Central Powers. It is now a key feature of modern games, with the inclusion of Internet connectivity in consoles such as the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Gamecube (although it was only fully exploited on the Xbox); portable consoles such as the PSP or DS that use Wi-Fi, and in mobile/cellular phones. Many war memorials date the end of the war as being when the Versaille treaty was signed, 1919; by contrast, most commemorations of the war's end concentrate on the Armistice of 1918; however, the formal ending of all hostilities was not until 1923. The first console to incorporate this feature was the Sega Dreamcast. However, the latter treaty with the Ottoman Empire was followed by strife and a final peace treaty was signed by the Allied Powers and the country that would shortly become the Republic of Turkey, at Lausanne on 24 July 1923.

Online gaming began with PC games, but has expanded over time to include most modern consoles. Germain, Trianon, Neuilly and Sèvres. Online Games are those which are played over the Internet. A formal state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months until it was finally ended by the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919 with Germany and the following treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and The Ottoman Empire signed at St. Ease of software piracy is also a much greater threat with PC games, although console hardware modifications do make it possible to play pirated games on them as well. Canadian George Lawrence Price is traditionally regarded as the last soldier killed in the Great War. Without the proper hardware, the game may perform poorly or not run at all, as opposed to console software, in which the software is designed based on the set hardware configuration of the console. At 1100 hours that day ("eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month"), a ceasefire came into effect and the opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions.

One possible explanation for the declining sales of personal computer games in relation to that of consoles can be found within the PC itself: a computer must meet certain minimum requirements such as CPU speed, Random access memory (RAM), system clock speed (MHz or GHz), video card memory, hard drive space, operating system, Internet connection speed (for online games) and other criteria. On 11 November, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne in France where Germans had previously dictated terms to France, ending the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. For more information, see sales. The Kaiser fled the next day to the Netherlands, which granted him political asylum (see Weimar Republic for details). According to the Entertainment Software Association, console games have outsold computer games roughly four units to one in 2003 and 2004 [1]. Following the outbreak of the German Revolution, a Republic was proclaimed on 9 November, marking the end of the monarchy, but not of the German Empire, as the Republic still called officially itself "Deutsches Reich". There is, however, a continuing movement to get the most popular games to run under the Mac and Linux operating systems, although it is still small. Austria and Hungary signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the Habsburg monarchy and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Today, most major PC games require a recent version of the Windows operating system to be installed on the computer. The Armistice with Austria was granted to take effect at three o'clock on the afternoon of November 4. PC games are often more detailed than console games because of early market releases of their external architecture and graphics cards. The terms, having been arranged by telegraph with the Entente Authorities in Paris, were communicated to the Austrian Commander, and were accepted. Video feedback is received by the user through the computer screen, sound through speakers or headphones. On November 3, Austria-Hungary sent a flag of truce to the Italian Commander to ask an Armistice and terms of peace. They are played on the personal computer with standard computer interface devices such as the keyboard and mouse, or additional peripherals, such as joysticks. On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated.

Personal computer games are commonly referred to as "computer games" or "PC games". When Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered the German High Seas Fleet to sortie against the Entente's navies, the sailors mutinied in Wilhelmshaven, starting 29 October. During the last generation of gaming, most major PC game releases have coincided with the release of console versions, and titles initially developed for a single platform are often ported to others if they prove to be successful. Germany requested a ceasefire on 3 October 1918. Many games intended for PCs are now just as prevalent on consoles, with many developers creating versions for more than one platform. Bulgaria was the first of the Central Powers to sign an armistice (29 September 1918). The final home platform is the PC. The end of the fighting came swiftly.

The 3 main home video game platform companies are Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, who between them have created seven of the eight home platforms most commonly used today. Imperial Germany had died, and a new Germany had been born: the Weimar Republic. Games are not interchangeable between platforms so, for example, Xbox games will not work in your PC. Von Baden then announced that the Kaiser was to abdicate—before the Kaiser had himself made up his mind. Personal computers, consoles, handheld systems, and arcade machines are all common. However, the matter was taken out of his hands by Philipp Scheidemann, who, on November 9, 1918, declared Germany to be a Republic, from a balcony atop the Reichstag. Today there are many different devices, or platforms, on which games may be played. In the matter of the German monarchy, he was torn between the idea of a constitutional monarchy or complete abolition.

The increase in the popularity of online gaming has also resulted in sub-genres being formed, such as massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Negotiations for a peace began immediately upon his appointment. Most games nowadays are a combination of two or more genres (e.g action/RPG). Prince Max von Baden was put in charge of the new German government. The most common genres in use today include platformer, adventure, role-playing game (RPG), first person shooter (FPS), third person shooter (both these are sometimes refered to as shoot-'em-ups), sports, racing, fighting, action (note that this term is abused often), puzzle, simulation, and real time strategy (RTS). These politicians had "stabbed Germany in the back"--a self-serving sentiment by Ludendorff that would be later used to great effect by various German patriotic nationalist groups, including the Nazis. Games, like most other forms of media, may be categorized into genres based on gameplay, atmosphere, and various other factors. Soon after, Ludendorff had a dramatic change of heart and began to claim that the very parties to whom he had handed power had lost Germany the war.

Although the use of this term is often disputed, as it is considered too vague for the range of concepts it describes, it is currently the most commonly used and accepted term for this purpose when describing video games. With 5,989,758 German casualties (1,773,700 killed, 4,216,058 wounded), they did just that. It includes direct interaction, such as controls and interface, but also design aspects of the game, such as levels and graphics. Therefore, with Ludendorff handing more power to these parties, they would have the obligation and authority to request an armistice. In computer and video gaming, gameplay (sometimes called "Game mechanics") is a general term that describes player interaction with a game. His reforms would hand power over to the members of the Reichstag—particularly the ruling parties at this time: the centre party, the liberals, and the social democrats. The Xbox 360, will be powered by a multi-core CPU, the PlayStation 3 will be powered by Cell processor technology, and the Nintendo Revolution will allow the gamer to interact with the game via a wireless motion sensing controller and promises more innovations, although full technical specifications are yet to be revealed. However, some historians believe Ludendorff had an ulterior motive in his plan.

Sony with the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo with the codenamed Revolution will join Microsoft with the already released Xbox 360 in this year's "technology race". He believed democratization would show the German people that the government was prepared to change, thus reducing the chance of a socialist style revolt, as occurred in Russia in 1917. 2006 will see the continuation of the next generation of console gaming in the form of two new consoles. Although he was a traditionalist conservative, he decided to try and incite a controlled political revolution, by introducing new reforms that "democratized" Germany, while also satisfying the monarchists with the Kaiser's reign continuing unabridged. The end of 2005 saw the release of the Xbox 360 - the first of the next generation of consoles. Since the end of September 1918, Ludendorff had been concocting a political plan for Germany. In Western countries the consoles have had similar levels of success (PSP sales are slightly higher), but in Japan the DS has been a huge hit, vastly outselling the PSP. It was Ludendorff who took the blame for this—the Kaiser dismissed him on 26 October.

The Nintendo DS is a highly innovative handheld, the PSP is much more powerful and also includes limited media capabilities. Many rebelled and were arrested, refusing to be part of a Naval offensive which they believed to be nothing more than a suicide bid. The other two more technically advanced handhelds to be released in 2004, the Nintendo DS (DS stands for Dual-Screen) and the PlayStation Portable (PSP), didn't help the N-Gage. Nonetheless, word of the impending assault reached sailors at Kiel. In 2004 Nokia released a re-designed N-Gage, called the N-Gage QD, which didn't fare much better. Knowing any such action would be vetoed by the government of Max von Baden, Ludendorff decided not to inform him. It was criticised for being poorly designed, and flopped. Naval commander Admiral Scheer and Ludendorff decided to launch a last ditch attempt to restore the "valour" of the German Navy.

Nokia entered the handheld market with its N-Gage game-phone hybrid in 2003. The threat of general mutiny was rife. Sega realised they could no longer compete, and announced they would discontinue the Dreamcast and no longer manufacture hardware, becoming a third-party developer in 2002. Meanwhile, news of Germany's impending military defeat had spread throughout the German Armed forces. Nintendo released their successor to the Nintendo 64, the GameCube, and the first all new Game Boy since the consoles inception, the Game Boy Advance. The Allied pressure did not let up until the end of the war. Its flagship game, Halo: Combat Evolved, is also available at the system's launch. During October, Pershing's artillery continued to unrelentingly pound the exhausted and bewildered Germans, all along the Meuse-Argonne front.

In 2001 Microsoft entered the videogame console industry by releasing its new home console, the Xbox. He recommended the latter to senior German officials at a summit in Spa, Belgium on that very same day. It was an instant hit and became the best-selling computer game of all time, surpassing Myst. Regardless of this, Ludendorff had decided, by October 1, that Germany had two ways out of the War—total annihilation or an armistice. The Sims was also released. Many tanks were once again breaking down, and those actually operable were rendered useless due to impassable terrain. In 2000 Sony released the widely anticipated PlayStation 2. By the start of October, it was evident that things were not going according to plan for the Allies.

1998 saw the releases of the Sega Dreamcast in Japan (1999 in the US) and the Game Boy Color from Nintendo. Montfaucon was captured on 27 September; however, failure to take it the day before proved to be one of the most costly mistakes of the entire campaign. The Saturn was successful in Japan but a failure in North America, leaving Sega outside of the main competition. This failure allowed the Germans to recover and regroup. By the end of this period, Sony had dethroned Nintendo, the PlayStation outselling the Nintendo 64. 79th Infantry Division, which met stiff resistance at Montfaucon and was unable to progress on the first day of the battle. In particular, SquareSoft, which had released all previous games in its Final Fantasy series for Nintendo consoles, now turned to the PlayStation; Final Fantasy VII (1997) was a huge success, establishing the popularity of role-playing games in the west and making the PlayStation the primary console for the genre. All divisions were successful in capturing their initial objectives, except the U.S.

Nintendo's choice to use cartridges instead of CD-ROMs for the Nintendo 64, unique among the consoles of this period, proved to have negative consequences. The Allied attempt to take the Hindenburg Line (the Meuse-Argonne Offensive) began September 26, as 260,000 American soldiers went "over the top". The flagship title, Super Mario 64, became a defining title for 3D platform games. The town of Bapaume was captured on August 29 and by September 2, the Germans were on the Hindenburg Line, the starting point of the War. After many delays, Nintendo released its 64-bit console, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, selling more than 1.5 million units in only three months. The Second German Army was pushed back over a 55km front. Both consoles used 32-bit technology; the door was open for 3D games. It was an overwhelming success for the Allies.

In 1994-1995, Sega released Sega Saturn and Sony made its debut to the video gaming scene with the PlayStation. Some 130,000 United States troops were involved, along with soldiers from Third and Fourth British Armies. Basic 3D graphics entered the mainstream with flat-shaded polygons enabled by additional processors in game cartridges like Virtua Racing and Starfox. This Second Battle of the Somme began on August 21. CD-ROM drives were first seen in this generation, as add-ons for the PC Engine in 1988 and the Megadrive in 1991. On 15 August 1918, General Haig called a halt and began planning a new offensive in Albert. The PC Engine eventually lost out to the Super Famicom, but retained enough of a user base to support new games well into the late 1990s. However, after a few days, the offensive had slowed down— British Empire units had encountered problems with all but seven tanks.

In Japan, the PC Engine's (Turbografx 16) 1987 success against the Famicom and CD drive peripheral allowed it to fend off the Mega Drive (Genesis) in 1988, which never really caught on to the same degree as outside Japan. Erich Ludendorff referred to this day as "the Black Day of the German army". The NEC TurboGrafx 16 was the first 16-bit system to be marketed in the region, but did not achieve a large following, partly due to a limited library of English games and effective marketing from Sega. The Entente forces advanced as far as twelve kilometres into German- held territory in just seven hours. The North American market was dominated by the Sega Genesis early on after its debut in 1989, with the Nintendo Super NES proving a strong, roughly equal rival in 1991. It involved 414 tanks of the Mark IV and Mark V type, and 120,000 men. While some of the other systems remained in production until the mid-90s, the Game Boy remained at the top spot in sales throughout its lifespan. The Battle of Amiens developed with III Corps Fourth British Army on the left, the First French Army on the right, and the Canadian and Australian Corps spearheading the offensive in the centre.

Several rival handhelds also made their debut around that time, including the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx. The Allied counteroffensive, known as the Hundred Days Offensive began on August 8, 1918. Included with the system was Tetris, which became a popular puzzle game. Industrial output had fallen 53% from 1913. In 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy, the first popular handheld console. Anti-war marches were a frequent occurrence and morale within the army was at low levels. See the article on Console wars for additional information on that facet of game history. Meanwhile, Germany was crumbling internally as well.

The last two decades of game history have been marked by separate markets for games on video game consoles, home computers and handhelds. Following this last phase of the ground war in the West, the German Army never again held the initiative. and many others of today's popular Nintendo genre. By July 20, 1918, the Germans were back at their Kaiserschlacht starting lines, having achieved nothing. The video game crash of 1983, however, produced a dark age in the market that was not filled until the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) reached North America in 1985.This presented Americans with games such as Mario Bros. The resulting Entente counterattack marked the Entente's first successful offensive of the war. The late 1970s to early 1980s brought about the improvement of home consoles and the release of the Atari 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision. Next, Operation Marne was launched on 15 July as an attempt to encircle Reims, beginning the Second Battle of the Marne.

He created a system with limited capabilities called the Magnavox Odyssey, which paved the way for the next wave of home consoles. Operations Blücher and Yorck were then conducted by the German Army to the south, broadly towards Paris. The first home console video games, were created by Ralph Baer who is now known as the creator of video games. This was halted, by the Allies, with less significant territorial gains to Germany. The 1970s also saw the release of the first home video game consoles. Following Operation Michael, Germany launched Operation Georgette to the north against the Channel ports. The paddles were white bars with a dot moving between them. A supreme command of Entente forces was created at the Doullens Conference, in which British Field Marshal Douglas Haig handed control of his forces over to Ferdinand Foch.

One of the best-known of these games is Pong, a simple game simulating Ping Pong. United States divisions, which Pershing had sought to field as an independent force, were assigned to the depleted French and British Empire commands on 28 March. Arcade games were developed in the 1970s (Pac-man to Frogger) and led to the so-called "Golden Age of Arcade Games". German casualties between March and April 1918 were 270,000. The first video game was Tennis for Two created by William Higginbotham in 1958. Many Germans thought victory to be close; however, after heavy fighting, the German offensive was halted. The first primitive computer and video games were developed in the 1960s and 1970s and ran on platforms such as oscilloscopes, university mainframes and EDSAC computers. The initial stages of the offensive were so successful that German Kaiser Wilhelm II declared March 24 a national holiday.

. Three super-heavy Krupp railway guns advanced and fired 183 shells on Paris, causing many Parisians to flee the city. In common usage, "computer game" or "PC game" refers specifically to games played on a personal computer, "console game" refers to games played on specifically-designed set top box, that play through a TV and "video game" (or "videogame") refers to any game played on a device that plays through your TV but also includes PC, Console, Mobile Phone or PDA or other handheld device. The front line had now moved to within 120 kilometres of Paris. To avoid ambiguity, this game software is referred to as "computer and video games" throughout this article, which explores things common to both types of game. German success relied greatly on this tactic. The phrase interactive entertainment is the formal reference to computer and video games. These isolated positions were then destroyed by more heavily armed infantry.

Usually there are rules and goals, but in more open-ended games the player may be free to do whatever they like within the confines of the virtual universe. However, in the Spring Offensive, the German Army used artillery briefly and infiltrated small groups of infantry at weak points, attacking command and logistics areas and surrounding points of serious resistance. These terms are not always interchangeable as some games, particularly older games, do not use a video display. Up to this time, attacks had been characterized by long artillery bombardments and continuous-front mass assaults. A video game is a computer game where a video display such as a monitor or television is the primary feedback device. British and French trenches were defeated using novel infiltration tactics. A computer game is a computer-controlled game that players may interact with. For the first time since 1914, manoeuvre had returned to the battlefield.

PC game sales: $1.1 billion, down 2% from 2003 [6]. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 km. Console and portable hardware and accessory sales: $3.7 billion, down 35% from 2003 [5]. It was Ludendorff's intention to split the British Empire and French armies at this point. Console and portable software sales: $6.2 billion, up 8% from 2003 [4]. Operation Michael opened on 21 March 1918, with an attack against British Empire forces, towards the rail junction at Amiens. For specific information regarding "console games" or, see console game.. Before the offensive even began, Ludendorff made what may have been a fatal mistake by leaving the elite Eighth Army in Russia and sending over only a small portion of the German forces from the east to aid the offensive in the west.

For specific information regarding "computer games", see personal computer game.. The German leadership hoped to strike a decisive blow against the enemy before significant United States forces could be deployed. This Spring Offensive sought to divide the British Empire and French armies in a series of feints and advances. German General Ludendorff drew up plans (codenamed Operation Michael) for a 1918 general offensive along the Western Front. As a result, the AEF suffered a very high rate of casualties in its operations in the summer and fall of 1918.

Without experience in this type of warfare, Pershing ordered the use of frontal assaults, which had been discarded by that time by British Empire and French commanders as too costly in lives of their troops. Pershing, American Expeditionary Force (AEF) commander, resisted breaking up American units and using them as reinforcements for British Empire and French units. However, General John J. Indeed, throughout the war, the American forces were short of their own artillery, aviation, and engineering units.

The British and French wanted the United States to send its infantry to reinforce their troops already on the battlelines. However, it would be some time before the United States would be able to contribute significant manpower to the Western and Italian fronts. Marines were also dispatched to France. Several regiments of U.S.

The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, a number of destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and several submarines to the Azores and to Bantry Bay, Ireland to help guard convoys. intervention, gambling that they would win the war before America could make an impact on the battlefield. For these reasons, the Germans had made the decision to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, despite the threat of U.S. Still, the United States had been in a state of full military-related production, aiding the Entente for quite some time, and had also loaned the Allied powers vast sums of money.

Germany calculated that it would be some time before large numbers of American troops could be sent to Europe, and that, in any event, the U-boat offensive would prevent their arrival. Although the American contribution to the war was important, particularly in terms of the threat posed by an increasing US infantry presence in Europe, the United States was never formally a member of the Entente, but an "Associated Power." Significant numbers of American troops only arrived in Europe in the summer of 1918. Wilson hoped a separate peace could be achieved with Austria-Hungary; however, when it kept its loyalty to Germany, the US declared war on Austria-Hungary in December 1917. The House approved the war resolution 373-50, the Senate 82-6.

After further U-boat attacks on American merchant ships, President Woodrow Wilson requested that Congress declare war on Germany, which it did on April 6, 1917 (see: Woodrow Wilson declares war on Germany on Wikisource). This, combined with public indignation over the Zimmermann telegram, led to a final break of relations with the Central Powers. Early in 1917, Germany resumed its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. America's long-standing policy of isolationism left the United States reluctant to involve itself with what was popularly perceived, among the American public, as a European war.

Both sides urgently sought a decisive, rapid victory on the Western Front as they were both fearful of collapse or stalemate. Furthermore, rulers of both the Central Powers and the Entente became more fearful of the threat first raised by Ivan Bloch in 1899, that protracted industrialized war threatened social collapse and revolution throughout Europe. The Central Powers knew that they could not win a protracted war now that American forces were certain to be arriving in increasing numbers, but held high hopes for a rapid offensive in the West, using their reinforced troops and new infantry tactics. With both German reinforcements and new American troops pouring into the Western Front, the final outcome of the war was to be decided in that front.

Ironically, German troop transfers could have been greater if their territorial acquisitions had not been so dramatic. In December, the Central Powers signed an Armistice with Russia, thereby releasing troops from the eastern front for use in the west. Previously British Empire and French armies had operated under separate command systems. The decisive victory of Germany at the Battle of Caporetto led to the Entente decision at the Rapallo Conference to form the Supreme Allied Council at Versailles to co-ordinate plans and action.

Britain was safe from the threat of starvation. After July, the newly introduced convoy system was extremely effective in neutralizing the U-boat threat. Tonnage sunk rose above 500,000 tons per month from February until July, peaking at 860,000 tons in April. In response, in February 1917, the German General Staff (OHL) were able to convince Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine warfare, with the goal of starving Britain out of the war.

The Entente's naval blockade of Germany began to have a serious impact on morale and productivity on the German home-front. Events of 1917 would prove decisive in ending the war, although their effects would not be fully felt until 1918. The Entente troops were told they were invading to defend supplies from German troops; in reality, they were defending them from communist Russians. Troops landed in Archangel (see North Russia Campaign) and in Vladivostok.

The invasion was made with intent to punish the Russians for dropping out of the war and to support the Tsarists in the Russian Revolution. After the Russians dropped out of the war, Entente powers led a small-scale invasion of Russia. At first, the Bolsheviks refused to agree to the harsh German terms, but when Germany resumed the war and marched with impunity across Ukraine, the new government acceded to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, which took Russia out of the war and ceded vast territories, including Finland, the Baltic provinces, Poland and Ukraine to the Central Powers. The triumph of the Bolsheviks in November was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations with Germany.

The war, and the government, became more and more unpopular, and the discontent led to a rise in popularity of the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, who were able to gain power. This division of power led to confusion and chaos, both on the front and at home, and the army became progressively less able to effectively resist Germany. Petersburg culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak centrist Provisional Government, which shared power with the socialists of the Petrograd Soviet. In March 1917, demonstrations in St.

Meanwhile, internal unrest grew in Russia, as the Tsar remained out of touch at the front, while Empress Alexandra's increasingly incompetent rule drew protests from all segments of Russian political life, resulting in the murder of Alexandra's favourite Rasputin by conservative noblemen at the end of 1916. Allied and Russian fortunes revived only temporarily with Romania's entry into the war on August 27: German forces came to the aid of embattled Austrian units in Transylvania, and Bucharest fell to the Central Powers on December 6. Dissatisfaction with the Russian government's conduct of the war grew despite the success of the June 1916 Brusilov offensive in eastern Galicia against the Austrians, when Russian success was undermined by the reluctance of other generals to commit their forces in support of the victorious sector commander. In the spring of 1915, the Russians were driven back in Galicia, and, in May, the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern fringes, capturing Warsaw on August 5 and forcing the Russians to withdraw from all of Poland, an action known as the "Great Retreat".

Russia's less-developed economic and military organization soon proved unequal to the combined might of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, they were driven back from East Prussia by the victories of the German generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914. The Russian initial plans for war had called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and German East Prussia. While the Western Front had reached stalemate in the trenches, the war continued in the east.

This lead to Bulgaria's signing an armistice on September 29, 1918. Only at the very end of the war, after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been removed, leaving the Front held by the Bulgarians alone, were the Entente powers able to make a breakthrough. Meanwhile, the Salonica Front proved entirely immobile, so much so that it was joked that Salonica was the largest German prisoner of war camp. The King then further prevented official Greek entry into the war for two years, until 1917.

Unfortunately for the Allies, the pro-allied Greek government of Eleftherios Venizelos was dismissed, by the pro-German King Constantine I, before the allied expeditionary force had even arrived. In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece to offer assistance and to pressure the Greek government into war against the Central Powers. The Serbian army retreated into Albania and Greece. After repelling three Austrian invasions during August-December 1914, Serbia fell to combined invasion by Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria, (the latter of which joined the Central Powers in September, 1915) in October 1915.

His hatred for Italy blinded him in many ways, and he made many foolish tactical and strategic errors during the campaigns in Italy. Their betrayal in 1915 enraged him even further. Throughout the war, Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff, Conrad von Hötzendorf had a deep hatred for the Italians because he had always perceived them to be the greatest threat to his state. In 1918, the Austrians repeatedly failed to break the Italian line, and, decisively defeated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, surrendered to the Entente powers in November.

On October 26, they launched a crushing offensive that resulted in the victory of Caporetto: the Italian army was routed, but after retreating more than 100km, it was able to reorganize and hold at the Battle of the Piave River. In the fall of 1917, thanks to the improving situation on the Eastern front, the Austrians received large reinforcements, including German assault troops. After this minor victory, the front remained practically stable for over one year, despite several Italian offensives, again all on the Isonzo front. In the summer of 1916, the Italians captured the town of Gorizia.

Beginning in 1915, the Italians mounted 11 major offensives on the other front, the Isonzo front (the part of the border north of Trieste), all repelled by the Austro-Hungarians, who had the higher ground. The Austro-Hungarians counter-attacked in the Altopiano of Asiago towards Verona and Padua in the spring of 1916 (Strafexpedition), but they also made little progress. After an initial Austro-Hungaric strategic retreat to better positions, the front remained mostly unchanged, while Austrian Kaiserschützen and Standschützen and Italian Alpini fought bitter close combat battles during summer and tried to survive during winter in the high mountains. In the Trentino front, the Austro-Hungarian defence took advantage of the elevation of their bases in the mostly mountainous terrain, which was anything but suitable for military offensives.

The Italians went on the offense to achieve their territorial goals. In general, the Italians enjoyed numerical superiority, but were poorly equipped. The Austrian government started negotiations to obtain Italian neutrality in exchange for French territories (Tunisia), but Italy joined the Entente by signing the London Pact in April and declaring war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915; it declared war against Germany fifteen months later. Italy refused to join Germany and Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the war, because their alliance was defensive, while Austria had declared war on Serbia.

Italy had been allied to the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882, but had its own designs against Austrian territory in the Trentino, Istria and Dalmatia, and maintained a secret 1902 understanding with France, effectively nullifying its alliance commitments. But, in March of 1917 (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Tsar was overthrown in the February Revolution and the Russian army began to slowly fall apart. Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive in 1917. In 1917, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed senior control over the Caucasus front.

The Russian commander from 1915 to 1916, General Nikolai Yudenich, with a string of victories over the Ottoman forces, drove the Turks out of much of present-day Armenia, and tragically provided a context for the deportation of the Armenian population in eastern Armenia. Insisting on a frontal attack against Russian positions in the mountains in the heart of winter, Enver lost 86% of his force at the Battle of Sarikamis. He launched an offensive with 100,000 troops against the Russians in the Caucasus in December of 1914. He was not, however, a practical soldier.

Vice-Generalissimo Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the Turkish armed forces, was a very ambitious man, with a dream to conquer central Asia. Russian armies generally had the best of it in the Caucasus. Further to the west in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, initial British failures were overcome with Jerusalem being captured in December 1917 and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force,under Field Marshall Edmund Allenby, going on to break the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918. In Mesopotamia, by contrast, after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915–16), British Empire forces reorganized and captured Baghdad in March 1917.

In Gallipoli, the Turks were successful in repelling the ANZAC'S (Australian New Zealand Army Core), forcing their eventual withdrawal and evacuation. The British Empire opened another front in the South with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamian campaigns. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October–November 1914, due to the secret Turko-German Alliance signed on August 2, 1914, threatening Russia's Caucasian territories and Britain's communications with India and the East via the Suez canal. See the Battle of Vimy Ridge for more information.

It provided the allies with great military advantage and greatly contributed to the identity of Canada. In the British-led Battle of Arras during the 1916 campaign, the only military success was the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps under Sir Arthur Currie. Each battalion held its sector for around a week before moving back to support lines and then further back to the reserve lines before a week out-of-line, often in the Poperinge or Amiens areas. The front contained over 6,000 miles of trenches.

1,000 battalions, each occupying a sector of the line from the North Sea to the Orne River, operated on a month-long four-stage rotation system, unless an offensive was underway. Around 800,000 soldiers from the British Empire were on the Western Front at any one time. Throughout 1915-17, the British Empire and France suffered many more casualties than Germany, but both sides lost millions of soldiers to injury and disease. At the height of the mutiny, 30,000 to 40,000 French soldiers participated.

Red flags were hoisted and the Internationale was sung on several occasions. News of the Russian Revolution gave a new incentive to socialist sentiments among the troops. Futile attempts at more frontal assaults, at terrible cost to the French poilu (infantry), led to mutinies which threatened the integrity of the front line, after the Nivelle Offensive in spring of 1917. Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next four years, though protracted German action at Verdun throughout 1916, and the Entente's failure at the Somme, in the summer of 1916, brought the exhausted French army to the brink of collapse.

This breach was closed by Canadian soldiers at both the Second Battle of Ypres (the first time where a colonial force drove back a European power), and Third Battle of Ypres, (where over 5000 Canadian soldiers were gassed to death), earning German respect. In April 1915, the Germans used chlorine gas for the first time, opening a four mile wide hole in the Allied lines when French colonial troops retreated before it. Some hoped to break the stalemate by utilizing science and technology. One consequence was that German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy: Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be 'temporary' before their forces broke through German defences.

Britain and France sought to take the offensive, while Germany defended occupied territories. Britain and France soon found themselves facing entrenched German positions from Lorraine to Belgium's Flemish coast. After the First Battle of the Marne, both Entente and German forces began a series of outflanking manoeuvres to try to force the other to retreat, in the so-called Race to the Sea. Neither side ever won a battle with gas, but it made life even more miserable in the trenches and became one of the most feared, and longest remembered, horrors of the war.

By 1915 both sides were using poison gas. Civil War and were often indifferent to massive loss of life (British General Haig's diaries are particularly striking in this respect). General Staffs of European armies had uniformly ignored the lessons of the U.S. Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances; artillery, now vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with machineguns, made crossing open ground a nightmarish prospect.

Advances in military technology meant that defensive firepower out-weighed offensive capabilities, making the war particularly murderous, as tactics had failed to keep up. Few were prepared for what they actually encountered at the front. Spurred on by propaganda and nationalist fervor, many eagerly joined the ranks in search of adventure. The perceived excitement of war captured the imagination of many in the warring nations.

International bond and financial markets entered severe crises in late July and early August reflecting worry about the financial consequences of war. Some political leaders, such as Bethmann Hollweg in Germany, were concerned by the potential social consequences of a war. Some military figures, such as Lord Kitchener and Erich Ludendorff, predicted the war would be a long one. Others, however, regarded the coming war with great pessimism and worry.

Many thought it would have finished by Christmas of that year. The common view on both sides was that it would be a short war of manoeuvre, with a few sharp actions (to "teach the enemy a lesson") and would end with a victorious entry into the enemy capital, then home for a victory parade or two and back to "normal" life. In 1914, the perception of war was romanticized by many people, and its declaration was met with great enthusiasm by these people. Yet staff incompetence and leadership timidity, as Ludendorff had needlessly transferred troops from the right to protect Sedan, cost Germany the chance for an early knockout.

The German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and had permanently incapacitated 230,000 more French and British troops than it had lost itself in the months of August and September. This diversion exacerbated problems of insufficient speed of advance from railheads, not allowed for by the German General Staff, allowed French and British forces to finally halt the German advance on Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (September 1914) and the Entente forced the Central Powers into fighting a war on two fronts. Germany defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg (17 August – 2 September). Russia attacked in East Prussia, diverting German forces intended for the Western Front.

However, the delays brought about by the resistance of the Belgian, French and British forces; the unexpectedly rapid mobilization of the Russians; and overly-ambitious objectives upset the German plans. Initially the Germans had great successes in the Battle of the Frontiers (14–24 August 1914). The first British Empire soldier killed in the war was John Parr, on 21 August 1914, near Mons. Britain sent an army to France (the British Expeditionary Force, or BEF), which advanced into Belgium.

It soon encountered resistance before the forts of the Belgian city of Liège, although the army as a whole continued to make rapid progress into France. When Belgium refused, Germany invaded and began marching through Belgium anyway, after first invading and securing Luxembourg. Germany demanded free passage from the Belgian government, promising to treat Belgium as Germany's firm ally if the Belgians agreed. To do so, the German army had to march through Belgium.

Rather than invading eastern France directly, German planners deemed it prudent to attack France from the north. The Schlieffen plan to deal with the Franco-Russian alliance involved delivering a knock-out blow to the French and then turning to deal with the more slowly mobilized Russian army. The Austrians had not achieved their main goal of eliminating Serbia, and it became increasingly likely that Germany would have to maintain forces on two fronts. This marked the first major Allied victory of the war.

Three days later the Austrians retreated across the Danube, having suffered 21,000 casualties as against 16,000 Serbian. In harsh night-time fighting, the battle ebbed and flowed, until Stepa Stepanovic rallied the Serbian line. The first attack came on August 16, between parts of the 21st Austro–Hungarian division and parts of the Serbian Combined division. The Serbians occupied defensive positions against the Austrians.

The Serbian army, coming up from the south of the country, met the Austrian army at the Battle of Cer on 12 August. This confusion forced the Austro-Hungarian army to split its troop concentrations from the south in order to meet the Russians in the north. Germany, however, had planned for Austria-Hungary to focus the majority of its troops on Russia while Germany dealt with France on the Western Front. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover her northern flank against Russia.

Germany had originally guaranteed to support Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, but practical interpretation of this idea differed. In Europe, the Central Powers — the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire - suffered from mutual miscommunication and lack of intelligence regarding the intentions of each other's army. Sporadic and fierce fighting, however, continued in Africa for the remainder of the war. Within a few months, the Entente forces had driven out or had accepted the surrender of all German forces in the Pacific.

Another British Dominion, New Zealand, occupied German Samoa (later Western Samoa) on 30 August; on September 11 the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of Neu Pommern (later New Britain), which formed part of German New Guinea. Shortly thereafter, on August 10, German forces based in South-West Africa attacked South Africa, part of the British Empire. On 8 August 1914 a combined French and British Empire force invaded the German protectorate of Togoland in West Africa. Some of the first hostilities of the war occurred in Africa and in the Pacific Ocean, in the colonies and territories of the European powers.

The warring parties were divided into two camps:. (Which is what indeed happened.). The implication was that victory required the abdication of those rulers, the end of the aristocratic system, and the end of militarism. Their goal was military power and glory, the theory says, regardless of the needs and wishes of the people.

The military, reporting directly to the king, and not elected civilian governments, controlled Germany, Austria, Russia and Turkey. Woodrow Wilson and most Americans blamed the war on militarism. Frantic diplomatic efforts to mediate the Austrian-Serbian quarrel simply became irrelevant, as the automatic military escalations between Germany and Russia reinforced one another. This left governments with even fewer options and little room to manoeuvre as the last weeks of July 1914 slipped away.

The civilian leaders of the European powers found themselves facing a wave of nationalist zeal that had been building across Europe for years. Once the mobilization order was issued there was no turning back. Once put into effect they were indeed capable of easily defeating their neighbor, unless their neighbor also unleashed its mobilization plan. Thus the military general staffs had elaborate mobilization plans.

Closely related is the thesis adopted by many political scientists that the war plans of each power automatically escalated the conflict until it was out of control. Paul Kennedy is the historian who most recently has propounded this thesis. Overall, nations in the Triple Entente became fearful of the Triple Alliance and vice versa. The major participants in the race were Britain and Germany due to new imperialism.

Ironically, this development diminished Britain's naval supremacy as the new type of vessel opened a new chapter in naval warfare, which annihilated the old status-quo in this area and sparked a new major naval arms race in shipbuilding among the world's nations on a more level playing field. An example of the latter is the 1906 launch of HMS Dreadnought, a revolutionary battleship that rendered all previous warships obsolete as "pre-dreadnoughts". Another cause of the war was the escalating arms race. As time progressed, scholars looked at other factors, such as the rigidity of both German and Russian military planning, each of which stressed the importance of striking first and executing plans quickly.

Berghahn. This idea was later backed by such leading German academics as Franz Fischer, Imanuel Geiss, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Wolfgang Mommsen, and V.R. The point is that responsibility for the war lies with Germany and Austro-Hungary for their aggression, and that Russia, France and Britain were reacting legitimately against this aggression. The idea was that the war had begun when the Austro-Hungarian Empire invaded the Kingdom of Serbia, backed by the German Empire, and that Germany later invaded Belgium without provocation.

Early explanations, prominent in the 1920s, stressed the official version of responsibility as described in the Treaty of Versailles and Treaty of Trianon, that Germany and its allies were solely responsible for the war. Likewise no one agrees on how the war could have been avoided. Historians and political scientists have grappled for nearly a century without reaching a consensus on what were the most important causes. Though this assassination is usually considered the immediate trigger for the war, its origins can be traced back to the complex web of alliances and counterbalances that developed between the various European powers after 1871.

Princip was supported by pan-Serbian nationalists, with links to the Serbian military. The Archduke was there to assert imperial authority over a disputed province. On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student.
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. Problems unresolved or created by the war would be highly important factors in the outbreak, within 20 years, of World War II. Shortly after the war, in 1923, Fascists came to power in Italy; in 1933, 14 years after the war, Nazism took over Germany. In Central Europe, the new states of Czechoslovakia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Yugoslavia were born and Austria, Hungary and Poland were re-created.

In the east, the demise of the Ottoman Empire paved the way for the states such as Republic of Turkey and a number of successor states and territories throughout the Middle East. The following decades would see the transformation of the old Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a global power. World War I witnessed the first advent of Communism as a means of government in Russia. Three European imperial dynasties, represented by the Hohenzollern, the Hapsburg and the Romanov families in Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia respectively, also fell during the war.

In the Balkans and the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire experienced the same fate. Three European land empires were shattered and subsequently dismembered to varying degrees: the German, the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian. Ultimately, World War I created a decisive break with the old world order that had emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, as modified by the mid-19th century national revolutions, the processes of European national unification and European colonialism. In World War I, only some 5% of the casualties (directly caused by the war) were civilian - in World War II, this figure approached 50%.

More than 9 million soldiers died on the various battlefields, and nearly that many more in the participating countries' home fronts on account of food shortages and genocide committed under the cover of various civil wars and internal conflicts. Hostilities were also prosecuted, however, by more dynamic invasion and battle, by fighting at sea and - for the first time - in and from the air. World War I is infamous for the protracted stalemate of trench warfare along the Western Front, embodied within a system of opposing manned trenches and fortifications (separated by a "No man's land") running from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. The Allied Powers (led by Britain, France, and, later, the United States) defeated the Central Powers (led by Germany, Austria and the Ottoman Empire), and led to the collapse of four empires and a radical change in the map of Europe.

World War I, also known as the First World War and (before 1939) the Great War, the War of the Nations, War to End All Wars, was a world conflict lasting from August 1914 to the final Armistice (cessation of hostilities) on November 11, 1918. A Very Long Engagement (2004), movie directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The Lost Battalion (2001), movie and screenplay directed by Russell Mulcahy. Paths of Glory (1957), movie directed by Stanley Kubrick.

All Quiet On The Western Front (1979), movie directed by Delbert Mann. All Quiet On The Western Front (1930), movie directed by Lewis Milestone. All Quiet On The Western Front (1929), novel written by Erich Maria Remarque. Central Powers.

Allies of World War I, also referred to as the Entente Forces or the Entente Powers.