9. All quiet on the Western Front: In which year did the big guns fall silent at the end of WWI?
From Quiz Dates You Really Should Know, Part 3
Answer:
1918
The 'War To End All Wars' was fought between 1914 and 1918. An armistice came into force at 11am on November 11th, 1918. The main belligerents were the 'Entente Powers', which comprised Russia, France, the British Empire, Italy, Japan and the United States; and the 'Central Powers', which comprised Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. The Entente powers lost 5,525,000 dead, while the Central Powers lost 4,400,000. The war was fought in many parts of the world, but the main focus was the Western Front in France. There, the two sides fought a bitter trench warfare, with ground being fought over, lost, won, regained and lost again many times. In the end, the entry of the USA into the war (in 1917) was probably the turning point. Faced with a seemingly unlimited supply of young soldiers - and with Germany virtually cut off from the outside world - the Central Powers agreed to what some historians regard as a humiliating armistice.