page_title: World War I
section_title: Asia and the Pacific
hierarchical_section_title: World War I / Progress of the war / Opening hostilities / Asia and the Pacific
caption_attribution_description: English: World empires and colonies in 1914, just before the First World War. Maps of world history BC 2000&#160;&#183; 1000&#160;&#183; 500&#160;&#183; 400&#160;&#183; 323&#160;&#183; 300&#160;&#183; 200&#160;&#183; 100&#160;&#183; 50 AD 1&#160;&#183; 50&#160;&#183; 100&#160;&#183; 200&#160;&#183; 250&#160;&#183; 300&#160;&#183; 400&#160;&#183; 500&#160;&#183; 700&#160;&#183; 750&#160;&#183; 820&#160;&#183; 900&#160;&#183; 1556&#160;&#183; 1700&#160;&#183; 1815&#160;&#183; 1859 Maps of colonization history 1492&#160;&#183; 1550&#160;&#183; 1600&#160;&#183; 1660&#160;&#183; 1754&#160;&#183; 1800&#160;&#183; 1812&#160;&#183; 1822&#160;&#183; 1885&#160;&#183; 1898&#160;&#183; 1914&#160;&#183; 1920&#160;&#183; 1936&#160;&#183; 1938&#160;&#183; 1945&#160;&#183; 1959&#160;&#183; 1974&#160;&#183; 1975&#160;&#183; 2007 Animated Map Maps of Cold War 1959&#160;&#183; 1980&#160;&#183; see also: Eastern Hemisphere only maps template (1300BC-1500AD) (this template: · view · discuss )
context_page_description: World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatant deaths and 13 million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the related 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 17–100 million deaths worldwide.
  On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to the July Crisis. In response, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia on 23 July. Serbia's reply failed to satisfy the Austrians, and the two moved to a war footing.
  A network of interlocking alliances enlarged the crisis from a bilateral issue in the Balkans to one involving most of Europe.
context_section_description: New Zealand occupied German Samoa (later Western Samoa) on 30 August 1914. On 11 September, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force landed on the island of Neu Pommern (later New Britain), which formed part of German New Guinea. On 28 October, the German cruiser SMS Emden sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug in the Battle of Penang. Japan seized Germany's Micronesian colonies and, after the Siege of Tsingtao, the German coaling port of Qingdao on the Chinese Shandong peninsula. As Vienna refused to withdraw the Austro-Hungarian cruiser SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth from Tsingtao, Japan declared war not only on Germany, but also on Austria-Hungary; the ship participated in the defence of Tsingtao where it was sunk in November 1914. Within a few months, the Allied forces had seized all the German territories in the Pacific; only isolated commerce raiders and a few holdouts in New Guinea remained.
caption: World empires and colonies around 1914
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