The greatest armed conflict which up the that time the world had seen. It was triggered unwittingly by a political assasin. On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, capital of the newly annexed Austrian province of Bosnia, a young Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip shot and killed the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his wife. Eventually 23 countries became directly involved in a world-wide struggle. The human material and moral destruction caused by the war is beyond comprehension. More that sixty five million men were mobilized into the military services of the combatants. More thatn half of these Became casualties--killed, wouded captured, and missing. Some ten million died. Entire populations suffered the ravages of famine,disease, and dislocation. Property damage has been estimated as totaling two hundred billion. Of greater significance than these figures was the disruption of political, Solcial, economic, and cultural institutions.