From the early stages of World War I, in 1914, explosions caused by weapons of mass destruction destroyed even sturdy buildings, killing many people in the surrounding areas and scattering large numbers of corpses on the ground.

   From the early stages of World War I, in 1914, explosions caused by weapons of mass destruction destroyed even sturdy buildings. Large numbers of people were killed in the surrounding areas, and the ground was littered with countless corpses.

   During World War I, over 9 million soldiers, sailors, and airmen were killed in action. Additionally, an estimated 5 million civilians lost their lives due to occupation, shelling, starvation, and disease. The Armenian Genocide of 1915, a genocide carried out under the guise of war, erupted as a horrific act of mass murder.The influenza pandemic that began during World War I was one of the devastating consequences of the war. The mass exodus of Serbs from Serbia at the end of 1915 was another brutal episode in which many civilians lost their lives. The Allied naval blockade of Germany had similar consequences, resulting in the deaths of more than three-quarters of the German civilian population.

   The first few months of World War I saw massive casualties caused by modern weapons. By 1914, over 5 million people were killed across all fronts, with over 1 million deaths. This was the first time in history that such a scale of violence had been witnessed, resulting from the deadly combination of large armies and modern weapons.The use of mass-killing weapons such as tanks, airplanes, submarines, machine guns, modern artillery, flamethrowers, and poison gas by the military resulted in the greatest loss of human life in any war in history. Both sides repeatedly crossed the same territory. Civilians were often caught in gunfire, and millions of people were killed as armies advanced. Both sides viewed the conflict not as war but as mass murder.