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June 19, 1861, Edinburgh—Jan. 29, 1928, London.He was a British field marshal, commander in chief of the British forces in France during most of World War I.His strategy of attrition (tautly summarized as “kill more Germans”) resulted in enormous numbers of British casualties but little immediate gain in 1916–17 and made him a subject of controversy.

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October 2, 1851, Tarbes, France—March 20, 1929, Paris.When war broke out on August 2, 1914, Foch first fought on the right flank, in Lorraine. On August 28 a dangerous gap appeared in the centre, and the commander in chief, Joseph Joffre, called Foch to command the army detachment—which later became the IX Army—that was being formed there.He was a marshal of France and commander of Allied forces during the closing months of World War I, generally considered the leader most responsible for the Allied victory.

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September 13, 1860, Laclede, Missouri, U.S.—July 15, 1948, Washington, D.C.After the United States declared war on Germany (April 1917), Pres. Woodrow Wilson selected Pershing to command the American troops being sent to Europe.Pershing was criticized for operational and logistic errors, but his creation of the AEF was a remarkable achievement. He returned home with a sound reputation, and, on September 1, 1919, he was given the rank of general of the armies of the United States.

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December 28, 1856, Staunton, Virginia, U.S.—February 3, 1924, Washington, D.C.Wilson led his country into World War I and became the creator and leading advocate of the League of Nations, for which he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Peace.

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November 30, 1874, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England— January 24, 1965, London.War came as no surprise to Churchill. He had already held a test naval mobilization. Of all the cabinet ministers he was the most insistent on the need to resist Germany. On August 2, 1914, on his own responsibility, he ordered the naval mobilization that guaranteed complete readiness when war was declared. The war called out all of Churchill’s energies. In October 1914, when Antwerp was falling, he characteristically rushed in person to organize its defense.In November 1915 Churchill resigned from the government and returned to soldiering, seeing active service in France as lieutenant colonel of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers.

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June 3, 1865, London, England—January 20, 1936. During the war the King had no direct responsibility. But his duties, nonetheless, were manifold. He made some 450 recorded inspections of military and naval installations and some 300 visits to hospitals, as well as personally distributing 58,000 decorations.King George had five sons—King Edward VIII (later duke of Windsor); King George VI; Henry, duke of Gloucester; George, duke of Kent; and Prince John, who died young—and one daughter, Mary, princess royal, who married the 6th earl of Harewood.

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September 28, 1841, Mouilleron-en-Pareds, France— November 24, 1929, Paris.When World War I broke out in July 1914, the partisan in him gave way to the patriot, who called upon every Frenchman to join the fray. L’Homme Libre suffered at the hands of the censors for Clemenceau’s plain speaking and, in September 1914, was suppressed. Two days later, however, it reappeared entitled L’Homme Enchaîné, and, although at first it was subjected to much cutting, later excisions became rare. Meanwhile, in the Senate Clemenceau agitated for more and more guns, munitions, and soldiers, for judicious use of the available manpower, and for a better organized and equipped medical service. Deeply concerned about the attitude of the United States to the war, he sent urgent appeals to the American public and to Pres. Woodrow Wilson and was overjoyed at the United States’ entry into the war in April 1917.On March 28, 1929, he wrote down his last wishes: to be buried near his father at Colombier, a spot of wild natural beauty in his native Vendée. He wanted no funeral procession, no official or religious ceremony.

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May 6 1868, Tsarskoye Selo near Russia— July 17, 1918, Yekaterinburg.After the assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo, he tried hard to avert the impending war by diplomatic action and resisted, until July 30, 1914, the pressure of the military for general, rather than partial, mobilization.

George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduc...

George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduction no. LC-DIG-ggbain-20441)

The outbreak of World War I temporarily strengthened the monarchy, but Nicholas did little to maintain his people’s confidence.Nicholas was the first Russian sovereign to show personal interest in Asia, visiting in 1891, while still tsesarevich, India, China, and Japan; later he nominally supervised the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. His attempt to maintain and strengthen Russian influence in Korea, where Japan also had a foothold, was partly responsible for the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05). Russia’s defeat not only frustrated Nicholas’s grandiose dreams of making Russia a great Eurasian power

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January 27, 1859, Potsdam,Berlin-June 4, 1941.During the war, although nominally supreme commander, William did not attempt to resist his generals when they kept its conduct in their own hands. He encouraged, instead of challenging, the grandiose war aims of the generals and of many politicians that ruled out all chance of a compromise peace.He was born with a damaged left arm.

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April 10 1870, Simbirsk, Russia—January 21, 1924 Gorki. He was the founder of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), inspirer and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917).He was the third of six children born into a close-knit, happy family of highly educated and cultured parents.

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July 25 1894, Obljaj, Bosnia— April 28, 1918.He was a South Slav nationalist who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his consort, Sophie, Duchess von Hohenberg (née Chotek), at Sarajevo, Bosnia, on June 28, 1914.Born into a Bosnian Serb peasant family, Princip was trained in terrorism by the Serbian secret society known as the Black Hand (true name Ujedinjenje ili Smrt, “Union or Death”).

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December 18, 1863, Graz, Austria- June 28, 1914 .His assassination in 1914 was the immediate cause of World War I.Franz Ferdinand was the eldest son of the archduke Charles Louis, who was the brother of the emperor Franz Joseph