In 19^th century Europe, colonialism was widespread. European powers such as Great Britain and France had established colonial empires in all four corners of the world. Germany, which had established its political unity later than other countries, was striving to become a forerunner in this race.

By the beginning of the 20^th century, interest-based relations had split Europe into two opposing poles. Britain, France and Russia were on one side, and Germany and the Austria-Hungarian Empire ruled by the Hapsburgs of German origin were on the other.

The tension between these two groups escalated with each passing day, and finally an assassination in 1914 provided the spark for war. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne in the Austria-Hungarian Empire, was killed by Serbian nationalists who sought to curb the empire's influence in the Balkans.

Within a very short period of time, provocations following on the heels of this incident pulled the entire European continent into war. First Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia. Russia, a traditional ally of the Serbians, then declared war against Austria-Hungary.

Then one after another, Germany, Britain and France entered the war. The fuse had been lit.

Before the war had even begun, the German General Staff had drawn up a plan and decided to take control of France through a sudden attack. To achieve this aim, the Germans entered Belgium and later crossed the border into France. Responding quickly, the French army stopped the Germans on the banks of the River Marne and started a counter-offensive.

Although both armies suffered serious losses, no progress on the battlefront was to be found. Both the German and French soldiers hid in trenches in order to protect themselves. As the result of a series of attacks stretching over several months, some 400,000 French soldiers were killed. The death toll of German soldiers reached 350,000.

Trench warfare became the main strategy of World War I. Over the next few years, soldiers practically lived in these trenches. Life there was difficult in the extreme. Soldiers lived under the constant threat of being bombarded, and they constantly faced extreme stress and fear. The bodies of those who died had to remain in these places, and soldiers had to sleep next to the corpses. When it rained, the trenches overflowed with mud.

More than 20 million soldiers who fought in World War I suffered horrific conditions in these trenches, and most of them died there.

Within a few weeks of its being established by a 1914 German attack, the war's western front was essentially fixed in a stalemate.

The soldiers burrowed in these trenches were trapped at a distance of only a few hundred meters away from each other. Every attack launched in an effort to end this stalemate was going to cost more lives.

At the beginning of 1916, Germans developed a new plan to break through the western front. Their plan was to suddenly attack the city of Verdun, which was considered the pride of the French. The goal of the attack was not to win the war but rather to inflict great losses on the French Army and so weaken their resistance. German Chief of Staff Falkenhayn calculated that every German soldier was going to single-handedly kill three French soldiers.

The attack began on Feb. 21. German commanders ordered their soldiers to "get out of their trenches," but every soldier that did so was dead or dying in about three minutes. Despite attacks that went on for months on end, the Germans failed to capture Verdun.

Taken together, the two sides lost about a million soldiers. And for that effort, the front line nudged 12 kilometers. One million people died for the sake of a dozen kilometers.

The British retaliated against Germany's attack on Verdun with the Battle of the Somme. British factories produced hundreds of thousands of artillery shells.

General Douglas Haig's plans called for the British Army to rain down continuous bombardment for a full week, followed by an infantry attack. He believed that they would advance 14 kilometers on the first day alone and then shatter all the German lines within a single week.

The attack began on June 1. British artillerymen attacked German lines for one week without letup. At the end of that week, British officers ordered their soldiers to climb out of their trenches. However, during the bombardment the German soldiers had sat tight in their deep trenches and so hadn't been destroyed, foiling the British plan. As the British soldiers moved across the front lines, the German soldiers opened up on them with their machine guns. A total of 20,000 British soldiers died in the first few hours of the battle. In the darkness of that night, the field between two fronts was filled with tens of thousands of dead bodies as well as injured soldiers trying to drag themselves back.

The Battle of the Somme lasted not for the two weeks that General Haig had planned on, but rather for five months. These months were nothing but massacres. Generals insistently sent wave after wave of their soldiers to a certain death. At the end of the battle, the sides between themselves had lost a total of 900,000 men. And for this, the front moved only 11 kilometers. These soldiers were sacrificed for a mere 11 kilometers.

Both sides had many more attacks during World War I, and each one of these attacks was a massacre in itself. Three battles took place in Belgium's town of Ypres alone. Some half a million soldiers died only in the third battle.

Each attack had the same result: Thousands of lives lost only to advance for a handful of kilometers.

This terrible war, which had no good cause, claimed the lives of countless innocents. Many people lost their relatives or had to abandon their homes.

The ultimate causes behind this social catastrophe were political ambitions and the interests of certain ideological circles. Promoting corruption, which is caused by the worldly ambitions of those who deny God, is forbidden in the Qur'an. God forbids people to cause corruption on the earth:

Do not corrupt the earth after it has been put right. Call on Him fearfully and eagerly. God's mercy is close to the good-doers. (Qur'an, 7: 56)