Born Then1914–1918
Life during the World War I in Europe
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
Most men of fighting age in the warring European states were mobilised, and about one in eight of those who served died. At home, rationing, rising prices and the absence of men changed daily life, and women took over farm and factory work.
Deaths: about 9–10 million soldiers and 6–7 million civilians across all fronts.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from scholarly estimates.
Around the same time
- British emigration to the colonies and America 1815–1913
- Indian indenture system 1834–1917
- Chinese emigration from Guangdong and Fujian 1845–1913
- Irish emigration after the Famine 1852–1913
- Third plague pandemic 1855–1930
- Polish emigration "za chlebem" 1870–1913
- Reforms of King Chulalongkorn 1874–1910
- Great Italian emigration 1880–1913
- Pogroms in the Russian Empire 1881–1906
- Atrocities in the Congo Free State 1885–1908
- African rinderpest epizootic 1888–1897
- Panic of 1893 1893–1897
- First Sino-Japanese War 1894–1895
- Hamidian massacres 1894–1896
- First Italo-Ethiopian War 1895–1896
- Spanish–American War 1898
- Sixth cholera pandemic 1899–1923
- Boxer Rebellion 1899–1901
- Indian famine of 1899–1900 1899–1900
- Philippine–American War 1899–1902
- Thousand Days' War 1899–1902
- Second Boer War 1899–1902
- Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905
- Herero and Nama genocide 1904–1908
- Maji Maji Rebellion 1905–1907
- Korea under Japanese rule 1910–1945
- Mexican Revolution 1910–1920
- Balkan Wars 1912–1913
- World War I in Europe 1914–1918
- World War I in the Ottoman Empire 1914–1918