The history of Ukraine is largely a history of war.
But when the story of war in Ukraine is told, it is frequently confined to the Crimean War of the mid-nineteenth century, and the siege of Sevastopol in World War Two.
Little is told of the bloodletting in Ukraine during the First World War, and given that this year marks a century since the outbreak of the First World War, it' a sadly fitting time to revisit the story of Ukraine in World War 1, or as it's variously known the Great War, the war to end all wars, or the forgotten world war.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, much of western Ukraine was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And most of eastern Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire. The cultural, ethnic, and linguistic divide was much like it is today.
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