Albert I
Albert IEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc. King Albert I led the Belgian army and remained with his troops while Germany occupied most of his country.
H.H. Asquith, 1st earl of Oxford and Asquith
Sir Robert Borden
Sir Robert BordenNFB/National Archives of Canada Borden led Canada throughout the war and asserted Canada’s independence in international relations.
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Clemenceau was a dominant figure in the French Third Republic and a framer of the postwar Treaty of Versailles.
Constantine I
Constantine I.Bettmann/Corbis Constantine I became king of Greece in 1913, but he was deposed four years later by the Western Allies and his Greek opponents for his pro-German attitude.
Ferdinand I
Ferdinand IGeorge Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: LC-DIG-ggbain-34963) Though a member of the Hohenzollern dynasty that ruled the German Empire, Ferdinand I of Romania supported the Allies in World War I.
Andrew Fisher
Andrew FisherMary Evans Picture Library Fisher led Australia into World War I, pledging support to “the last man and the last shilling,” but he was forced to resign as prime minister barely a year later.
George V
George VCamera Press/Globe Photos King George V of the United Kingdom was the first cousin of German Emperor William II and Russian Tsar Nicholas II, but family ties did little to slow the march to war.
William Morris Hughes
William Morris Hughes Australian prime minister William Morris Hughes, undated photograph.Courtesy of the Australian Information ServiceThe second of Australia’s two wartime prime ministers, Hughes sponsored a pair of unsuccessful referenda on introducing conscription to Australia.
Vladimir Ilich Lenin
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Lenin, 1918.© Photos.com/ThinkstockAs unrest gripped Petrograd in March 1917, Germany saw an opportunity to strike a fatal blow to the Russian war effort by facilitating Lenin’s return to Russia.
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd GeorgeHulton Archive/Getty Images As prime minister, Lloyd George dominated the British political scene in the latter part of World War I.
Tomáš Masaryk
Tomáš MasarykEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Masaryk was the leader of the Czech liberation movement, and he forged former Austrian territories into an independent Czechoslovakia.
Nicholas II
Nicholas IIEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The last emperor of Russia was killed by the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution.
Vittorio Orlando
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Orlando led Italy in the concluding years of World War I and headed his country’s delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference.
Nikola Pašić
Pašić.H. Roger-Viollet After the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Pašić tried to placate Austria-Hungary but was unable to avert the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia on July 28, 1914.
Raymond Poincaré
Poincaré, Raymond Raymond Poincaré.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Poincaré largely determined the policies that led to France’s involvement in World War I.
Taishō
TaishōCourtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. The Japanese emperor asserted little political power, but he held the throne during a period of Japan’s continued rise on the international scene.
Eleuthérios Venizélos
VenizélosThe Bettmann Archive This Greek politician doubled the size of Greece during the Balkan Wars and also gained territory for Greece after World War I.
Victor Emmanuel III
Victor Emmanuel IIIAlinari/Art Resource, New York Although Italy had been in an alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary since 1882, Victor Emmanuel guided his country into war on the side of the Allies.
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson, undated photograph.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.The American president pledged to keep his country out of war, but the U.S. Senate kept him out of the postwar peace, twice rejecting the Treaty of Versailles.
Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria-Este
Francis Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie Austria's Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, sit in an open carriage in Sarajevo shortly before their assassination on June 28, 1914.Henry Guttmann Collection—Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesThe archduke’s visit to Sarajevo in June 1914 was designed to be an imperial show of force. Instead, it led to the deaths of millions and the disintegration of the Dual Monarchy.
Franz Joseph
Franz Joseph Franz Joseph, 1908.Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.The aging emperor viewed Franz Ferdinand’s assassination as an act of divine retribution for his nephew’s having married below his station.
Said Halim Paşa
Halim Paşa, Said Said Halim Paşa.George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: LC-DIG-ggbain-30979)Although he had signed a treaty allying the Ottoman Empire with Germany, Grand Vizier Said opposed his country’s involvement in World War I.
Mehmed V
Mehmed VEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire lived just long enough to see large swathes of his country conquered by Allied armies.
Talat Paşa
Talat PaşaGeorge Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: LC-DIG-ggbain-31323) The Ottoman interior minister oversaw the ethnic cleansing and genocide of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during World War I.
William II
William II.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Kaiser Wilhelm encouraged the grandiose war aims of his generals, but the Allied victory led to the dismemberment of the German Empire.
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Leaders of World War I
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