Conflict intensified across the globe, in a chase for empires, where powerful countries turned less powerful ones into colonies, until the outbreak, in 1914, of the biggest war that had ever been fought up to that point in time. It was called the Great War but now most often called World War I or the First World War. In the desperation of war, the Russian Revolution promised the people "peace, bread and land" and led to the end of the Russian Empire and its replacement by the formation of the Soviet Union. The defeat of Germany came at the price of economic destruction, which was formally written into the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 where it was stated that the First World War had been entirely the fault of Germany and its allies and demanded that they pay back the entire amount the war had cost.