World War I

It was the time of darkness and despair. The killing was just starting. The sounds were looming as planes came into attack. There was no trust between people, just hatred, fear and death. It was a living nightmare. It was the world at war.

Since the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand wife Sophie in Sarajevo, Bosnia, things started to get complicated. The murder, Gavrilo Princip was a 19- year old Serbian nationalist member of the “Black Hand” a secret society committed to getting rid of Austrian rule. It started a chain of events and problems.

Austria declared war on Serbia. Even though Serbia was willing to have an international conference, Austria was not willing to negotiate which came to the result of the war. The same day, Russia, and ally of Serbia took action and orders the mobilization of troops towards the Austrian border. Even though the British foreign minister, the Italian government and the German Kaiser Wilhelm urged Austria and Russia to negotiate, it was already too late.
Why did Gavrilo Princip kill the archduke? Why did Russia and many other countries join the war so quickly? Who and/or what caused World War I?

By that time, Europe was facing a lot of changes; changes that helped propel the war. One of those was the rise of Nationalism.
Nationalism is a deep devotion to one’s nation. It caused intense competition and rivalry among the nations of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, and France. There was also competition for materials and markets and territorial disputes (France-Germany over Alsace-Lorraine area). Austria-Hungary and Russia both tried to dominate the Balkan area. In the Balkans, the intense nationalism of Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, and other ethnic groups led to demands for independence. It was a very tense setting.

Other rising tensions in Europe were Imperialism and Militarism. Imperialism was another force that helped set the stage of war. Europe competed fiercely for colonies in Africa and Asia. The quest for colonies sometimes pushed European nations to the brink of war. As European countries continued to compete for overseas empires, their sense of rivalry and mistrust of each other grew. As well as militarism, the policy of glorifying military power and keeping an army prepared for war. European nations believed that to be truly great they needed to have a powerful military in case there was a rise of a dangerous European arms race. Military experts (generals) stressed the importance of being able to quickly mobilize, or organize and move troops in case of a war.

If Russia or Austria would’ve negotiated, the war could’ve been prevented. Serbia did want to negotiate at first with Austria, but Russia came by complicating the situation and setting the stage for war.

The Alliance System also complicated things up. The alliance system worked by growing rivalries and mutual mistrust led to the creation of several military alliances among the Great Powers as early as the 1870s. This alliance system had been designed to keep peace in Europe, but it would instead help push the continent into war. There were two alliances:
· Triple Entente: Britain formed an alliance with France. In 1907, with France and Russia.
· Triple Alliance: In 1879, Otto von Bismarck formed the Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary, Italy joined in 1882.

The alliance system did complicate things. The alliance between Serbia and Russia made Russia send troops to the Austrian border. Later, Germany declares war on Russia and on France. Then Britain declares war on Germany; Italy joins the Triple Entente (France, Britain, Russia), arguing that the unprovoked attack allowed it to divorce itself from its old ally Germany. Germany attempts the Schlieffen Plan (German plan for a two-front war in which the German army would quickly defeat the French in the west and then race east to defeat the Russians), which called for a quick victory in the west against France, but French forces stop the Germans outside of Paris. Germany and Hungary will have to fight the war on two fronts. It was all a chain of events that started the Great War.

The advances in weaponry, from improvements to the machine gun and airplane, to the invention of the tank, led to mass devastation. For example, the Machine Gun wiped out waves of attackers and thus made it difficult for forces to advance. The tank moved on chained tracks and could cross many types of terrain and the submarine which was an effective warship. With it they kept weapons and supplies away from Britain and France (especially from the U.S). The poison gas caused death by choking, blindness.