Battle Of The Somme Essay

WW1 began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip was apart of Serbian revolutionary group called the Black Hand, who planned to kill the Archduke to begin a war of independence. The reason they fought for independence was the poor treatment of the Slavic people by the Austro-Hungarian empire, which was ironic because the Archduke wanted to help the Slavic people, in an attempt to keep the empire united. Once the Archduke was assassinated, the Austro-Hungarian empire declared war on Serbia, which started a long entangling system of alliances bringing many more powers into the conflict. According to historyonthenet, many of these alliances had been made many

Another cause of this war was Imperialism, as many of the powers involved in the war were competing for land abroad and power in Europe. Nations was also a great influence to the beginning of the war, strong nationalism in Italy and Germany had unified the countries, and that same Nationalism inspired its people to fight for their country’s superiority. The two main conflicts I find important since they still have an effect on the war today, are the Battle of the Somme (July 1 – November 18, 1916) and the Battle of Tannenberg (August 26 – August 10, 1914). The reason the Battle of the Somme is still so important to the people of Britain is the immense loss that was inflicted there, and how that loss represents the whole of the war. The BBC states that the Battle of the Somme lasted 141 days and had a death toll of one million, but the bloodiest day was the first with over 100,000 soldiers dying. At that time Pals Battalions were a common thing in the British Military, the BBC states that “Men often went to the recruiting office with their friends and ended up in the same group (or “Battalion”) of the