Cause Of Ww1

The First World War began in August 1914. It was set off by the assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, on 28th June 1914 by Bosnian revolutionary, Gavrilo Princip. Austria/Hungary's waited three weeks to react to the death of their heir. Arguing that the Serbian government was implicated in the conspiracy of the Black Hand (a secret military society), the Austro-Hungarians chose to take the opportunity to stamp its authority upon the Serbians, stopping nationalism there and sealing Austria/Hungary's influence in the Balkans.
Austria/Hungary's wanted Serbia to refuse the terms of the ultimatum, which would give them a reason to launch a limited war against Serbia.
However, Serbia had long Slavic relations with

The alliances and the new system they imposed did have a drastic effect as to why the war broke out. Countries that were not involved in the first place ended up fighting a war that was not theirs. Several alliances were signed by countries during the 1879-1914, these were important and defined the nation’s fate because if one country declared war first this inevitably meant that their ally had to declare war as well.
(rhetorical question)
• Austria/Hungary, did not like Serbia’s response to her ultimatum, declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914.
• Russia, bound by treaty to Serbia, put together an army to defend them.
• Germany, allied to Austria-Hungary by treaty, saw the Russian mobilization as an act of war against Austria-Hungary, and after scant warning declared war on Russia on August 1st.
• France, obligated by treaty to Russia, found itself at war against Germany and, therefore, on Austria-Hungary following a German declaration on August 3rd. Germany was quick in invading Belgium so as to reach Paris by the shortest possible route.
• Britain, allied to France declared war against Germany on August 4th. She had a different reason to enter the conflict: she was obligated to defend neutral Belgium because of a 75 year old

Since the alliances were a secret, the European powers did not who to trust and were really suspicious of one another and because of that their diplomats were not able to find the solutions to the crisis before the war broke out.
The alliances were made in case of a war so it increased the tensions and turn into a contest within the European powers as to who could get more guns, tanks. Within four years after the formation of the Triple Alliance in 1907. Germany built nine dreadnoughts (fightships) and as a result Britain built eighteen. This way all the European powers were ready for war in 1914.
Since all the European powers had alliances with one another. If one of them had a disagreement with another it may lead to a war involving all.
At first the alliances were made to protect each other and not to attack unless being attacked. By 1910, many alliances changed their way. The Austro-German alliance became aggressive after the Bosnian crisis, the Germans promised to help the Austria-Hungary alliance if Austria invaded Serbia. Since the alliances were used to fight each other it may have been another cause of the