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Ww1 War Causes

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War. War is a term with which everyone is familiar. However, more often than not, when one thinks of the causes of war, one imagines a spectacular event in which one country marches their forces onto another’s land, and proceeds to conquer the territory by force. This then causes the defending country to retaliate, and the conflict escalates into a full-scale war. Sometimes this may be the case, but as for WWI, it was a more subtle process. WWI was not a war with a singular cause, although there were key contributing factors in the creation of this particular war. Bottled up nationalism within France, Austria-Hungary, Serbia, and Germany played an enormous role in the concoction of the war, with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand being the …show more content…

In response to the Serbian and Pan-Slavic dispute, Austria-Hungary sent its heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, on a visit to Bosnia in an attempt to placate the people there. At the time, a terrorist group named the “Black Hand” had formed in Serbia under Serbian nationalism, and the group had gotten wind of this particular trip. Therefore, they decided this would be the perfect time to strike out and assassinate the Archduke Ferdinand. It is important to realize that Austria-Hungary had long desired to put an end to Serbia for the good of Austria-Hungary, and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand was the perfect excuse to declare war. With this in mind, they sent Serbia an ultimatum that was clearly unacceptable, and used Serbia’s refusal of the ultimatum as the crutch on which they would declare war on Serbia. Germany had provided Austria-Hungary with the “Blank Cheque”; promising its full and unlimited support for Austria-Hungary should a war ever break out between them and Serbia. The support of Germany was enough for Austria-Hungary to officially declare war, and this declaration led to a snowball series of war declarations in Europe that depended on the country’s alignment with the alliances. Overall, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand set in motion the actions that would eventually lead to the Great

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