The Great War - World War I
The Start of it..
On the 28th of June 1914, the archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria; heir to the monarchy of the Habsburg, visited the Bosnian town Sarajevo to inspect Austrian troops stationed there. Bosnia, and its sister providence Herzegovina, were former Turkish possessions which had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. Many of its Serb inhabitants were bitterly resentful at not being allowed to join Serbia, their native state. Leading to one of them, a grammar school student named Gavrilo Princip, assassinated the Archduke and his wife as they rode through the streets of Sarajevo in an open top car.
On July 28th, Austria-Hungary retaliated by declaring war on Serbia, a diplomatic rather than a military move, as it would have taken several weeks for the Austrians to mobilise. The Russians then stepped in on the side of the Serbs; their fellow-Slavs. The Russians could not allow the Serbs to be humiliated, nor would they permit the Austrians and their German ally to dominate the Balkans and, by extension, Russia's access to the Mediterranean through the Dardanelles Straits. Russia then mobilised on July 29th 1914.. The wheels of war are now in motion.
On august 1st, Germany declared war on Russia and mobilised their troops. Russia's ally, France, also mobilised on the very same day. On august 3rd at 6:45pm, Germany declared war on France. The next day Germany invaded Belgium, which had been declared a neutral country by the treaty of London in 1839. This, now brought the British in to the up-coming war. They sent Germany an altimatum asking them to withdraw from Belgium. To which there was no reply, and so my midnight on August the 4th, Britain and Germany were at war. The British had been the only nation to declare war on Germany rather than the other way round.
So, why did Garvrilo Princip's shots in Sarajevo lead to a world war? At first the incedent was harldy even noted in Britain. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, did not believe that Russia would not intervene on behalf of the Serbs. He was not going to let the crisis interfere with his planned holiday cruise!.
Over the tangle of power rivalry in Europe, with its shifting alliances and brutal jockeying for imperial position, lay the shadow of the huge conscript armies assembled by the continental powers in the late 19th century. Expanding populations and industrial muscle had produced huge resources of manpower which could be mobilised as acts of political policy to achieve national ends. The politicians calculated on their deterrent effect to avoid war, but did not anticipate that these great armies, assembled to keep the peace, would once mobilised, propel the nations into war by their own fearful weight.
Over the tangle of power rivalry in Europe, with its shifting alliances and brutal jockeying for imperial position, lay the shadow of the huge conscript armies assembled by the continental powers in the late 19th century. Expanding populations and industrial muscle had produced huge resources of manpower which could be mobilised as acts of political policy to achieve national ends. The politicians calculated on their deterrent effect to avoid war, but did not anticipate that these great armies, assembled to keep the peace, would once mobilised, propel the nations into war by their own fearful weight.
The staff of each army had prepared detailed war plans in advance. The plans of Germany and France involved the use of precise railway timetables for the mass movement of men and material. The technological gears that made these movements possible could not be thrown into reverse by the political powers, who at this stage had irrevocably surrendered control to their generals. In the first 2 weeks of August 1914, some 20 million men; nearly 10 per cent of the populations of the combatant states, donned uniforms and took the trains to war.. All believed that they would be back home before Christmas!.