THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Franz Ferdinand and His Wife, Sophie. The Austrian archduke and arch-duchess, in Sarajevo on June 28,1914, approaching their car just minutes before they were assassinated.

The JULY CRISIS

What were the causes of World War I?

In 1914 Europe had built a seemingly stable peace. The Great Powers had divided themselves into two rival alliances: the Triple Entente (later the Allied Powers) of Britain, France, and Russia and the Triple Alliance (later the Central Powers) of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Within this balance of power, reasonable diplomacy could resolve international conflicts, such as the disputes over African colonies in 1905 and 1911 and the Balkan wars of 1912-1913. But when diplomacy failed, as it did in the summer of 1914, the alliance system could hasten the outbreak of a wider war. Domestic conflict and international suspicions also threatened the long-preserved peace. Muscling for their own interests abroad, the European nations engaged in a fierce arms race, confident that superior technology and larger armies would result in a quick victory if war occurred. Indeed, war seemed inevitable to many political and military leaders – a question of when, not if. None of the diplomats, spies, military planners, or cabinet ministers of Europe – nor any of their critics – predicted the war they eventually got. Nor did many expect that the Balkan crisis of July 1914 would touch off that conflict, engulfing all of Europe in just over a month's time.

The Great Powers had long been involved in fairs of southeast Europe. The Balkans lay between venerable but unsteady empires, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman. The region was also home to newly formed states under the sway of ambitious nationalist movements, "Pan-Slavic" ethnic crusaders, and local power brokers. Balkan politics were a tradition for Russian intervention in European affairs, and also for German and British diplomacy. Despite these entanglements, the Great Powers tried to avoid direct intervention, seeking instead to bring the new Balkan states into the web of alliances. In 1912 the independent states of Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Montenegro launched the First Balkan War against the Ottomans, in 1913; the Second Balkan War was fought spoils of the first. The Great Powers steered clear of entanglement, and these wars remained localized. The link between Balkan conflict and continental war would be the Austro-Hungarian Empire was struggling to survive amid increasing nationalist ambitions. The "dual monarchy," as it was called after reforms in 1876, had frustrated many ethnic groups excluded from the arrangement. Czechs and Slovenes protested their second-class status in the German half of the empire; Poles, Croats, and ethnic Romanians chafed at Hungarian rule.

The province of Bosnia particularly volatile, home to several Slavic ethnic groups and formerly part of the Ottoman empire. In 1878, the Austrians had occupied and then annexed Bosnia, drawing hatred and resistance most of Bosnia's ethnic groups. Bosnian Serbs, in particular, to secede and join the independent kingdom of Serbia. But now the Austrians blocked their plans. So with the support of Serbia, the Bosnian Serbs began an underground war against the empire to achieve their goals. Bosnia would be the crucible of European conflict.

On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand (1889-1914), archduke of Austria and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, paraded through Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. As Serb resistance, Sarajevo was an admittedly dangerous place for the head of the hated empire to parade in public. The archduke had escaped an assassination attempt earlier in the day, with a bomb barely missing his automobile; but when his car made a wrong turn and stopped to back up, a nineteen-year-old Bosnian student named Gavrilo Princip shot Ferdinand and his wife at point-blank range. Princip was a member of the Young Bosnian Society, a national liberation group with close links to Serbia. He undoubtedly saw his violent act as a part of a struggle for his people's independence—we see it as the start of World War I.

Shocked by Ferdinand's death, the Austrians saw the assassination as a direct attack from the Serbian government. Eager for retribution, Austria issued an ultimatum to Serbia three weeks later, demanding that the Serbian government denounce the aims and activities of the Bosnian Serbs, prohibit further propaganda and subversion, and allow Austro-Hungarian officials to prosecute and punish Serbian officials who the Austrians believed were involved in the assassination. The demands were deliberately unreasonable. Austria wanted war, a punitive campaign to restore order in Bosnia and crush Serbia.

Allied powers

Central powers

Neutral powers

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 755