Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the throne of Austria - Hungary. He was assassinated on 28th June 1914 by terrorists (Black Hand Gang) from one of Austria - Hungary’s rival powers, Serbia. Austria - Hungary blamed Serbia. Even though the terrorists were not connected to the Serbia government. On 31 July 1914, Austria- Hungary declared war on Serbia.
Then the Romanians and Turks attacked the Bulgarians. By the time both Balkan wars had ended, Serbia had added lots of captured territory to it's empire and this made Austria-Hungary even more concerned. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. For some unknown reason, Austria-Hungary believed that Serbia was involved in the killing. Some historians believe that Austria-Hungary was just looking for an excuse to start a war.
As Serbia’s confidence was now at its peak, as there sized had doubled, and the army had increased to 400,000, so if the were now confronted by the Austro- Hungarians they were now willing to fight. This confrontation was then sparked by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, which inevitably led to the Austro-Hungarians declaring war onto the Serbians, leading to the creation of world war 1. Overall the mismanaged Balkan crisis can be argued to have caused the war as the leading powers failed to handle and diffuse the tensions before it did, knowing that the Balkans had the potential to spark a world war, in the words of Bismarck. However the July crisis 1914, did not necessarily make war inevitable as had the crisis been contained
HIS 105: Factors Contributing to World War I There were many factors that led to World War I, some detailed below: The assassination of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand (heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire) was a major contribution. He and his wife Sofia were shot while on a visit to Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, by Gavrilo Princip (a member of the Serbian nationalist group called the Black Hand). The Black Hand had a primary objective of forcing the Austro-Hungarians out of Serbia. The assassination caused ricocheting consequences among Europe’s military alliances. Austria declared war on Serbia, which provoked Russia to help the Serbians, which led to Germany declaring war on Russia and France, which triggered England to declare war on Germany.
Boom! Boom! A few gunshots went off and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife were murdered. The Culprit was Gavrilo Princip, who was one of the many Serbian assassins that were sent to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand in order to acquire the southern provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and create a Greater Serbia. As the Serbians were caught, the country had been given an ultimatum, which was declined by the Serbian Government.
Was Germany to blame for the start of world war one? Germany was to blame for the First World War, but only to a certain extent. Germany was not solely to blame, but did contribute greatly to the sequence of events that led to war. Germany were a major contributor to the Arms Race, caused tension between many European countries, made alliances, were extremely nationalistic and encouraged Austria – Hungary to declare war on Serbia. In 1904, Germans were encouraged to become nationalists.
Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student, shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife (Archduke Franz Ferdinand). Princip belonged to a group called the Black Hand, who wanted Serbia to be independent from Austria Hungary. Austria Hungary demanded Serbia to punish those responsible for the assassination. When Serbia failed to comply, Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia. Since Serbia was an ally of the Allied Powers, the Allied Powers declared
The Austrians blamed the Serbs for the deaths and issued them with a set of irrational demands and threatened to invade if they were ignored. Serbia’s ally Russia didn’t want the Austrians expanding, Serbia and Russia spoke a similar language and religion, so Russia supported them and if Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia, Russia would attack Austria-Hungary. In 1870s Austria-Hungary made alliance with Germany and in 1882 Italy joined (this was the Triple Alliance) Germany supported Austria- Hungary no matter what would happen. In 1894 the dual entente between France and Russia was made (France made allies with Russia) and if Germany attacked Russia, France would charge straight through Germany to Champagne (that was the French army’s plan called plan 17) they never went through with the plan though. The German army had a plan on how they would defeat France before the Russian army were ready to fight, (this was called the Schlieffen Plan), instead of entering France the most predicted way, through the French borderline, they would go through Belgium a neutral country (and taking it), then they would defeat France in 6 weeks, then they would deal with Russia.
One of the main factors was the blank check that Germany gave Austria-Hungary. Allowing Austria-Hungary to go to war on Serbia, with Germany’s full support. Austria-Hungary wanted to go to war on Serbia because, a member of the Black Hand (a Serbian terrorist group) assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. Austria-Hungary served a harsh ultimatum on Serbia, and if they didn’t agree they would declare war. They had known Serbia would reject the ultimatum.
These three wars are all an example of how a nation goes to war because the other nation did a bad deed to them. On June 28th, 1914, World War 1 started because of the assassination of the Austrian President. “The Austrian President’s assassination by a Serb nationalist was viewed as a great excuse to attack Austria-Hungary's troublesome neighbor, Serbia.” (Stevens 34). Since the Austrian President was assassinated, Austria saw that Serbia did a bad deed to them. Therefore Austria wants to attack Serbia.