Thus began the expansion of the war to include all those involved in the mutual defense alliances. When Russia began to mobilize to defend its alliance with Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia. That country issued an ultimatum to Serbia after the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The assassination of Ferdinand led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. The first country to declare war in WWI was Austria-Hungary.
The assassination was in protest to Austria-Hungary having control of this region: Serbia wanted to take over Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, later that day a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip shot the Archduke and his wife while they were driving through Sarajevo, Bosnia which was part of Austria-Hungary. Their first attempt failed when a driver avoided a grenade thrown at their car. In June 1914, a Serbian-nationalist terrorist group called the Black Hand sent groups to assassinate the Archduke. The immediate cause of World War I that made the aforementioned items come into play (alliances, imperialism, militarism, and nationalism) was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. This increase in militarism helped push the countries involved into war. Discover how WWI transformed America through the stories of those whose participation in the war to make the world safe for democracy has been largely. On April 2, 1917, Wilson went before a special joint session of Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Germany, stating: The world must be made.
Further, in Germany and Russia particularly, the military establishment began to have a greater influence on public policy. Great Britain and Germany both greatly increased their navies in this time period. Dreadnought was soon out-classed as the Royal Navy and Kaiserliche Marine quickly expanded their ranks with increasingly modern and powerful warships.īy 1914, Germany had nearly 100 warships and two million trained soldiers. The warships themselves increased in size, number of guns, speed, method of propulsion, and quality armor, beginning in 1906 with Britain's HMS Dreadnought. In the years leading up to the war, the nations of Europe were constantly jockeying for power and. However, there was one single event, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, which started a chain of events leading to war. Paul Thompson/FPG / Stringer / Getty ImagesĪs the world entered the 20th century, an arms race had begun, primarily over the number of each country's warships, and the increasing size of their armies-countries began training more and more of their young men to be prepared for battle. The real causes of World War I included politics, secret alliances, imperialism, and nationalistic pride. The SMS Tegetthoff a dreadnought battleship of the Tegetthoff class of the Austro-Hungarian Navy is launched down the slipway of the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino yard in Trieste on 21 March 1912 at Trieste, Austria.
0 kommentar(er)
