How did World War I Begin?

In the years leading up to the Great War, many sub-conflicts or misinterpretations appeared. All these tensions that were seen around Europe created what was the First World War. The question you're probably asking is, what one was the greatest conflict? Which one tipped the boat too far?

From many historian prospectives, the main cause of World War I was the Balkan assassination - involving the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and a Serbia terrorist group, named the Black Hand Gang. For years, Serbia had grown more aggressive, with politicians and civilians wanting the Austro-Hungarian Empire out of the Balkan lands.

The start of this aggression between the Serbian's and the Austro-Hungarians came from the revolution which happened in 1903. In this "revolution", the King and Queen were brutally murdered by Dragutin Dimitrijevic, a much more patriotic figure who disputed the new Austro-Hungarian Empire movement.

Over the next years leading up to the war, Serbia fought heavily to stop the AH (Austro-Hungarian) Empire from advancing into their Balkan lands. When Bosnia was to be annexed, the Serbian's protested over this - which was named the first Balkan Crisis. The Serbian's then took down two Balkan countries: Macedonia and Kosovo from the Ottoman Empire, who were retreating after a much needed reform.

Other than Serbians fighting over what they claimed were "rightly theirs", they also plotted and unsuccessful tried to assassinate a large amount of AH officials. Near on all of the assassinations had Serbian government approval. In 1910, Bogdan Zerajic attempted to murder General Marijan Veresanin, who was Governor of Bosnia. Bogdan was an inspiration to future assassins, most namely, the murderer of the Arch Duke.

Now we're up to the present day, or at least, when this "assassination" happened. With tensions high in Bosnia over the annexing, and the constant threat of a Serbian assassination, it was unlikely that AH would send such a valued member of the family to take a tour around the beautiful city of Sarajevo.

The Black Hand Gang knew about this and with the help of government officials, they prepared to take the Arch Duke out. They positioned themselves, but nobody actually hit their targets. With their unsuccessful assassination attempt, Gavrilo Princip went into a sandwich bar, only to find when he left the Arch Duke's car to be reversing up the road. Gavrilo pulled out his gun, killing both the Arch Duke, and his wife Sophie. Gavrilo said he'd done this to stop AH from advancing into the Balkans.

The aftermath of this was huge. Not only did large Serb-riots break out in AH areas, but AHungarians ideas on the Serbians changed. The assassins were quickly found and trailed, but the real killers were spotted soon by AH, the Serbian government, who'd supplied them with weapons and other kit necessary for this assassination.

The AH Empire demanded that Serbia sign the July ultimatum; which was inevitably unsignable and was created only to further the Balkan war, that was becoming more and more likely to happen. When Serbia denied, AH declared war on them.

Whether this could have just been a Balkan conflict, or whether this, with other sub-conflicts initiated the final spark to the World War, I'm unsure. What I find most compelling about this is that without the other sub-conflicts, I believe England would not have got involved. If England didn't get involved, I doubt this battle would have started the main war.

This is the event many historians give though, so if you're doing this for GCSE homework - I'd say this is the main cause, but read the rest and decide for yourself if you're really into History!

In 1890, Wilhelm II took control of the German Empire. Wilhelm was an aggressive man, who didn't have such tolerance for being second best or pushed around by any country. He wanted the German Empire to not only have the largest army in the world, but the largest navy; industry and economy. In short, he wanted to be larger than Britain. He wanted not only to rival Britain but to push beyond their limits, to beat Britain at everything they had took years to achieve.

For years, Germany had a distance with Britain. Germany were one of the only countries in Europe not to trade heavily with them, with only 5% of trade in/out of Germany from/to Britain. Germany sent most of their trade to developing countries and in turn, the developing countries would give them better deals and possibly land to work on.

Germans wanted an Empire like Britain's, they wanted places in Africa and Asia. When they took various countries, it went on bad terms with Britain, France, Russia, China, Japan and America. All of which were both scared of the Germans actions and annoyed that they had lost trading routes.

Germany had a lot on their plate if they had a chance of keeping up with the British. One of the major British advantages was their naval ability. Being an island, it was very hard for Germany to ever be able to beat their country unless they had a brilliant, and better than British navy. The Kaiser ordered that a supreme ship, named the Dreadnought, be built. This ship was Britain's main advantage in the ocean, it was much better than any ever created.

The race for supremacy in the ocean created the Second Moroccan Crisis, where King Wilhelm ordered a Dreadnought, named Panther, to the dock of Agadir - the Kaiser wanted better land in Africa, and thought that having the best naval fleet in position would scare the French into giving them it.

While there were many other corrosive factors to this chapter, these are the ones which correspond with the title - German Expansion and Wilhelm II. Wilhelm wanted something better than Britain and he wanted Germany to have it. This created tension and created alliances - such as the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance.

While the assassination and the expansion of Germany may of been something, nothing caused more tension in the long space of time then the alliances. The Triple Entente and The Triple Alliance - the Entente was a much larger alliance, as it had many sub-members who helped in the war effort against The Triple Alliance (TTA).

The alliances happened within the industrial built up of the 1880-1890-1900-1910's. The British Empire stood firmly in grasp of most of the world, with a 1/3 of the world being in British hands. France held a large plot of the world too. Russia was just starting out as a large empire, they had just started mapping their lands, but had a fearsome army. These made the elite of the Entente.

The other side of the alliances, The Triple Alliance, was created by the Austro-Hungarians and the Germans, as a mutual agreement to remain allies in the face of war. Italy joined the alliance later, when they moved from one side to the other. Germany were prepared to go into war with AH when they invaded Serbia, but they didn't suspect Britain to fight back.

Due to Britain's mutual agreement with Belgium, they had to stop the invasion of France from being successful. Yet again, another agreement which meant millions of unnecessary losses. The British drop into Belgium meant they couldn't surprise Germany in any other way, Germany knew Britain were in the war.

In theory, without these alliances, would there be conflict? I mean sure, you would have the Kaiser wanting to have his Empire, but without Britain bothering to help France, I'm unsure they would of been in the war. Same with Germany and Austro-Hungary, I believe without their friendship, they wouldn't have helped each other in the crisis. It would have been more likely that Germany would have tried to surprise AH when they invaded Serbia.

I know this is a huge deal to take in, about 2000 words of information - but I ask you to make up your own mind. Use this method, take the others crisis' out of the equation, if this one crisis could have sparked a world war, then undoubtedly you would think this is the major crisis.

One cannot work with the other, I know, for some, you have to have the sub-crisis in order to have that one. There are reasons for all four of them being the major crisis. It's entirely up to you.

Oh and all of my information was taken from my GCSE History Books and various websites. You'll notice where I've got information of websites as I'll go more into detail on these parts, sorry if you're annoyed I didn't do it all myself...although, it's much better knowing more then less.