The war demonstrated that death and destruction had not yet been banished from human affairs. Lulled by a century of peace-Europeans had not seen a large-scale war since the defeat of Napoleon in 1815-many observers had come to regard armed conflict as a relic of the past, rendered unthinkable by human progress. World War I caught most people by surprise. When Russia failed to demobilize its forces, the German Kaiser agreed to war. They were obligated by treaty to support Russia and were still bitter over their defeat by Prussia in 1871. Germany sent an ultimatum to France asking it to declare its neutrality in the event of a conflict between Russia and Germany. This move made Germany's leadership fear encirclement by Russia and France. Meanwhile, Russia, fearful of Austrian and German expansion into the Balkans, strongly supported the Serbs and began to mobilize its army. Recognizing that any action it took against Serbia would create an international incident, Austria asked for Germany's diplomatic and military support. When the conflict was over, between 9 and 15 million people had been killed, four powerful European empires had been overthrown, and the seeds of World War II and the Cold War had been planted.Ī complicated system of military alliances transformed the Balkan crisis into a full-scale European war. Gavrilo Princip immediately after the assassination, gave this firsthand. The assassination of the archduke triggered a series of events that would lead, five weeks later, to the outbreak of World War I. Borijove Jevtic, one of the leaders of the Narodna Odbrana who was arrested with. The dual monarchy wanted to punish Serbia for the assassination and to intimidate other minority groups whose struggles for independence threatened the empire's stability. What happened in the city that day would set in motion a series of events that would lead the. He and his wife, Sophie, were murdered by the Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and a month later Austria declared war on Serbia. The assassination provoked outrage in Austria-Hungary. On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, visited Sarajevo. Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria-Este, Austrian archduke whose assassination was the immediate cause of World War I. Princip died of mistreatment in an Austrian prison in 1918. He had received his weapon from a secret society known as the "Black Hand," which was clandestinely controlled by the government of Serbia. Gavrilo Princip, the 19-year-old assassin, was a Bosnian nationalist who opposed the domination of the Balkans by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Within an hour, the Archduke and his wife were dead. As the car came to a halt and tried to turn around, a nervous teenager approached from a coffee house, pulled out a revolver, and shot twice. On June 28, 1914, a car carrying Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the imperial Hapsburg throne, made a wrong turn. Digital History Printable Version The Road to War
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |