causes of WWI
The Cause/Causes of World War I On June 28, 1914, Bosnian-Serbian nationalists, who wished to see the formation of a greater Serbia, assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, in Sarajevo. A little more than a month later World War I began. How could a war that eventually ended four empires and killed over 15 million soldiers been started by the assassination of one man? In order to answer this question one would have to look nearly 40 years prior to this immediate cause. One would have to look at events shaped by nationalism in the Balkans, and the European system of alliances, events that did not significantly foreshadow a war as devastating as World War I. Like a puzzle, the pieces of World War I were being slowly put together after the Franco-Prussian war, the assassination of the archduke was simply the last piece. As for the major causes of World War I there is a general acceptance that nationalism and imperialism had a large part in beginning the Great War. Still, what is debated is the importance of one over another. The events that led up to the war came to have an importance after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. After a Prussian win, a new united Germany became the strongest of the European powers. Despite the fact that Germany led Europe in arms, the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck feared a French revenge. Bismarck was not wrong to think so. France wanted to regain its provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which were lost to Germany as a result of the war. Because of his fear, Bismarck set a group of alliances known as the Bismarckian system. The alliance consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. It was called the Three Emperors’ League or Dreikaiserbund. These three countries put there differences aside and united under the same idea of monarchial supremacy. This system protected Germany with alliances while keeping, the republic of France from gaining any allies. This system was an uneasy alliance, as Russia and Austria-Hungary were in conflict over the division of the Balkan states. Five years later in 1878 Bismarck’s peaceful pact nearly broke as strife in the Balkans pointed toward the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. This put Russia and Austria-Hungary in a dispute over which lands would go to whom. However, at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 Bismarck tried to settle this dispute by giving Russia control over Bessarabia, Kars, and Batum and giving Austria-Hungary permission to “occupy and administer” Bosnia-Herzegovina. This did not please the Russians, though, because the Congress disregarded the more favorable terms given to them by Turkey in the Treaty of San Stefano. And after all of Bismarck’s efforts to compromise Russia left and the Three Emperors’ League was put on a short hiatus. Now that Russia was out of the alliance Austria-Hungary wanted a stronger union with Germany. It received this when the Chancellor created the Dual Alliance in 1879.