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Causes or World War 1

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World war one sparked with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie. Ferdinand was heir to the Austria-Hungary throne. The killer, a nineteen-years-old Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, was part of a Serbian terrorist group called “Young Bosnians”, in association with the “Black Hand”, a Serbian government terrorist movement. Few people foresaw that a cataclysmic world war would soon follow. After the assassination, Germany encouraged Austria-Hungary not to deal with the Serbs, but to crush them once and for all. (Serbia and Austria-Hungary had a past with a lot of tensions.) Germany guaranteed full military support, which is called a “blank check”. Sure of the German support, Austria-Hungary issued an Ultimatum of 48 hours to Serbia, who did not accept every demand. This became the excuse for a war that would plunge Europe into darkness. In less than five weeks, a full-scale war broke out, caused by a domino effect and the mobilizations ways. Every country could move their army in a matter of hours and days, given the speed that railroads made possible. The domino effect first started when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in attempt to solve its problems in the Balkans, and Germany encouraged this aggression as part of their own personal plan to control Central Europe. Russia mobilized to support its ally Serbia and extend its own influence. France mobilized to fulfill the terms of its alliance with Russia and get revenged on the Germans for its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1871. Britain followed its allies France and Russia into war against Germany and Austria-Hungary, who became known as the Central Powers, also allied with the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. Russia, France, Britain, Italy, Greece, Romania, Portugal and Japan were known as the Allies. Germany started the war with the “Schlieffen Plan”, a plan

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