The First World War (WWI) Essay

mission was to attack at the heart of German power as early and as forcefully as

By February 1915 the Austria Army had lost 5 million soldiers and consequentially, was no longer involved in the war until the insurgence of the Germans. Russian successes alongside the eastern front and against Austria attributed to the Germans dividing their forces into two active fronts. The Germans were quite successful on the eastern front, despite being outnumbered by 93.5 divisions of Russian armed forces to 78.5 divisions of German armed forces. By May of 1915 Germany liberated the Austrian forces and together they took Poland, Lithuania, Galicia and Latvia, moving increasingly forward (Germany in World War One, Holburn). The western front did not bode as well for the Germans.

Ferdinand decided to visit Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina to make an inspection on the troops there and that's how the assassination led up happening.

On June 28th 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by six Black Hand terrorists in Sarajevo, Bosnia. This is the spark that would start one of the biggest wars in known history that would make thousands of widows and thousands of orphans.

gave up hope of an immediate invasion of Britain. At this point, the best strategy for

Germany and Russia set their sights towards France and worked together to claim territory, however, Russia did not leave the manpower behind to protect its lower end, and Turkey began to creep its way in. Britain appeared to become focused solely on overseeing the demise of Russia and lead a one front assault against the country. France and Italy attempted to work together towards a common goal, though; they both appeared to be heading in separate directions unable to support one another, their alliance proving little. Italy and Austria-Hungary with alliances spread too far to aid battled one another in losing fight for territory as neither held the man power to successfully claim victory and often ended up in a standoff with neither moving or simply trading territory.

Also France and Germany agreed to settle any disputes. This meant that they would respect the German

He was killed by a group of 6 assassins, (5 from Siberia and 1 Bosniak) trying to end Austria-Hungarys provinces so it could be combined into a nation called Yugoslavia, (Wikipedia, 2018). But this wasn’t all. Militarism was also a big part of the disagreement through the countries. In order to seem secure and powerful, countries such as Germany, France, UK, Italy and Bulgaria, needed to keep their

At the outset of World War I, Germany wanted to avoid a two-front war at all costs. However, due to the Franco-Russian Alliance, Germany was forced to issue an ultimatum to Russia. Meanwhile, Germany’s ally Austria- Hungary mobilized it’s troops to crush Serbia (This placed Russia in a bad spot because the state believed that it was Russia’s duty to protect the Slavic people in the Balkans). Russia did not want this situation to make them look weak, so Czar Nicholas II ordered a partial mobilization. Unfortunately, the army reported to the Czar that they could not partially mobilize.

The Schlieffen Plan was under the guidance of General Alfred Von Schlieffen. This plan called for a “two front war” between France and Russia. A Two Front War is when a war takes place on two geographically separate fronts. France and Russia had formed an alliance in 1894.

Before World War 1 began, countries started to make alliances between themselves in case they were actually going to war. They thought that the entire world was at peace, but it all changed with a simple battle that tied all of the alliances together and formed the Great War. Facing a war at two fronts, Germany had developed a battle strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan, named after the German Chief of Staff, Alfred von Schlieffen. By 1905, Europe had effectively divided into two camps or groups: Germany, Austria and Italy (Triple Alliance) on one side and Britain, France and Russia (Triple Entente) on the other. Schlieffen believed that the most important area for any future war in Europe would be in the western area (France). Their original

In 1914, Germany and Russia began an altercation over mobilization. The exact meaning of mobilization is assembling troops, supplies, and food for war. During this time mobilization was considered to be an act of war, so of course, it caused a problem when Czar Nicholas II ordered the partial mobilization of the Russian army against Austria-Hungary. Some of the Russian leaders informed the Czar that they could not partially mobilize. On July 29, the czar ordered full mobilization even though he already was aware that Germany would consider this order as an act of war. The German government warned Russia about the czar’s claim. Russia did not care

Out of all the other great European powers, Germany and France had the most animosity between them and this begun after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian Wars of 1871, resulting in Germany taking control of the french region of Alsace- Loraine;”...Bismarck foresaw that France would not rest while she could hope some day to regain these provinces. The very peace therefore, which concluded the Franco-Prussian War laid the foundation of another war in the future.”3 It was enough of a disgrace for France, so grand a country, to suffer such a defeat to the newly created Germany, but with the taking of Alsace-Lorraine Germany accentuated this loss guaranteeing future conflict. In this way Germany gets the ball rolling so to speak, with these early developments paving the way to war. Through their initiating of the chain of alliances and their degradation of France, the Germans successfully set itself and Europe on the path to war long before Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was to inadvertently become the catalyst behind Germany’s causing of World War One.

into war, and the hostility soon spread all over the world. On 28 July, the Austria-Hungarians

The great victorious powers (Russia, Britain, Austria and Prussia) invited other states of Europe to send plenipotentiaries to Vienna for a peace conference. There had been other urgent issues to be resolved: the rights of Jews in Germany, the abolition of the slave trade and navigation in European rivers, not to mention the restoration of the Bourbon royal family in France, Spain and Naples, the constitution of Switzerland, issues of diplomatic precedence and, last but not least, the foundation of a new German confederation to replace the late Holy Roman Empire. The root of the crisis could, again, is in a failure of Congress system (and again in the Holy Alliance): the omission of the Ottoman Empire of European peace. In 1830 Czartoryski, who was on the wrong side of a Polish rebellion against Russian side, he regretted that despite perpetual peace had become the conception of the most powerful monarchs of the continent (he referred in particular to Tsar Alexander) diplomacy had corrupted and turned into poison.