Exploring Why a Murder Lead to War in 1914

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Exploring Why a Murder Lead to War in 1914

Franz Ferdinand, Archbishop of Austria, and his wife Sophie were

murdered in 1914. This event set off a sequence of consequences which

ended up in the beginning of World War l. Franz and his wife were shot

by a Serb called Gavrilo Princep in Sarajevo. It was this act which

gave Austria-Hungary the motive for going to war with Serbia.

On the 28th of July 1914 an incident happened in Sarajevo which, some

people say could have triggered the war off. Franz Ferdinand (the

archbishop of Austria) and his wife Sophie arrived by train for their

tour. Unfortunately the tour did not go as planned, they ended up

being assassinated by Gavrilo Princip.

Five weeks after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie the

whole of Europe was at war and the alliance systems were in play. One

on side were the countries of the triple entente, France, Russia and

Great Britain, supported by Serbia and Japan, formed an alliance

against Germany. Opposing this was Germany, supported by

Austria-Hungary and Italy. This had the effect of making Germany feel

under threat from all round them.

On 23rd July 1914, ten demands were sent to Serbia by Austria-Hungary.

Austria-Hungary had made it quite clear that if all ten demands were

not met, they would declare war with them. After the Serbs refused to

accept 2 out of their 10 demands Austria-Hungary declared war on

Serbia. Austria-Hungary had hoped that Serbia would refuse to agree

because this would give them an excuse to invade Serbia.

Austria-Hungary wanted revenge on Serbia after the murder of Franz and

his wife even though he had not been very popular in his country.

So on 28th July the war between Serbia and Austria-Hungary began. At

this point, Russia became involved. Serbia’s ally was Russia and they

asked her to help. Russia was too weak to go to war, they didn’t have

enough weapons to win it but they wanted to help Serbia. For Tsar

Nicolas, the ruler of Russia, it was a hard decision, but on 31st July

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