World War I

World War I began with the death of an archduke. Archduke Franz Ferdinand beloved that slaves along with his empire required more power. Archduke Franz Ferdinand use to be emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On June 28, 1914, a group of Serbs who believed that the slaves belonged to them attempted an assignation of the archduke Ferdinand by trying to blow him up. The group was known as the "Blackhand." This group failed to blow up the archduke but did successed in stabbing him to death. Some say it was an accidental stabbing, nonetheless still killing him as planned. This death pushed austro-hungry to declare war on Serbia on July 28, 1914.

Along with this death that impacted the beginning of World War I, there were many more reasons why World War I began. The alliance system which consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy went to war with Great Britain, France, and Russia. Russia was tied to a previous treaty to defend Serbia against Austria-Hungary, so on July 30, 1914, Russia goes to war. Germany now entered the war to protect Austria-Hungary against the Russians who had already entered the war. On august 3,1914, German troops attack France, a Russian western ally, thus causing great Britain to enter the first world war the very next day by declaring war on Germany.

The arms race is another cause of the fist world war. At this time, Germany had the most successful army of those in the war. Germany instituted a large draft of military forces to make up their general staff. Although they did have the most successful army, they did not have the largest. The largest army in Europe was the German kieser army, but the largest army in the world is the British army. The British already announced that they would have an army two and half times greater than threat of any other army. The British army was so large they were able to scatter their army on various parts of the world, such as in India. The German kieser believed they could come up with a navy to defeat the British army. From this belief emerged the Schrieffer plan. With this plan a small part of the German army was sent to Russia and a much larger part of the army was sent to Paris by train.