World War 1

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World War 1

The question is who and/or what caused World War 1? Well at the turn of the twentieth century Europe seemed to enjoy a period of peace of progress. But below the surface several forces were at the work and would lead Europe into the Great War. There were many causes of World War 1. Three important causes were: the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the tangle of alliances, and the costs of war. These causes had a great toll on World War 1 and questioned the thought if it would ever end.

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was when the crisis began. He was going to visit Sarajevo which was the capital of Bosnia. And Bosnia at the time was under the rule of Austria Hungary. When he came to visit it made the Serbian Nationalists very angry. The date that the Archduke decided to visit was a special date in Serbian history(June 28). So on June 28, 1914, as the archduke rode through Sarajevo in an open car, one of conspirators hurled a bomb. But it missed Archduke Ferdinand and injured an officer in another car. Later on, the archduke asked to visit the wounded officer in the hospital. He did not know that the conspirator was still waiting. When the car set out Gavrilo Princip sprang and shot twice in the back seat. Moments later the wife and the archduke were dead.

The costs of war made the tragedy even worse. More than 8.5 million people were dead. When a pandemic was spread throughout the whole world it killed more than 20 million people- twice as many as the war itself. There were financial burdens with the cost of rebuilding and paying which would burden an already burdened world. Everyone everywhere felt bitter about the war. The allies blamed the problems on the defeated enemies and that they made payments for the war damage. Also under the stress of war, governments had collapsed in Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. Dreams of building a new social order from the chaos had come to an end.

The tangle of alliances intended to create powerful combinations that no one would dare attack.

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