how the assassination of one person sparked the start of WW1
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There are more complete answers here, I just want to point out it was never about one person. All major countries were itching for a war for one reason or another, and that assassination started a turn of events that allowed everyone to have a go at it.
Tensions were already high. The asassination by a Serbian national was a convenient excuse. They were probably already thinking of how to proceed on that course anyway and make it look legit.
The assassination alone didn’t spark it, it was a lot of little things and that was basically the straw breaking the camel’s back. I think another person here said the Balkans were a powder keg ready to blow, and it finally just did.
lol this reminds me of a newspaper headline in red dead redemption saying something like “through a series of events no one understands, a world war has broken out”.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was next in line to the Habsburg throne of Austria-Hungary (AH) and other territories. Franz Joseph, the head of the House of Habsburg (who formed the dual monarchy of AH from the Austrian Empire, an interesting king in his own right), was aging and Archduke Ferdinand was expected to take the throne within a few years.
Serbia was a pricipality of AH which had a strong independence movement. They gained independence a couple decades before WW1. Russia was backing this independence movement, and signed a defense treaty with Serbia after they gained independence. There remained some strife between Serbia and AH regarding AH’s annexation of Bosnia (which some ethnic Serbs called home).
A Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, as part of a plot by a Serbian terrorist organization called the Black Hand which had some involvement with the Serbian crown. The Black Hand was a Serbian nationalist organization trying to form a greater Yugoslavia (South Slavia) in the Baltic states, including Bosnia, Serbia, and other parts of the (then) Ottoman Empire and AH.
So then AH declared war on Serbia because reasons. So Russia declared war on AH due to a defense agreement with Serbia. Germany declared war on Russia due to a defense agreement with AH. France, Egland, Italy, the Ottomans and others joined for similar reasons.
Franz Ferdinand was heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. He was assassinated in Serbia by nationalists who were angry at Austria-Hungary trying to enforce control of the region.
Then Austria-Hungary wanted to invade Serbia as retaliation and to teach local nationalists a lesson, and Austria-Hungary’s good allies Germany said that they would support them no matter what.
Now France and Russia had an alliance between the two of them and was already on bad footing with Germany and Austria-Hungary. They didn’t want them to expand their power or influence because they felt threatened by them. So they went to war to stop them invading Serbia.
Now at some point Germany went through Belgium to get at France (to get around their heavy fortifications).
Britain had promised Belgium to protect them to not allow this small country to be bullied by the larger powers (and didn’t want the larger powers to grow more powerful by taking over Belgium). So at this point Britain joined the war against Germany.
Essentially all the small events used as the cause for war were largely just excuses. The “great powers” of Europe all had this complicated network of rivalries and alliances. They made promises to their allies to get involved if needed and they were afraid of their rivals growing stronger by making power-grabs. Also everyone was kind of itching for a fight looking for a chance to increase their own power. No-one had yet quite realized just how terribly destructive war would be with the new technologies. Previous wars didn’t turn out like this traumatizing, futile meatgrinder of death that the trench warfare in WWI did. War had meant a chance for honour and glory and as such it was easier to want a war given half an excuse.
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Also – near the pub, in this formerly-run Turkish beachfront resort, all of the European Royals had summer villas staffed by under paid and overworked locals. The Royals flocked down every summer to indulge.
After the previous Turkish owners fortunes dwindled, the Austrias showed a strong interest in taking over the bar and resort. The Russians and Italians were also interested.
The locals were fed up with the Royals. One of the staff sucker-punched one of the Royals at the pub. Then the overindulged Royals started a fight. Everybody forgot about the staff and their issues.
Fighting over the resort continued for decades.
Simplest explanation. The government’s had entered into multiple military treaties on top of having a lot of newly designed weapons they were looking to try out and prove their superiority. The entire region was just looking for a spark. Didn’t help none of them believed it would turn into the long drawn out mess it turned into. They just thought the other side would see they had the better weapons and tactics and give up a lot sooner
In general, several European nations wanted a war, notably Austria and Germany. Austria wanted to keep a Balkan war localized there, while Germany felt they needed to fight russian now rather than later as Russia was getting more powerful and would eventually be able to overwhelm Germany.
There is an assassin’s nation, but Austria makes demands too insane to all be accepted knowing it will likely lead to a war. Despite Russia promising to defend Serbia, Austria went ahead because Germany backed Austria and Germany was willing to fight Russia.
Essentially post Napoleonic Europe had seen a relatively minor amount of wars. The Germany unification wars were basically it, and then crimea/ Russo Japanese, but those were kind of war away. Germany had been successful in their wars and everyone else was kind of sitting there. Austria wanted to get in on the newly independent Balkan states while Russia wanted to protect them. This is why people say Europe was a powder keg. It was a bunch of factions that wanted war and were willing to take aggressive stances to get what they wanted.
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