{"id":364,"date":"2010-12-10T03:00:31","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=364"},"modified":"2013-11-16T02:06:24","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T10:06:24","slug":"what-started-world-war-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/12\/what-started-world-war-i\/","title":{"rendered":"What Started World War I"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Today I found out<\/a> what started World War I.<\/p>\n

The commonly held notion that it was started out of outrage over the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie at the hands of Serbian nationalist secret society known as the \u201cBlack Hand\u201d isn\u2019t entirely correct.\u00a0 In fact, the Emperor Franz Josef himself expressed relief over the assassination because it rid him of an heir whom he deeply disliked.\u00a0 The Emperor commented that \u201cGod will not be mocked.\u00a0 A higher power had put back the order I couldn\u2019t maintain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, it wasn\u2019t just the Emperor who was relieved; it was reported by an Austrian newspaper that the general consensus among the various political circles was that the assassination, though a tragedy, was for the best.\u00a0 As far as the Austrian people were concerned, it was noted \u201cThe event almost failed to make any impression whatever.\u00a0 On Sunday and Monday, the crowds in Vienna listened to music and drank wine as if nothing had happened.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0Indeed, it took the government itself a full three weeks to react.<\/p>\n

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As you\u2019ll see shortly, the \u201ctreaty alliance system\u201d that was prevalent in Europe with numerous treaties interconnecting the various states was really at the heart of why what would have been a small conflict, not noteworthy in any way in history, escalated into one of the bloodiest wars in human history with over 15 million people dead.\u00a0 Somewhat ironically, the spark that set it all off was the assassination that nobody really cared about.<\/p>\n

So why go to war over an assassination, if nobody cared?\u00a0 Because, while nobody seemed to much care about the assassination itself, Austria-Hungary had been looking for an excuse to wage a \u201cpreventative war\u201d against Serbia as a state in order to weaken or destroy them so as to take back territory in the Balkans, which had been taken during the Balkan Wars.\u00a0 They had not taken it back up to this point because they lacked Germany\u2019s support; without that support, they feared Russia too much, because of the treaty Russia had with Serbia.<\/p>\n

With the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife on June 28th, 1914, Austria-Hungary was able to secure the promise from Germany that it would aid in a war with Serbia and possibly Russia, if Russia chose to enter the fray due to their treaty with Serbia.\u00a0 It should be noted here that Austria-Hungary did not really expect Russia to enter the fray as they expected this to be a very small war that would be over quickly, before Russia would be obligated to respond.\u00a0 Now with Germany\u2019s support if Russia did enter the fray, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia with remarkably severe terms that Serbia would be sure to reject, thus giving Austria-Hungary an excuse to go launch a limited war on Serbia to reclaim territory in the Balkans.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Serbia responded relatively well to the ultimatum, but they did dispute a few minor clauses, which gave Austria-Hungary the excuse they needed to go to war.\u00a0 At this point, the following general series of events happened due to a variety of existing treaties between various nations, which escalated this minor clash into the first \u201cGreat War\u201d.<\/p>\n