Competition

[Will]

As with the other thread, the person to give the best answer to the following question will get a free 1 month premium account.

Answers must be at least a paragraph in length and if you are found to have googled the answer this will be considered cheating and you will be disqualified.

The question:

Explain the events in 1914 that led to WW1 and give your reasons as to why it escalated from a local dispute into a full blown continent-wide war. (especially state which country was most to blame for this)

[MarineRecon]

Good thing about having a Modern European History class hopefully it helped LOL...anyway heres my answer:

There were many causes that led to World War I. During the 19th century Europe's diplomatic goal was to keep one nationfrom gaining too much power over everyone else. One of the immediate causes of World War I was the Ballcan Crisis. The Ottoman Empire watched as the rivalry between Austria-Hungary and Russia increased as they both tried to gain control in the area. Russia in 1912 supported the Ballcan league's decision to go to war with Turkey. Of course Austria-Hungry supported an independent Albanian nation while Serbia wanted Albanian land which only caused more problems between Austria-Hungry abd Russia in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist.

Austria mobilized its army. Russia let everyone know that they would back the Serbs fully. Britain and Germany tried to fix the problem in hopes of avoidincy a gerneral European war. Austria went to war with Serbia and Russia prepared for war against Austria and Germany. The Germans viewed the Russians mobilization as an act of war.

Since France was an allie of Russia and supported Russias decision, Germany prepared for a two front war against both France and Russia. However for Germany to attack France they had to go through Belgium which was neutral. It led to Britain getting involved to protect the Belgians and their decicion to stay neutral. Britain in turn declared war on Germany along with Belgium. Basically this was a war of alliances. On one side was the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey) against the Allied Powers (England, France, Russia, Japan and United States).

After the war the Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany for the war. If they had stayed out of Belgium it is likely that many of the nations in the war wouldnt have been in it.

[KLL]

well i'd also like to give this a shot, seeign I did quite some research into this.

The circumstances leading to the war and the entire contextr is well known and researched, so I feel it is a waste of time to go into that.
But now the direct initiation of WW1 and the start of the war is the intersting part.
So it pretty much started when k.u.k. wanted to invade Serbia for a random guy there killing the austrian crown prince. Now one can argue that the killing was just a good excuse for the mto invade Serbia, which Austria-Hungary wanted to annex for some time anyway, showing their dominance o nthe Balkans. Obviuosly the Russians were not too happy about that, seeig nthey feel some obligation towards the Balkan area as soem sort of Godfather or something.
So this is how it then rolled out, Austria attacks Serbia, Russia goes to war with Austria and Germany, the later due to the blank cheque (which many say invited austria to do whatever they want with germanys' support), and due to Germany stickign to a variation of the Schlieffen plan, they invade Belgium and France. And by the nits pretty much a world war.

I'm now gonna go and show that the war is not to blame on Germany as many historians fancy doing (most prominently Fritz Fischer).
Now here however are some little known facts (well not directly facts, as I'm jsut drawing from my memory, not wantign to go thruog historical databases again):
- Austria needed more than 2 years and I think bbetween 3 and 6 attempts to sucessfull invade tiny Serbia. You'd think that a country wanteing to avenge a murder and/or annex Serbia would go an put a little mroe effort into defeatign a heavily outnumbered army.
- The German blank cheque everyone likes to quote, is a matter of interpretation. It is only a small paragraph in a letter covering several pages o nthe situation in Serbia. It merely states that Austria as Germany full support in them preassurign Serbia. There is no indication that Germany intended a war, even less one with anyone else but Serbia.
- Russia was the first to mobilize their armys agaisnt the west. Many argue that Germany underestimated the speed the russian army was able to mobilize and thus the schlieffen plan failed. In reality the Russian army mobilized 2 weeks (or so) before the German army did, which only mobilized very shortly before the war actually broke out. Also it should be pointed out that the Russians, following theri mobilization broke off communication to the Germans and Austrians (after issuing a statement that the mobilization was directed towards Austria only). The German governemtn and miltiary command has issued several requests for the Russian mobilization to be halted, without any reaction.
- Durign the time the Russians mobilized Germany, France and other nations were holding peace talks, where Germany complained about the lack of response of the Russian army towards communiques. Russia if I remember correctly did not attend. Obviuosly the talks broke down, espcialy afterGerman declared war on Russia first and started moblization (most likely a panic reaction, as its not smart to declare war before mobilizing).
- Russia was the first nation to have entered foreign territory on the easternfront. It was east Prussia. I should point out that east prussia had almost no military forces stationed. Germany obviuosly did not expect Russia to enter German soil so fast, an more importantly did not expect Russians to enter German soil in first place. The uncoordiantion German counter offensive demonstrates that.
- Most Russia ntroops were devoted agaisnt Germany. You can see how this does not work well with statements of the mobilization only beeign directed towards AUstria and claims of wanting to defend the Serbs. Attacking Austria would have been probably more effective.

The conclusion I drew out of these discoveries is that the Russians tried to initiate the war. Especialy seeign that most powers back the nwere probably aware of the Schlieffen plan (which is why it was modified, the initial plan was to go through the netherlands mainly rather than belgium).
The Russians knew they could striek deep int othe german heartland before the Germans could build up appropriate defenses, mainly due to the early mobilisation. If Austria Hungary and Serbia had been the actual target, most of their effort would be directed there. Especialy since Germany would had needed several weeks before they could effectively support their allies.
Germany was jsut too suborn and had to fllow through with their schlieffen plan.

The rest is known.


and no, i'm not gonna check this for typos, sorry.

[Will]

KLL is the winner. Congratulations!

[KLL]

yay for me :D

[Vivid]

The history books are incorrect it has to do with international banking cartels and elitist. Its very complex and you need a certain degree of enlightenment in order for me to disclose any further details.

[KLL]

Disclose them then