What Countries Existed Before the Great War Were Occupied and Then Became a Country Again

Globe War I, which lasted from 1914 until 1918, introduced the globe to the horrors of trench warfare and lethal new technologies such as poison gas and tanks. The result was some of the most horrific carnage the world had ever seen, with more than than xvi 1000000 military personnel and civilians losing their lives.

It also radically altered the map, leading to the collapse of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires that had existed for centuries, and the formation of new nations to take their place. Long afterward the last shot had been fired, the political turmoil and social upheaval continued, and ultimately led to some other, even bigger and bloodier global conflict two decades later.

The effect that sparked the conflagration was the bump-off of the heir to the Austria-hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in 1914. But historians say that World State of war I really was the culmination of a long series of events, stretching back to the late 1800s. The path to war included plenty of miscalculations and actions that turned out to have unforeseen consequences.

"No 1 tin can say precisely why information technology happened," explains the narration to a film at the National Earth War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City. "Which may be, in the end, the best explanation for why it did."

Here are eight of the events that led to the war.

one. Franco-Russian Brotherhood (1894)

Both Russia and France, which had been humiliated in the Franco-Prussian State of war of 1870-71, feared the rise ability of Germany, which had already formed alliances with Republic of austria-Hungary and Italia. So the two nations decided to join forces for mutual protection every bit well. Information technology was the start of what would become the Allied side, the Triple Entente, in Globe War I.

"To my mind, information technology is the coming together of the Triple Entente in stages—the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894, the British-French Entente Cordiale of 1904, and the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907—that actually solidified the organisation of diplomatic agreements that formed the main antagonistic blocs that went to state of war in 1914," Richard South. Fogarty, an associate professor of history at University at Albany, explains. "The alliance arrangement was disquisitional to shaping the war, and even in helping bring it on: it created a ready of expectations about international rivalry and competition, determining what kind of war Europeans imagined and prepared for."

WATCH: Globe War I Alliances

2. First German Naval Law, (1898)

This legislation, advocated by Germany's newly-appointed Secretary of the Imperial Navy, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, dramatically expanded the size of Deutschland's battle fleet. Information technology was the first of 5 laws dictating a buildup in which the Germans envisioned building a force that was superior to Great britain's Regal Navy.

"Tirpitz aimed at forcing Britain into an alliance with Germany on German terms," explains Eugene Beiriger, an associate professor of history, peace, justice and conflict studies at DePaul University, and author of the 2022 book Earth War I: A Historical Exploration of Literature. Instead, the British responded by edifice fifty-fifty more ships, and by ending their late 1880s policy of "splendid isolation" to course alliances with Nippon, French republic and Russia.

"The German language Naval Laws created unintended consequences," Beiriger says in an electronic mail. "They ended upward alienating both the government and public of Britain prior to the state of war."

iii. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)

Russian federation'southward Czar Nicholas Two wanted to obtain a port that gave his navy and commercial ships access to the Pacific, and he gear up his sites on Korea. The Japanese saw Russia's rising aggressiveness as a menace, and launched a surprise assail on Nicholas' fleet at Port Arthur in China. The resulting state of war, fought both at sea and on state in China, was won by the Japanese, and equally Beiriger notes, it helped shift power the ability balance in Europe.

Russian federation'southward allies France and Uk, which were allied with Nihon, signed their ain agreement in 1904 to avoid beingness pulled into the war. French republic later convinced the Russians to enter into an alliance with the British every bit well, laying the background for their alliance in World War I. In addition, "Russian federation's expansion in the East had been stopped by Japan," Beiriger says. "This turned Russian ambitions westward, especially in the Balkans, and influenced hardliners inside the authorities to not dorsum downward in future crises." That Russian combativeness helped trigger Globe War I less than a decade afterwards.

4. Austro-hungarian empire's Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1908)

A railroad train packed with soldiers leaves a railway stationduring the Bosnian annexation crisis in 1908.

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Nether an 1878 treaty, Austro-hungarian empire was governing Bosnia and Herzegovina, even though technically they were still part of the Ottoman Empire. Simply later on Austro-Hungarian government annexed their territory, the move backfired. The two provinces' by and large Slavic population wanted to have their own state, while Slavs in nearby Serbia had the ambition of appropriating the provinces themselves.

Coil to Go along

"In multi-ethnic empires, nationalistic fervor fueled resistance to distant rulers," Doran Cart, senior curator of the National World War I Museum and Memorial, says. "Tension was powder-keg high in the Balkans, where Slavic people, aided by the Slavs of Russian federation, resisted the dominion of Austro-hungarian empire." Additionally, the movement drew Russia, which saw itself every bit Serbia'southward protector, toward a gradual showdown with the Austro-Hungarian regime.

five. The Second Moroccan Crisis (1911)

The German small cruiser SMS Berlin is shown arriving two days after gunboat Panther in order to strengthen the German position off shore Agadir, Morocco, July 1911.

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The French and Germans butted heads for several years over Morocco, where Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm 2 meddled in an attempt to pressure the French-British alliance. In the First Moroccan Crisis in 1905, he actually sailed to Tangiers to express his back up for the sultan of Morocco against French interests. But instead of backing away from the disharmonize, the British rose in support of France.

In the Second Moroccan Crisis in 1911, the High german foreign secretary, Alfred von Kiderlen- Wächter, sent a naval cruiser to anchor in a harbor on the Moroccan coast, in reaction to a tribal revolt that the Germans thought was being backed by French republic equally a pretext for seizing the state. Over again, the British backed the French, and eventually, Frg was forced to agree to recognize a French protectorate in Kingdom of morocco. The two crises pushed the British and French closer together, and but hastened an eventual confrontation with the Germans.

6. Italy Invades Libya (1911)

The Italian authorities alleged war on Turkey in 1911 because it had refused to permit the military machine occupation of Tripoli past Italy. Italian troops are seen here landing after the bombardment of Benghazi.

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The modernistic Italian state, which didn't begin until 1861, had been "largely left out of the scramble that congenital United kingdom, French republic, and other powers into worldwide empires," Fogarty explains. The Italian government set its sights on Libya, a Northward African country that hadn't been claimed by another western European power, and decided to take it from the Ottoman Empire. The Italo-Turkish War ended with a peace treaty, merely the Ottoman war machine left Libya and let the Italians colonize information technology. It was the first military conflict that featured aeriform bombing, simply equally Fogarty notes, the real significance was that it exposed the shakiness of the Ottoman Empire and its slipping control over peripheral territories. That, in plow, was one of the factors that ultimately led to World War I, which Fogarty describes as "a state of war of empires, some expanding or seeking to expand, some swell to concur on to what they had, others trying desperately not to lose what they had left,"

7. The Balkan Wars (1912-13)

Soldiers resting with their weapons off a battlefield during the Balkan Wars.

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Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Hellenic republic, which had cleaved away from the Ottoman Empire during the 1800s, formed an alliance called the Balkan League. The Russian-backed alliance aimed to take away even more of the Turks' remaining territory in the Balkans.

In the Kickoff Balkan War in 1912, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro defeated Ottoman forces, and forced them to agree to an armistice. But the Balkan League presently disintegrated, and in the Second Balkan State of war, the Bulgarians fought the Greeks and Serbs over Macedonia, and the Ottoman Empire and Romania jumped into the fray against the Bulgarians besides.

Bulgaria ultimately was defeated. The Balkan Wars fabricated the region even more unstable. In the power void left by the Ottomans, tensions grew between Serbia and Austria-hungary. That, in turn, led Austro-hungarian empire and its marry, Germany, to decide that a state of war with the Serbs would be needed at some bespeak to strengthen Austria-hungary'due south position. "Many historians consider the Balkan Wars as the true get-go of the First Globe State of war," Fogarty says.

8. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)

Lookout man: How a Wrong Turn Started Earth War I

The archduke, who was heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, went to Sarajevo to inspect the imperial troops stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He and his wife Sophie were shot to decease in their motorcar past a 19-year-old Serbian revolutionary, Gavrilo Princip.

"The assassination highlighted the nationalism that was pulling the Austro-hungarian empire autonomously at the seams," Fogarty explains, noting that Serbian extremists actually wanted Franz Ferdinand dead because they feared he was likewise moderate and would promote a power-sharing arrangement that would keep Slavic peoples in the empire.

"His bump-off killed the idea, whether or non it was ever realistic to brainstorm with, and radicalized Serbian defiance and Austrian decision to solve the nationalism problem for good, at least with respect to Serbia," Fogarty says.

Instead, the tension between European powers increased, every bit they took different sides in the crisis. As the U.K.'south Imperial War Museum notes, the killing put both Austria-Hungary and Russian federation, which saw itself as the Serbians' protector, in a demark. Neither i of them wanted to back downwards and appear weak. Fearing a fight that would describe in Russia, Republic of austria-Hungary turned for aid to Federal republic of germany, which promised backing if the Austro-Hungarians used strength against the Serbians. High german support emboldened Austria-hungary to declare war on Serbia on July 28.

Ii days later, Russia'southward military mobilized, and the Germans saw that they too were in a bind. They didn't want to fight both Russian federation and its ally French republic on two fronts simultaneously, so it became imperative to knock the French military out of the war before Russian federation was ready to fight. Federal republic of germany declared war on Russia on Baronial 1, and ii days subsequently declared war against France. German language forces gathered on the edge of neutral Belgium, which they planned to cross in order to invade France. Belgium called for help, and on August four, Corking United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland declared war on Frg.

World War I had begun.

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Source: https://www.history.com/news/world-war-i-causes

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