World War One Flashcards
What was the ‘spark that lit the fire’?
The assassination of Duke Franz Ferdinand. However, this was a bit of an excuse for all of the countries involved to do things that they had wanted to do for a long time: Austro-Hungary wanted to keep Serbia under control, Germany had wanted to expand its empire since 1871, Serbia wanted to become its own country, and Britain wanted to protect its Empire.
What was the Schlieffen plan?
The Germans had started to prepare the Schlieffen plan in 1897, being based on the belief that one day, if the country did go to war, Germany would be at war on two fronts with France and Russia. It would use 90% of its army and aim at Paris, going through Belgium and northern France to take out the whole of France. However, the plan was only based on wrong assumptions, such as that that France was weak, and Russia was much stronger but, being a bigger country, would take longer to mobilise. On the 30th of July 1914, the plan started to go awfully wrong, as Russia had mobilised its army well (in 10 days), making the Germans have to send some troops to the eastern front, weakening their main attack on Paris. However France had not mobilised, so Germany had to find a pretext to declare a war on France. The country fought through Belgium, an neutral country, to get to France. This tired, slowed, and weakened the troops enormously as they hadn’t prepared to fight their way through. Also, in 1839 Britain had signed a treaty promising to defend Belgium, so Britain declared war on Germany. This surprised the Germans, as they hadn’t expected the British to keep their promise. The BEF held them up at the battle of Mons, and the Germans were defeated at the battle of the Marne in 6-10th September 1914.
Who killed the archduke?
The Black Hand Gang. They were a group of 7 young but dying Serbs (with the help of one of the members of the Serbian government) in Sarajevo, in Bosnia (which had been annexed by Austria-Hungary), who wanted self-determination (to rule themselves). Austria, however, didn’t allow this, and wanted to keep the Serbs under control in their country. So, when the archduke Franz Ferdinand drove down the main road with his pregnant wife Sophie to inspect the army there, they decided that they would hide in the crowd and assassinate them. One of them attempted to throw a hand grenade at them, but failed, and was arrested. They all gave up, and the archduke decided to take a different route to return home, but nobody had told the driver, so he kept going. Finally, he found out that he was going the wrong way, and stopped the car. Unfortunately, it was stopped just in front of Gavrilo Princip, one of the members, who took a gun out and killed both Sophie and Ferdinand.
How did militarism cause WW1?
Countries started to build up their armies and weaponry: they were going to use it.
Lead to arms race
The more one army built up their armies, the more others felt they had to build theirs up, too.
How did nationalism cause WW1?
Intense competition between nations.
Rivalry.
Led to increased militarism (every country had to be ‘the best’).
The baulkans wanted to be free.
Serbia was very nationalistic, and wanted to be free. Some extremists even resorted to assassination (black hand gang).
How did imperialism cause the war?
Various countries wanted to build (Germany) and protect (Britain) their empires and colonies.
Germany wanted to have an empire just as big as that of Britain and France.
Led to the morocco crisis (1905 and 1911).
How did the alliance system start WW1?
Triple entente (France, Britain, Russia) Triple alliance (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy) If one county was threatened, its allies would jump in to defend it, and then the allies of the threatening country would defend it, resulting in war. Germanys fear of being surrounded led to militarism.
