“I had never before seen one State address to another independent State a document of so formidable a character.”[1] This was what Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, said about Austria-Hungary when it sent an ultimatum to Serbia. The First World War began on 28 July 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia as Serbia did not completely accept the demands listed in the ultimatum, rapidly engaging much more nations although started from the conflict between only two countries. It is quite significant, though ambiguous, to question who should be blamed for the Great War due to its superior importance compared to other wars as it resulted in remarkable destruction, killing over 8.5 million people and wounding 22 million people. not completely clear Austria-Hungary is the most to blame for the Great War because the First World War began with its war declaration on Serbia, attempt to invade many national groups with its (how does one measure imperialism?) imperialism and because it was the first country to use its ally as military support for the war.
Austro-Hungary is most to blame for the First World War since it was the first country to trigger the Great War with its war declaration on Serbia. Good point. This was a crucial event that triggered the Great War in 1914. On 28 June, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovnia, by Gavrilo Princip who was a member of the secret Serbian terrorist group called Union or Death. Before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, murders of princes or heads of state were already frequent[2], for instance, the members of Union or Death killed a Serbian king Aleksander Obrenović in 1903[3] and June 28th was the day when Milos Obilic, a Serbian nationalist hero, assassinated the Ottoman Sultan Murad Ⅰ[4]. What made it worse was the fact that his visit to Sarajevo was made to look over his troops sent on military maneuver which was set to scare Serbia.[5] In addition, when the Archduke and his wife arrived in Sarajevo, Austrian spies told the government that there might be an assassination attempt and the Serbian Prime Minister also reported the same[6]. Nonetheless, their report did not worth any attention from Franz Ferdinand, and even the policemen forgot about it and only looked at the Archduke’s procession. Although Serbia had to be responsible for the crime, this responsibility was also pertinent for Austria-Hungary because they would have known the risks of visiting Sarajevo on that day and the government already was informed with the possibility of the assassination but no particular action was made. However, the assassination nevertheless caused Austria-Hungary to ask Germany for its support, and Germany gave the ‘Blank Cheque’ to Austria-Hungary on July 5th, which assured Germany’s full support for its ally, therefore enabling Austria-Hungary to send an ultimatum with 48 hour time limit[7] to Serbia on July 23rd. Austria-Hungary was expecting a definite rejection from Serbia but Serbia rejected only the 6th point among the ten demands listed in the ultimatum, which asked for allowing Austrian officials to enter Serbia to arrest all the anti-Habsburg terrorists who plotted the assassination and punish them without asking. As it was a violation of its constitution, Serbia did not completely accept Austria-Hungary’s demands on the ultimatum, so Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28th. It made Russia mobilize on July 31st as it was supporting Serbia, causing Germany, pivotal ally of Austria-Hungary, to declare war on Russia the next day. As being the flashpoint of the Great War, it caused many countries had to engage and suffer annihilations within their countries not only in the casualties but also in economy, and this makes Austria-Hungary to be blameworthy for this war.
Excellent
Imperialism within Austria-Hungary is the next reason that makes this country to responsible of World War I. Imperialism, the policy of strengthening a country by gaining territories, was one of the reasons, besides abysmal governments, nationalism, imperialism, militarism and alliances, that led up to the Great War by provoking other small national countries. Austria-Hungary was the country who attempted to extend its forces especially in the Balkans by territorial acquisitions, revealing its imperialism. In 1878, by article 25 of the Treaty of Berlin[8], Austria-Hungary was allowed to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovnia with support from Russia, Germany and Britain. Serbia, with many of its population inhabiting in Bosnia, could not accept it but its protest to it was only to be ignored. Still not completely satisfied what was given, Austria-Hungary wanted to be more puissance over the Balkans. The Young Turk Revolution in Ottoman Empire in 1908 was the golden opportunity for Austria-Hungary to annex Bosnia since it intimated the possibility of Turkey regaining its power in the region. Nevertheless, its annexation could not be determined easily as Serbia had an immense ally, Russia, who could intervene with their plan. In order to prevent this, Austrian foreign minister, Count Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal held a meeting with Russian foreign minister, Alexander Izvolski, on September 19th. Their plan was to let Austria-Hungary annex Bosnia without any disturbance from Russia and in return, the passage of Russian warships in Dardanelles strait would be allowed, which required perfect timing, in other words, they had to execute their plan simultaneously.[9] However, Austria-Hungary was faster in its action should it be blamed for this? The others would have done so faster if they could have done so. , declaring its annexation of Bosnia, and later, Russia announced the free passage of its warships through the Dardanelles straits according to the plan plotted with Austria-Hungary but the others gave a strong refusal to its announcement. In order to help Serbia, Russia called for a conference but the French and British all refused, and the Russian government was even threatened by Austria-Hungary with promulgating their previous secret agreement. Austria-Hungary not only provoked Serbia, who reluctantly had to accept the annexation, but also Russia, who lost its face. Austria-Hungary’s imperialism was not over. It even was desire of invading Serbia. After the assassination of the Archduke mentioned above, Franz Joseph sent an ultimatum to Serbia and declared war in response to Serbia’s incomplete acceptance of the ultimatum. However, before the assassination, Franz Joseph in fact did not like Franz Ferdinand because of his wife Sophie, who was from lower social stratum[10], and it was a paradox that Franz Joseph sent an ultimatum and declared war on Serbia for only refusing 6th point, allowing Austrian officials to arrest the terrorists who plotted the murder though he did not like his brother. On 5 December 1914, Signor Giolitti, the ex-premier of Italy had said that on August 9 1913, he received a telegram from Italian foreign minister, saying “Austria has communicated to us and to Germany her intention of taking action against Serbia, and defines such action is defensive, hoping to bring into operation the casus foederis of the Triple Alliance.”[11] This assures us that the assassination was an opportunity for Franz Joseph to invade Serbia, not an event that provoked him to send an ultimatum and declare war because in his mind, although he didn’t expect it to grow bigger, the war was planned. Great analysis If it is argued that Serbia should be guilty of causing Austria-Hungary to be furious and declare war, it should be amended, and ought to be stated that Austria-Hungary was the one who firstly infuriated Serbia and declared war on Serbia. Austria-Hungary’s imperialism before the First World War irritated many countries, especially Serbia, so it is Austria-Hungary, the one to be condemned for this calamitous war.
The last reason that supports my opinion is that Austria-Hungary was the first country to form alliance during the years before the outbreak of the war and firstly use it as military support for the war. But again this was done with the connivance of Germany, a far more influential and powerful power. If it hadn’t been for Germany, Austro-Hungary would never have risked a war with the other powers. Again, alliance was among the main reasons that led up to the Great War as you can see in the previous paragraph, and alliances at that time greatly affected the war to grow in scale. Though was not successful, the idea of forming alliance was to maintain the balance of power, and to prevent another country having excessive extension of its power. In 1879, Austria-Hungary formed the Dual Alliance with Germany and in 1882, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy formed the Triple Alliance, which sustained until beginning year of the Great War. The main aim of its alliance with Germany was to protect each other from Russia and the alliance among these two countries and Italy had the aim of protecting each other from France. However, the aim of Austria-Hungary for this alliance was to eliminate Italy’s possibility of declaring war on it[12] since these countries were in conflict, both with an urge of gaining territories in the Balkans. Even worse, Italy was not meaningful to Germany and Austria-Hungary as there was a secret Franco-Italian alliance, making more confusion in the relations among the countries. I don’t understand how this meant they weren’t “meaningful”… Before sending an ultimatum to Serbia, Austria-Hungarian emperor had asked for German support and Germany offered the “Blank Cheque” on July 5th 1914. Austria-Hungary asked for this support to scare Serbia and invade the country in an easier way but Russia was engaged by Serbia asking for its help. The alliance should have defensive characteristic but Austria-Hungary, with the aim of invading Serbia, was using Germany for aggressive purpose to cast a damp over Serbia. If Austria-Hungary truly formed the alliance purely on defensive purpose, and to maintain the peace and balance of power in Europe, it should have not brought Germany into its conflict with Serbia. Involvement of Germany in this dispute became the first step to the Great War, causing chain reactions, which engaged all the other allied countries, who had to suffer just because of the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia that could simply end up with a small deputy. The continuous domino effect finally created two major opposing powers in Europe: the Central powers and the Allies. Besides European countries, there were also much more countries fought in the Great War because such nations had their colonial countries fighting for them. Moreover, though it was Austria-Hungary to start the Great War, at the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was the only one to be blamed and forced to reduce its military force and had to pay ￡6.6 billion for reparation because Austria-Hungary was weak in any aspect. Consequently, Austria-Hungary should be blamed for bringing Germany to the war for military support in an offensive but also harming its ally at the aftermath, and being allied with Italy, with the hidden purpose of preventing it from declaring war on Austria-Hungary, which was quite selfish. Indeed- as the kaisar said, what was he supposed to do- betray an ally?
These previous paragraphs lead to the conclusion that Austria-Hungary is most to blame for the Great War because of these 3 reasons: It was the flashpoint of the war, its imperialism provoked the others, and it was the first country to engage its ally to the war. The second and third reasons contribute to strengthen the first reason because by summing them up, it means that Austria-Hungary is condemnable not only because it began the Great War by declaring war on Serbia but also because the war was planned due to its imperialism, which made them to desire of invading Serbia and Bosnia, and it engaged Germany, which was falsely used in an aggressive support, breaking the original idea of alliances, eventually causing more participations of the other linked countries, which included such country like Italy, who was not stable with its position. It is very significant that all of caused by Austria-Hungary resulted in the First World War, one of the miserable and calamitous events that occurred in the world.
20/20
Perfect essay. You showed you have a detailed knowledge and understanding of the facts, logically structuring them into well developed paragraphs. I would have liked to have seen more of an awareness of different perspectives, but this is superlative work.
[1] http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm
[2] http://www.colby.edu/personal/r/rmscheck/GermanyC1.html
[3] http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragutin_Dimitrijević
[4] http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo%C5%A1_Obili%C4%87
[5] www.bookrags.com/Assassination_in_Sarajevo
[6] http://www.johndclare.net/causes_WWI3_Sarajevo.htm
[7] www.historyman.co.uk/ww1/Austult.html
[8] www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos130.htm
[9] http://www.worldwar1.com/tlboscri.htm
[10] http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/ferdinand.htm
[11] http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos152.htm
[12] http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm
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