Schickering 1914 Causes

1. According to Chickering, and Empires and Citizens, there were multiple reasons for the outbreak of the war of 1914. Some were long and some were short term causes. Such as the effects of Militarism and Imperialism. However, in Chickering, the assassination of Archduke Fran Ferdindad in June 1914, contributed greatly to the outbreak when a Serbian student shot him and his wife to death. This event created extreme tension between the main powers in Europe and probably the most important reason for the outbreak of the first World War.
The Serbian student, Gavrilo Princip, member of the Black Hand Gang wanted to get rid of the the Bosnia/Austria-Hungary rule. This led to the retaliations and blame at Serbia for Ferdinand’s death. Austria-Hungary …show more content…
A few days later, Germany had also declared war against France to prevent attacks from the Western and the Eastern front. What sparked the war on the two fronts was the German attack on Belgium. German’s would use the Schlieffen plan which stimulated that soldiers would go north to Belgium to get to France. However this plan resulted in failure as well as the Rape of Belgium. The Rape of Belgium was a significant point in time. A total of 6,000 civilians were being executed and homes were being burned to the ground. The problem was, it became difficult to distinguish between propaganda and reality. “ There was no rape of Belgium, and its just a use of warfare” made everything very complex. Great Britain had even used this concept to justify the war and invasion. As a result, the Belgian resistance slowed down the Schlieffen plan, resulting in Russia’s speedy mobilization tactics but never knowing when Great Britain was going to intervene. In conclusion. the war between the alliances resulted in the long term cause of World War I. Both the assassination and the alliance system had extreme ramifications for the outbreak and created tensions between the European