The first assassin misses his target only just: On 28. June, 1914 at ten o’clock in the morning, the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand escapes by a hair’s breadth a bomb attack. With the Arm of the heir to the throne fends off the throw, the projectile falls behind his car, detonated and injured some of his companions. The visit to the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, will continue as planned. After a reception, Franz Ferdinand is to visit one of the injured in the hospital – a fatal decision. Meanwhile, the pro-Serbian Nationalist Gavrilo Princip was sitting in a Café. He is disappointed. The attack on the hated Habsburgs failed, his accomplice Nedeljko Čabrinović is already in police custody. But suddenly he sees the convoy with the nephew of the Emperor Franz Joseph to pass. The 19-Year-old runs to the open car to. At the last Moment he fires his gun, the two fatal shots at Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.
An assassination attempt leads to disaster
Yet no one thinks of war. In Vienna, interrupt the waltz your game chapels, as the message is read out from the distant Sarajevo – in the audience, this triggers hardly any vibration. The courts, chancelleries and General staffs of Europe as a whole will go on as usual on vacation, Kaiser Wilhelm II takes its traditional North-country journey. Europe has been several times on the verge of a great war, and yet given way to always back from the abyss.
the July crisis and Declaration of war
The “July crisis” following the assassination of Sarajevo unfolds, however, a fatal momentum. Austria has a hunger for retribution. Serbia was to throw “low”, calls for Emperor Franz Joseph. The small Balkan country has danced to the great neighbors long enough to nose around. However, Belgrade is allied with the great Russia. The continuous upgrading of the tsarist Empire, in turn, is Kaiser Wilhelm’s scary. The allies to the Danube, he indicates, therefore, unlimited back. The dual monarchy makes Serbia a practically unrealizable Ultimatum and declared on the 28. July the war.
Europe prepares for Two-front war,
Inexorably, the Alliance Mechanics to take its course. 30. July, Tsar Nicholas II has the mobilization. The following day, Austria-Hungary mobile. On 1. August declared Germany war on Russia, and marched the next day in Luxembourg with the direction of impact on the neutral Belgium, and the “hereditary enemy” France. On 4. August breaks England, his relations to Germany. The Central powers – the German and the Austrian Empire – were now against the Entente – France, England and Russia were referred to – in a difficult Two-front war. The German generals is in need of a quick victory over France, in order to have a free Hand for Russia. The allies of Austria is claimed on the Serbian scene is stronger than I thought and, consequently, with the tsarist Empire in the North-East overwhelmed. However, the German advance in France in September to the Marne to a standstill. The armies dig themselves in, a year long war begins.
The hell of Verdun
in Between hunting the generals Attacking their men in loss. The battle of Verdun from February to December 1916. Neither side gains a strategic advantage. 162.000 French and 100,000 German soldiers die on the battlefield. Nearly 500,000 wounded. The “hell of Verdun” is the Symbol for the horrors of the First world war. With similar Gray Austrians and Italians remember the twelve undecided battles on the Isonzo between 1915 and 1917.
The fight will be draws for the total war
a country in the gigantic struggle. In 1915, Bulgaria joined the Central powers and Italy to the Entente. In 1916, Romania, and in 1917 the United States with the war on the side of the Entente. The fight is spreading to all-out war. The civilian population is mobilised for the war economy and starving. Despite approaches to negotiations, it is becoming clear that the war only with the victory of peace, the one, is the collapse of the other side. As the first large leaves makes Russia The revolutions of 1917 lead to a separate peace with Germany.
Germany surrenders
The Central powers, however, are stronger bleeding, have fewer resources than the Entente. As in the first half of the year 1918 failure of the Offensive of the Germans in France and the Habsburg monarchy on the Piave, the end. 11. November surrendered to Germany. The Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrates, their non-German parts of self-employment. The actual conclusion of peace is, however, only with the Paris suburb treaties of 1919 and 1920.
the shedding of blood, with the industrial scale
The worst of the blood of humanity shed by history, has cost at least nine million soldiers and six million civilians. Killing on the battlefield, adopted the first industrial proportions. Innovations such as the railway, the machine accelerated rifle and quick-firing artillery, and intense the war management in a way that you had to learn so far, never. Also, poison gas was first used. Generals on all sides remained mired in the strategic mindset of the 19th century. Century and verheizten their men safely in the Inferno of modern weapons technology. Countless soldiers were traumatized by the horrific experiences of the war. They were to “war zitterern”, Neurotics, or quite mind-boggling.
The seminal catastrophe of the 20th century. Century
The question of who bore responsibility for the unleashing of the catastrophe, employs the historical research until today. The unanimous opinion of the historians, largely, that the peace treaties of 1919/20, the continent is not going to permanently pacify could. The winners took the losers a rematch, forced them to humiliating conditions. In Germany this resulted in the rise to Power of a Complex and hate-filled, but with demagoguery talented painter from the Austrian town of Braunau. The consequences of the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler are known. The US Diplomat and historian George Kennan called the First world war as the “seminal catastrophe of the 20th century. Century“.
This article in the first world war The seminal catastrophe of the 20th century was written by world of wonder
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