Europe was divided into these two different alliances.
The core members of the Central Powersthese two countries: Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Ententewere also two countries; France and Russia had been allied againstGermany and Austria-Hungary since 1894.
After the war began, Great Britain became part of the Triple Entente.
These two competing alliances in Europe facing each other,amassing huge armies, buying weapons and so on.
Some of those rivalriesfor colonies and colonial markets and resources were still going on
As most of these countries are building up trade barriers.
Russia was weakened by the revolutions of 1905.
France was still eager forrevenge from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
Proxy wars
The Balkans are thepart of Southeastern Europe that is anti-imperialist.
Bulgarians, Serbians, Romanians,Montenegrins, Macedonians, Greeks, Albanians, all fighting;
- the Albanians and others side: the Austro-Hungarian Empire
-the Serbs side: Russians
The 1912 Balkan war was settled by Treaty of London becausethe British intervened diplomatically to put a lid on the situation.
In 1912, relations between the German Empire andthe Russian Empire get even more tense, especiallyas the Germans are reaching out more and more to make common cause with the Turks.
Shock of 1914
At the end of June 1914 is thatthe crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and
his wife, are going to be paying a state visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia.
There are a lot of ethnic Serbs who live in Bosnia and the Serbians are supported by theirSlav kindred in the Russian Empire.
Bosnian Serb terrorists, who were working withguidance from a chief of Serbia's intelligenceservice, plan to meet the Archduke when he comes to Sarajevo and kill him.
The terrorists hoped that a deedlike this might indeed set off another war, which might be just the thing to bring the Austro-Hungarian Empirelow and open up possibilities for Serbia to claim a larger portion of the map.
It was in effect, an act of what we would call today state-sponsored terrorism.
It's impossible that Austria-Hungary would not have responded in some way to this.
Austria-Hungary said Serbia was responsible and delivered an extremely harsh ultimatum tothe Serbian government, knowing that that might create a risk of war betweenAustria-Hungary and Serbia; they made that move knowing that the
Russian Empire might not allow the complete humiliation or destructionof Serbia, knowing that might lead to a war.
They did that because the Germans hadgiven them what historians call a blank check, prepared to back the Austrian play, even if that meant a wider war.
And indeed Russia did make its move,threatening Austria that if proceeded to goto war and invade Serbia, the Russian
Empire would go to war against Austria-Hungary.
Once the Russians make their move, the Germans make it clear to the Russians that if Russiagoes to war with Austria, that's a war with Germany.
That then means from the point of view of the Germans, thatthe alliance between Russia and France is bound to click into place.
The Germans are prepared for that, and whatseems to have been a local conflict, another BalkanWar, is about to escalate into a general war in all of Europe in which the mainGerman military moves will not be to defend Austria,will not even be an attack on Russia or defense against Russia.In other words, the main German response to a Balkan crisis is to attack France.
Plans Fail
No one had any experience in their lifetimes ofa large-scale war that lasted year after year after year.
It was expected that there would be a violentclash of armies, intense warfare, and a quick outcome.
The creation of a neutral Belgium had been alinchpin of European politics ever since the 1830s.
France and Germany both had to decide who wouldenter Belgium to try to gain more advantage from that.
Principally, it was the Germans that decided that theywould really conduct the invasion of Belgium to get the
high ground, knowing that would surely bring the British in, on the French side.
The British decision to join the war, afterthe invasion of Belgium.
It was unlikely the British were just going to let the French be defeated,but the German invasion of Belgium, was the pivot point for the British decision.
But the German decision to invade Belgium did not bring them success in the West.
1. The Germans break into the Belgian fortsto penetrate into Belgium, in order to wheel down in France.
2. TheFrench are launching their own attacks against the German frontier, which collapse in bloody failure.
3. The German armies in Belgium sweep down from the north, heading toward Paris, so called Schlieffen plan.
Meanwhile in the East, the Russians launched theirattack, by two separate armies, against German East Prussia.
But the Germanscounterattack and defeat the Russian armies.
4. Back in the West, the French rally a defensenear Paris, at what would be called the Battleof the Marne, and the French defeat the overextendedGerman armies, who have now outrun their overextended supply lines
Failures in the West are accompanied by failures in the East.
By the end of 1914, and into 1915, the war begins widening pretty rapidly.
Japan, a treaty ally of the British, join in on the British side to use this as an opportunity to occupy German territoryon the Chinese mainland: the whole Shandong Peninsula and Qingdao.
The Ottoman Empire, under the leadership of its Turkish ruler,joins with Germany and Austria and Bulgaria to form a united front.
The war quickly extends to a battle for colonies:colonies especially in Africa, where boththe British and the Germans mount expeditionaryforces to fight wars against each other in the jungles.
In early 1915, all the sides had realized that theirinitial plans at the outbreak of war have not ended the war and they all start developing their war-winning plans for 1915.
And in the spring and summer of 1915, all of these plans fail, too.
Then Gallipoli attack of Ententepowers against the Turks encounters a quitemodern and very determined Turkish army that kills the
Australian, New Zealand, and British Attackers in the tensof thousands and eventually hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Course: The Modern World, Part Two: Global History since 1910
Lecturer:Philip Zelikow, White Burkett Miller Professor of History
