![]() The murder of the Archduke caused widespread outrage. The previous day the nineteen-year-old Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip (1894-1918), part of a small group of conspirators who had planned an attack on this representative of the Dual Monarchy, had shot and killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife. The news from the Bosnian capital about the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne hit “like lightning strike”, as the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger reported on 29 June 1914. Right until the last moment, some European statesmen were desperately trying to avoid an escalation of the crisis by advocating mediation, while others did everything in their power to ensure that a localised war would break out whose escalation into a European conflict they were willing to risk. However, a European war was not inevitable. The assassination, carried out by Bosnian Serb nationalists, has often been described as the spark that would set light to a continent that was riddled with international tensions. In Vienna and Berlin, however, there was no such desire for yet another conference or for mediation.Ī general European war would need a trigger, and this was provided by the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este (1863-1914) and his wife Sophie, Archduchess of Austria (1868-1914) in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. During the July Crisis, some governments continued to try and find a diplomatic solution to the international crisis that resulted from the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Before the war, alliance systems both sustained peace and acted as deterrents, and it can be argued that they “generally functioned as a restraint on war”, rather than being a cause of it. This history of “avoided wars” is crucial background for understanding the decision-making of European statesmen and military leaders during the July Crisis of 1914 when the Great War, so frequently anticipated and so often avoided, finally broke out. Petersburg did not, and war was avoided at several important junctures. While smaller states engaged with each other in armed conflicts (and occasionally with a Great Power), the governments in Vienna, Paris, Berlin, London and St. Peace conferences and mediation, not war, were the usual way to settle international crises, at least those among the so-called Great Powers ( Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and Italy). While with hindsight it might seem as if a major war was almost inescapable, it is worth noting that in fact these last years of peace saw a number of successful attempts by the Great Powers to avert a large-scale war. ![]() The years before the outbreak of the First World War were characterised by international tensions, mutual suspicion and a widespread arms race in Europe. ![]() This fatalism underpinned most of the decision-making of the immediate pre-war years, and it also explains the decisions taken during the July Crisis. Īll Great Power governments shared the fear that at some point in the near future a major European war was inevitable. ![]() Most recent publications acknowledge that the crisis can only be understood in an international context, and try to understand the events of July 1914 by looking at the decisions taken in all the European Great Power governments. Some of the latest publications on the origins of the war in general, and the July Crisis in particular, re-opened the debate on the origins of the war on the eve of the centenary. ![]() Explaining how Europe plunged into the First World War has been a difficult challenge which has divided historians for over a hundred years and continues to be controversial. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |