by Awais Choudhry

Created on: March 15, 2009   Last Updated: November 23, 2009

World War 1 was one of the greatest conflicts of the 20th century and ultimately led to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and also laid the foundation for World War 2. It lasted for roughly 4 years from 1914 to 1918. Before this war, Europe was divided into two armed divisions or alliances. These alliances were known as the Entente Powers and the Central Powers. The Entente powers also known as the Allies comprised mainly of countries like Russia, France, England, Italy, Japan and the United States of America. On the other side, the Central powers consisted of Germany, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria.

It was thus evident that a divided Europe would not linger on without a conflict of some sort. Jealousy and enmity grew between the two divisions and ultimately war was inevitable. The causes of World War 1 were not actually similar as to those of World War 2. World War 1 was basically motivated by the geo-political situation in Europe at that time whereas the hunger of power was prime reason for World War 2.

The immediate cause for World War 1 was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand who was the heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne. The provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were given to Austria-Hungary by the Congress of Berlin in 1878. In 1908, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire annexed these two provinces which led to a bitter opposition from Serbia as it wanted to unite with them. On the other hand, the inhabitants of these provinces wanted only independence from the rule of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire rather than to unite with Serbia. After 1909, strong rivalry grew between the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and Serbia. Secret efforts were made by Serbia to bring about the union. Later on, the Serbians came to know about the arrival of Archduke Ferdinand to Bosnia and decided to assassinate him so as to take their revenge for the loss of 1909. A plan was devised to kill him on the 28th of June, 1914. When that fateful day arrived, Archduke Ferdinand and his wife paid a visit to Sarajevo, a city in Bosnia. During their visit that day, a Serbian nationalist came from the crowd and fired two shots point blank at the Archduke and his wife. The result was that both the Archduke and his wife were killed. The Austrian-Hungarian Empire took this event as an opportunity to end the bitter rivalry by declaring war on Serbia on 28th July, 1914. Germany rendered its unconditional support to Austria-Hungary. From this point onwards, the war

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