THE WORLD IS THE WAR:

THE WAR WITH THE MOST POINTLESS BEGINNING

Caleb Sanchez
AP World History B
Mr. Brown
June 6, 2017
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In Europe before the year 1914, tensions rose in several places with the rise and creation

of secret alliances. It all started when the German Prime Minister and Chancellor named Otto

Von Bismarck1 first started creating secret alliances with another country called Austria-Hungary

therefore creating what is called the Double Alliance. After the creation of the Double Alliance

that Bismarck created with Austria-Hungary, he created a separate alliance with Russia The

consequences were minor, the German-Russian alliance may have built a bit of tension although

not as much when Italy joined the Double alliance which created the Triple Alliance. This is

when tensions rose heavily and the other power houses in Europe started to become concerned.

These powerhouse countries include England and France which had created the Double Entente

in response to the creation of the Triple Alliance. After the German Prime Minister, Otto Von

Bismarck was fired due to the new monarch, or Kaiser, of the Germans, Wilhelm II. Wilhelm

feared that Bismarck had too much political power, the alliance with Russia ended and soon

after, Russia joined the Double Entente resulting in the creation of the Triple Entente. To clarify,

the countries in the Triple Alliance were Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany2,later after the

war starts the Triple Alliance was renamed to the Central Powers, while the Triple Entente of

Russia, France, and England3, become known as the Allied Powers.

1
"Otto von Bismarck - Encyclopedia Britannica."
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Otto-von-Bismarck. Accessed 5 Jun. 2017.
2
"Triple Alliance | Europe [1882-1915] | Britannica.com."
https://www.britannica.com/event/Triple-Alliance-Europe-1882-1915. Accessed 5 Jun. 2017.
3
" Triple Entente | European alliance | Britannica.com."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Triple-Entente. Accessed 5 Jun. 2017.
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This is the situation that the world was in before the start of The Great War, a.k.a. World War 1.

Tensions were extremely high because everyone knew that these two opposing alliances could

start a war at anytime. One day, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was taking a stroll around the

newly conquered Bosnia. Although it was recently conquered, there was a member of the Black

Hand named Gavrilo Princip and he was the one who assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand.

The reason behind the assassination was because the black hand wants to free every serbian that

was not inside serbia from the rule of bigger countries and they opposed Austria-Hungary. After

Francis Ferdinand was assassinated that is when Austria-Hungary declared war on the country of

Serbia on July 28, 1914. The reason why Austria-Hungary did not attack when they received

new of the death of Archduke Francis ferdinand was because they were concerned that Russia

will get involved, the nation that supports Serbia, and drag in France into the conflict and

possibly England and they just needed Germany to agree and tell them that they would support

them. As alliance members Germany made a huge mistake by Germany giving Austria-Hungary

a blank check in order to fight in the war that Austria-Hungary Started. Naturally being in the

same alliance as Germany and Austria-Hungary, Italy was dragged into the conflict. Since Serbia

is in some way affiliated with Russia, Russia then dragged the triple Entente into this war. This is

the official start of World War One. Although this is a nice recap, there are still sides to this war

that need to be explained in more depth. The assassination was a plan to ignite the powder keg of

Germany(the Balkans4) including countries like Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria but an

organisation inside the powder keg was called The Black Hand.

4
"The Balkans - World War I - Alpha History." http://alphahistory.com/worldwar1/balkans/. Accessed 5
Jun. 2017.
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What this organisation did was assassinate the heir to the throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand

and his wife Sofie Ferdinand by a man named Gavrilo Princip he was the person sent to

assassinate the hairs.5 What the black hand wanted to gain from this would be to have the ability

to overthrow the Austro-Hungarian government that had been established in Bosnia and

Herzegovina. The Black Hands successful assassination backfired on them because it gave

Austria-hungary an incentive and a pretext to invade serbia and this ultimately lead to the July

crisis of 1914. During the July crisis several discussions were made with the great powers that

were present in europe and this lead to the eventual start of World War One. This was due to the

high amount of tensions and the alliances that were formed between six of the most powerful

countries in Europe.There was very little to gain from starting a world war, after all it was only a

piece of land that was fought over at first but this, in my opinion, was not enough to make a war

at this massive scale. The main reason why the war started was because of the secret alliances

that were created to protect themselves from the other alliance. So there would seem that there is

no real gain from this war other than to see which alliance is the the better of the two and that

was only decided with the withdraw of Italy from the central powers and that the United States

of America came into the Allies side.

Although this was the reality of it the outcome came with the start of a hope to have a

peaceful and eternal resolution to war and it was an incredible individual named Woodrow

Wilson and he was the one who proposed the 14 point plan to world peace.Although this was the

outcome and what came after the formation of the League of Nations that was not the official

plan at the start of the war.

"The Powder Keg of Europe During WWI - Video & Lesson ... - Study.com."
5

http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-powder-keg-of-europe-during-wwi.html. Accessed 5 Jun. 2017.

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The real plan was that Austria-Hungary wanted to do was to take over most of the

Balkans into their own territory and as we now know the result was the spark that ignited the

Balkans and create the Start of this world war. In my opinion this war had the most pointless

beginning and it was all because of the secret alliances and the fear from both of theses sides that

sparked the war. This would mean that everyone involved at day one was involved into this giant

war just because of fear, so there was no reason why the war started it was because people were

afraid and that is the start of World War One.

The World During the war.(beginning)

On the Western Front6 Germany began the war by fighting on two fronts using a very

aggressive strategy called the Schlieffen Plan, named after the person who created who was a

German Field Marshal which it was named after Alfred Von Schlieffen. What they did was

invade france by invading neutral Belgium on the west side while Germany was defending their

east side against germany. The strategy was used to try and make a quick victory for Germany by

conjuring France quickly but it failed since the allied powers counterattacked and it ultimately

;lead to a battle of attrition after a few short days after the First Battle of Marne.

"World War I History - World War I." http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history.

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Accessed 6 Jun. 2017.

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Conclusion

In my eyes I saw the start of this world war as being useless as I have stated in my sub title. This

was really a war that could have easily been avoided and it would have started with something

even worse than the death of royalty. Although this was Serbias fault on the death of francis

ferdinand it was Austria-Hungary that made the terms for compensation almost impossible to

follow through. This is a research paper on the Political movements that happened before and at

the start of the war, this made researching this information extremely easy and it was also the

help of Mr. Brown that I could have done this paper as well as it could be because I have taken a

lot of notes on this and thanks to that i didn't need to reference the book to much since I have the

notes on this war. The information here is not in any way my own opinion just the way the

information is presented may feel a bit biased but that is just how I write. Anyway this is the

conclusion of this research paper.

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Bibliography

Bismarck Otto Von. Otto Von Bismarck. Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed 5 Jun. 2017.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Otto-von-Bismarck.

King Grey; Woolmans, Sue. The Assassination of the Archduke : Sarajevo, 1914, and the
romance that changed the world . Manhattan, New York City: St. Martin's Griffin;
Reprint edition, August 5, 2015.

"Triple Entente | European alliance | Britannica.com."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Triple-Entente. Accessed 5 Jun. 2017.

"Triple Alliance | Europe [1882-1915] | Britannica.com."

https://www.britannica.com/event/Triple-Alliance-Europe-1882-1915. Accessed 5 Jun. 2017.

alkans - World War I - Alpha History."

"The
B
http://alphahistory.com/worldwar1/balkans/. Accessed 5 Jun. 2017.

"The Powder Keg of Europe During WWI - Video & Lesson ... - Study.com."
http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-powder-keg-of-europe-during-wwi.html. Accessed 5 Jun.
2017.

"World War I History - World War I."

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history. Accessed 6 Jun. 2017.

Gillette, Aaron Why Did They Fight the Great War? A Multi-Level Class Analysis of
the Causes of the First World War Society For History Education November 2006, Accessed
May 20, 2017. h ttp://www.jstor.org/stable/30036938