The Blank Check Assurance: Conspired Plans of Germany and Austria-Hungary The Central Powers, alternately, consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. By the start of the war, Italy and the United States entered on the side of the Allied Powers, which consisted of Russia, France and Great Britain. These conflicts over alliances - which forced nations to come to the defense of one another - led to the formation of the two sides of World War I, the Allied and Central Powers.

As tensions continued to rise over alliances, the preexisting alliances fed into other countries declaring war against one another in the face of conflict. Germany felt that this alliance surrounding them was a threat to their power and existence. The alliance, between France, Britain and Russia, formed in 1907 and called the Triple Entente, caused the most friction among nations. Prior to WWI, the alliances of Russia and Serbia France and Russia Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary Britain, France and Belgium France, Britain and Russia and Japan and Britain were firmly in place. The alliances promised that each country would support the other if war ever broke out between an ally and another Great Power. In the age of imperialism prior to World War I, countries throughout Europe had created alliances. Russia then came to Serbia’s defense, therefore initiating the First World War. Following the assassination, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia, which was rejected and led Austria-Hungary to declare war against Serbia, with German support. While Ferdinand was traveling in an open car in Sarajevo, Princip fired into the car, shooting Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.

On the day of his assassination, the Archduke traveled to Sarajevo to inspect imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, former Ottoman territories acquired by Austria-Hungary in 1908. Ferdinand was chosen as a target because he was to be the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip. With the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Serbian nationalism continued to rise, culminating in the assassination of the Archduke of Austria in 1914 by a Bosnian Serb and officially triggering the start of the Great War. In the Balkans, Slavic Serbs sought independence from Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, and in 1878, they tried to gain control of Bosnia and Herzegovina to form a unified Serbian state. Serbian nationalism can be dated to the mid- and late-1800s, though two precipitating nationalism events are directly linked to the start of WWI. Nationalism was one of many political forces at play in the time leading up to World War I, with Serbian nationalism in particular, playing a key role. As British and French expansionism continued, tensions rose between opposing empires, including Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, leading to the creation of the Allied Powers (Britain and France) and Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) during World War I. Then, once a nation had been conquered, it was governed by the imperial nation: many of these colonial nations were exploited by their mother countries, and dissatisfaction and resentment was commonplace. The tensions were a result of many colonies often being acquired through coercion. The expansion of European nations as empires (also known as imperialism) can be seen as a key cause of World War I, because as countries like Britain and France expanded their empires, it resulted in increased tensions among European countries.

Prior to World War I, the British and French Empires were the world’s most powerful, colonizing regions like India, modern-day Vietnam and West and North Africa. In the 1900s, several European nations had empires across the globe, where they had control over vast swaths of lands. Though the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was the direct precipitating event leading to the declaration of war, there were many other factors that also played a role in leading up to World War I (WWI). For aspiring historians, understanding the causes of World War I are equally as important as understanding the conflict’s devastating effects. The Great War left more than 20 million soldiers dead and 21 million more wounded, which can be attributed to trench warfare and the number of countries involved in the war. The First World War began in the summer of 1914, shortly after the assassination of Austria’s Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, and lasted more than four years, ending in 1918.

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