User talk:John K/Causes of World War I

Outline of what I want to do.

1) Intro - brief discussion of assassination, july crisis, and explanations made of the causes of the war.

2) Discussion of European diplomatic history 1890-1914

3) detailed discussion of July Crisis

4) Earliest historiography - War Guilt

5) "Inadvertent war thesis," The Revisionists (Fay, Schmitt, and so forth); and Albertini's commanding synthesis the traditional view of primary German responsibility

6) The Fischer Controversy

7) The Bielefeld Group - German domestic politics as key factor in origins of war

8) Cultural type explanations - social darwinism, and the like

9) Reactions against a sole focus on Germany, especially political explanations that return the focus to the Balkans. A new consensus?

That's it for now. Next I'm going to go through the current article and try to find material that fits each part.

July Crisis
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot to death in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six assassins coordinated by Danilo Ilić. The political objective of the assassination was to break off from Austria-Hungary her south-slav provinces so they could be combined into a Greater Serbia or a Yugoslavia. The assassins' motives are consistent with the movement that later became known as Young Bosnia. "The Outrage", as the assassination came to be called, set off a diplomatic confrontation between Serbia and her allies on ones side, and Austria-Hungary and Germany on the other.

Ilić and five of the assassins were promptly arrested and interviewed by an investigating judge. Three assassins who had come from Serbia told almost all they knew. They had received 6 bombs (produced at the Serbian Arsenal), 4 revolvers, training, money, suicide pills, a special map with the location of gendarmes marked, knowledge of an infiltration channel from Serbia to Sarajevo, and a card authorizing the use of that channel, directly and indirectly from Serbian Major Vojislav Tankosić. In their training and on their way they were assisted by other members of the Serbian Military including 3 sergeants and two captains and a major who the assassins fingered in addition to Major Tankosić. Ilić, however, did not confess his contact with the Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence. The sixth assassin had escaped to Montenegro and promptly confessed more details of the assassination plot including information embarrassing to France. Austria-Hungary exercised its rights under it's reciprocal extradition treaty with Montenegro. Instead of turning the prisoner over, Montenegro informed the French ambassador of the information it had learned, released the assassin, and told Austria-Hungary the assassin had "escaped."

What the Austro-Hungarian authorities had learned was enough to warrant further investigation and arrests in Serbia. Within 2 days following the assassination, diplomatic representatives of Austria-Hungary and Germany advised Serbia that she should open an investigation. Gruic, speaking for Serbia falsely replied "Nothing had been done so far and the matter did not concern the Serbian Government." after which "high words" were spoken on both sides.

With investigative routes blocked by Serbia and her allies, a consensus quickly formed between Austria-Hungary and Germany to completely defeat Serbia diplomatically or militarily using the Sarajevo assassination as leverage and Austria-Hungary began drafting a set of demands to present to Serbia. While these demands were drawn up, edited and reedited together with the proofs of the crime itself, the Germanies settled on a strategy to unnerve Serbia and her allies through diplomatic silence.

By the time the evidence and letter of demands were ready for presentation to Serbia, the July 20-23 Russo-French summit meeting was about to begin. Information about the draft was circulated within The Triple Alliance, and Italy leaked the information so that at the summit, Russia and France were aware that demands were coming but not their language or extent. France counseled Russia to be firm. On July 23rd, at 6PM Belgrade time, corresponding to the conclusion of the Franco-Russian summit, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Serbia delivered the letter of demands, commonly called the July ultimatum, to Belgrade.

The demands were tough. Austria-Hungary made Serbia's March 1909 declaration to the Great Powers in which Serbia promised to respect Austria-Hungary's territorial integrity and maintain good neighborly relations the basis of legitimacy of its ten enumerated demands and several demands in the letter's preamble. These demands focused on the investigation and arrest of the Serbian Military conspirators fingered by the assassins, destruction of the terrorist infrastructure and means of propaganda, rooting out terrorists from the Serbian Military, and putting Serbia back on track to be a good neighbor. Serbia was required to admit misbehavior by its officers and allow Austro-Hungarian authorities to participate in the investigation in Serbia. All demands had to be agreed to within 48 hours or Austria-Hungary would withdraw its ambassador.

The demands had their desired effect, unnerving the Serbian Government. With the Russian abandonment of 1908-9 fresh in their mind, Serbia began writing a response accepting the demands in total, while Serbia's diplomatic core sought its allies' support. Russia promptly sent a telegram offering full support and recommending against full acceptance of the demands and began taking steps preparatory to war.

With Russia's words of support and tangible action in hand, Serbia drafted a response, conciliatory in tone, accepting demands #8 and #10, and partially accepting, finessing, disingenuously answering or outright rejecting the remaining enumerated demands and the demands in the preamble and mobilized its army. The response was issued on July 25th within the 48-hour time limit and was a public relations triumph for Serbia as a careless read of it made it appear that Serbia had accepted almost all of Austria-Hungary’s demands. Austria-Hungary withdrew its legation from Belgrade. Serbia began evacuating its government and military from Belgrade.

On July 26th, Serbian reservist soldiers on tramp steamers apparently accidentally crossed onto the Austro-Hungarian side of the river. Shots were fired into the air to warn them off. Franz-Joseph was persuaded by exaggerated reports of the incident to declare war and mobilize on July 28th 1914.

During this period, Austrian and German diplomatic efforts were initially focused on localizing the conflict. When it became clear to Germany that Russia, France and probably Britain would back Serbia, Germany began advocating a “Stop in Belgrade” approach, meaning that Austria-Hungary would occupy Belgrade, which Serbia had already withdrawn from, and then negotiations would be held regarding Austria-Hungary’s original demands. Britain pushed for a peace conference, but without any prior occupation of Belgrade. With Austria-Hungary, Serbia and Russia bent on war and inelastic mobilization schedules underway, these efforts were ineffective and only given an audience because Russia needed more time for its mobilization and Austria-Hungary could not afford to snub its ally. 69.110.17.187 18:43, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

War Guilt
weeeeeeeeeeeee —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.62.31.148 (talk) 03:14, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Problems with the Introduction
->Probably you should start with the alliance structure starting from the Secret Treaty of 1892 and the abrogation of the Bjorko treaty, move to some of the recent crises such as France's conquest of Morroco, the Buchlau Bargain and Bosnian Annexation crisis and the Balkans Wars. This will put the assassination in the context of lighting the powder keg.

On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph and heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo in a conspiracy involving a Bosnian Serb student, Gavrilo Princip, who was part of a group of fifteen assailants, who formed the Young Bosnia group, acting with some support from parts of the Serbian government. -->There were 6 armed assassins under the coordination of Danilo Ilic. 5 of these assassins were tried and convicted along with Ilic. The sixth assassin, Mehmedbasi, escaped to Montenegro where he was arrested and told all. These are historical certainties. There is no credible evidence of more assassins working in concert with Danilo's team. There was no "Young Bosnia Group". Young Bosnia was a term that became popular after the war to refer to a wide range of Bosnians dedicated to the destruction of the Dual-Monarchy to make way for an expanded Serbia or a Yugoslavia. For more on this, read the suggested readings on Wikipedia's "Assassination of Franz-Ferdinand page.

Following the assassination, the Austro-Hungarian government, supported by their German allies, determined to punish the Serbians for the assassination, --->Wow, jumped 3 weeks into the crisis. Serbia was asked and given the chance to do the right thing in the interim. and on July 23 sent an ultimatum to the Serbs with terms so insulting it was sure to be rejected. >Actually, Serbia's initial attitude was to accept the demands in total The Serbians, relying on the hope >Not the hope, but the commitment and real and actual support. of support from Russia, gave a response which led to Austrian rejection and to a declaration of war. >The crossing of the border by Serbian reservists had something to do with it too. The Russians mobilized in support of their Serbian allies, first partially, >Russia never partially mobilized. It had no such plan. The generals implemented full mobilization against AH and Germany as per the plan, even when ordered otherwise by the Czar.

against only the Austrian frontier, and then, on July 31, after this was explained to be militarily impossible, a general mobilization was ordered. The German war plan, which relied on a quick strike against the Russian's French allies while the Russian army slowly mobilized, could not afford to allow the Russians to begin mobilization without launching their attack on the west. As such, the Germans declared war on Russia on August 1 and against France two days later, immediately launching an invasion of Luxembourg and Belgium to get around the fortifications along the Franco-German border. The violation of Belgium's neutrality led to a British declaration of war on Germany on August 4, ->The invasion of Belgium only sped Britain's entry. Lloyd George himself said before the war that in the event of war, Belgium could not remain neutral. The obvious argument was that there would be no way to blockade or attack Germany as long as Belgium was neutral. The commitments made to Russia and France in ministerial letters, though not approved by Parliament, were the primary cause of British entry.

leaving five of the six great powers involved in the first European general war since 1815.