 |
Business | Industries | Finance | Tax |
| Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|||||
| First Prev [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ] Next Last |
On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student. Though triggered by this assassination, the war's origins lie in the complex relations and turn of events that can be traced over a century earlier during the French Revolution.
By the late eighteenth century French society was on the verge of revolution. The old monarchy was ruling France by birthright and absolute authority. The fabric of France's society was clear: King on the top, the people on the bottom, with Church and Nobles somewhere at the upper-end. This was a problem because economic changes were creating a new social class, the Bourgeoisie. This new middle class often were the reformers of French society who demanded to be treated as well as the Aristocracy. Along with this, France was in trouble economically. Since Louis XIV, France had been engaged in a series of wars which drained financial reserves. Many of the middle class were outraged when taxes were on the rise for everyone except the Aristocracy. What began as a movement to fix France's broken economy and society became a continental war. The French Revolution resulted in chaos and the ascent of Napoleon to power. Napoleon's armies marched all over Europe, bringing not only French control, but French ideas. The rise of ideas of Nationalism, devotion and love for one's common people and ethnicity, had begun in the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon tapped into this new idea of Nationalism, which he saw in his troops, to better the French war machine. The French people began to feel pride in their culture and ethnicity. The world watched Nationalism for the first time and saw the power the French gained from it. Following the Napoleonic Wars, all of Europe was sharing these ideas.
After Napoleon's final defeat at The Battle of Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna followed in 1815. The congress was organized by the main victors of the Napoleonic Wars: Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria. The key figure of the congress was Austria's representative, Klemens von Metternich. Metternich advocated restoring Europe to the way it was before the French Revolution. He urged Europe to create a Balance of Power, where no European nation was stronger than another. He also created the concert of Europe, a system where nations would help each other to keep the old aristocracy in power. By preventing the single monarchy in a country from falling to nationalism it would prevent the entire continent from going up in flames under social revolution. If that were to ever happen, according to Metternich, Europe would be thrown into another Continental war as Napoleon and French Nationalism had shown. Metternich feared Nationalism as a force that could tear apart multi-ethnic nations like Russia and the Austrian Empire.
In the years that followed the Congress of Vienna, conflicts began springing up all over Europe between those who cried out for change, and those who resisted it. By the mid-1800s, Nationalism had become an evident force. A wave of unrest could be seen across the continent in the Revolution of 1848. The 1860s and early 1870s saw two great changes to the map: the unification of Italy and the unification of Germany. These two nations were formed off the backs of Nationalism. German Unification was brought about by Prussia's iron chancellor Otto von Bismarck through a series of wars from 1864– 1871. Bismarck's famous speech in 1862 as minister of Prussia was:
"Germany is not looking to Prussia's liberalism, but to her power. The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and majority decisions, this was the mistake of 1848, but by iron and blood."
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870– 71 had brought not only the establishment of a powerful and dynamic German Empire, but also a legacy of animosity between France and Germany following the German annexation of the formerly French territory of Alsace-Lorraine. Under the political direction of her first Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, Germany secured her new position in Europe by an alliance with Austria-Hungary and a diplomatic understanding with Russia. Bismarck began pursuing alliances and peace treaties. He made peace with almost every nation in Europe except France. He feared greatly that a war might destroy the newborn nation he had created in the 1860s. By the time of Wilhelm I's death, a system of alliances kept a tight peace in Europe.
The ascension ( 1888) of Kaiser Wilhelm II brought to the German throne a young ruler determined to direct policy himself, despite his rash diplomatic judgement. After the 1890 elections, in which the centre and left parties made major gains, and due in part to his disaffection at inheriting the Chancellor who had guided his grandfather for most of his career, Wilhelm engineered Bismarck's resignation.
Much of the fallen Chancellor's work was undone in the following decades, as Wilhelm failed to renew the 1887 Reinsurance Treaty with Russia, presenting republican France with the opportunity to conclude ( 1891– 94) a full alliance with the Russian Empire. Worse was to follow, as Wilhelm undertook ( 1897– 1900) the creation of a German navy capable of threatening Britain's century-old naval mastery, prompting the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale of 1904 and its expansion ( 1907) to include Russia in the Triple Entente.
Rivalry among the powers was exacerbated from the 1880s by the scramble for colonies which brought much of Africa and Asia under European rule in the following quarter-century. Under pressure from certain groups, even the anti-imperialistic Bismarck agreed to the chase for overseas Empire, adding to Anglo-German tension as German acquisitions in Africa and the Pacific threatened to impinge upon British strategic and commercial interests. Wilhelm's support for Moroccan independence from France, Britain's new strategic partner, provoked the Tangier Crisis of 1905. During the Second Moroccan or Agadir Crisis ( 1911), a German naval presence in Morocco tested the Anglo-French coalition once again.
A key ingredient in the emerging diplomatic powder-keg was the growth of powerful nationalist aspirations among the Balkan states, which each looked to Austria-Hungary or Russia for support. The rise of anti-Austrian circles in Serbia following a 1903 palace coup contributed to a further crisis in 1908 over Austria's unilateral annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, German pressure forcing a humiliating climbdown on the part of a Russia weakened ( 1905) by defeat at the hands of Japan and subsequent revolutionary disorder.
Alarm at Russia's unexpectedly rapid recovery after 1909 fueled sentiment among German ruling circles in favour of a pre-emptive war to break alleged Entente "encirclement" before Russian rearmament could tip the strategic balance decisively against Germany and Austria-Hungary. By 1913 both France and Germany were planning to extend military service, while Britain had entered into a naval convention and military discussions with France during the previous year.
| Politics | Business | Finance |
 |
 |
 |
|