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Monday 9 May 2011

The Beginning

World War One was the worst war of its time. From 1914 to 1919 many people lost their lives for their countries.
Before this happened, in 1871, Germany invaded France for a proportion of land. Scared of a counter attack, Germany formed the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy. In response, France formed the Triple Entente with Britain and Russia.
The tension these two groups caused in Europe resulted in an arms race. Conscription was put in place by many of these countries and the number of soldiers rose dramatically before the first war.
The official trigger event of WWI was when Duke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to Austria-Hungary, and his wife were assassinated by a member of Serbia’s ‘Black Hand’ group. This resulted in Austria declaring war on Serbia. However, the tension was already very high in Europe in the 1910’s and many felt that this trigger event was just an excuse for war.
After Austria declared war, Germany backed them and a lot of countries sent out ultimatums to each other, resulting in Russia, Great Britain and France declaring war on Germany and Germany declaring war on Russia and France.
The bloodshed was massive, many women and children were left widowed and fatherless. It was a terrible time for all.

8 comments:

  1. This post clearly describs the key points for why WW1 started. It is easy to understand and gets to the point. The image used was very appropriate and helpful. However, what were the reasons for Australia joining the war?

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  2. Greatly covered post on the origins of World War One, why and how was Australia involved?

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  3. the reason why australia joined WWI was because australia was a part of the british empire, and australia wanted to help britain win the war.

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  4. You write that Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy were in an alliance, but in your map Italy is allied with France and Britain. Can you explain what happened with Italy?

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  5. We love your background and your post was thoroughly detailed. Our question: 'What reasons triggered the the Black Hand to assassinate the Archduke?'
    Love El & V.

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  6. The reason why the Black Hand assassinated the archduke was because Bosnia was unhappy with his country's rule over theirs.
    Thanks :)

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  7. Fantastic, detailed introduction, which member of the black hand assasinated the archduke?

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  8. The person who assasinated the archduke was called Gavrilo Princip
    Thankyou :)

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