WW1 POSTERS

2. Prelude to World War One

a. Underlying Causes of the War
b. Development of Rival Alliances
c. Crisis of 1914

2. Prelude to War

World War I began suddenly and unexpectedly in July 1914 as a result of the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, which took place on June 28 at Sarajevo, Bosnia. Since no war involving all of the six great powers of Europe had occurred since 1815, the possibility of a general war had generally been discounted, at least by ordinary persons. Although in the winter of 1912-1913 the small Balkan states had staged a successful war against Turkey, almost expelling the latter from Europe, and then fought among themselves, the great powers had kept the peace. Questions concerning the new state of Albania and the islands of the Aegean Sea remained unsettled in the spring of 1914, but it was generally assumed that another Balkan crisis would result in another compromise. Statesmen in all countries were in the habit of proclaiming their devotion to peace, and perhaps believed their professions. Few persons in any country were psychologically prepared for the catastrophe of a general war, for while there had been many British, French, German, Italian, and Russian predictions of impending disaster, they had commanded little attention.

The reason for this indifference was the widespread belief, at least in the democratic countries of Europe, that modern governments were too enlightened to go to war. In 1910, Norman Angell, a Briton who, after some years in the United States, had spent most of his life on the Continent, published a book called The Great Illusion, which caused a sensation. Angell said bluntly that wars did not pay. Modern economic life, he argued, was a highly complicated affair and depended on mutual confidence between nations and on an elaborate system of international credit, both of which would be destroyed by war. If governments were so foolish as to go to war, they would lose much more than they could gain, and the victors would be mined as well as the vanquished. Angell's thesis was by no means universally accepted, particularly in Germany, but the opinion was often expressed that war was much too expensive for governments to contemplate, and that, if any government did so, it would be stopped by financial pressure. And it was a fact that in July 1914 the strongest opposition to war came from bankers in England and Germany.

In all European countries the Socialist parties, which were growing more powerful with each election, were in principle opposed to war, and they championed the idea that the workers should not respond to an order of mobilization. Moreover, there were many persons who hoped that somehow the influence of the Christian churches, especially that of the Roman Catholic Church, would be thrown into the scale against war.