Entangled Alliances: The Spark of WWI

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The Road to War: Imperialism, Alliances, and Slavic Separatism

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, European powers were busy expanding their empires, gobbling up colonies across Africa, Asia, and beyond.

This rush for empire-building created an unusual situation: while conflicts flared up overseas, Europe enjoyed a long stretch of peace starting in the 1870s. But this peace was fragile, held together by a web of secret alliances between nations.

These secret alliances were like promises between friends. If one nation got into a fight, its allies promised to jump in and help. The idea was to protect their land in Europe, not start wars there.

By 1900, most European powers weren’t as interested in grabbing more land on the continent as they were in protecting what they already had.

Check out this video to better understand how these alliances worked.

Here’s where it gets tricky.

Nations like France, England, Austria, Germany, and Russia had been at each other’s throats for centuries. But by the early 20th century, their leaders focused more on protecting their borders than on old grudges.

Yet, these old rivalries still simmered beneath the surface.

Russia, in particular, had a unique role. As the largest Slavic nation, it felt a special responsibility to protect the Slavic people in the Balkans, a region entirely composed of smaller, weaker countries.

But Russia wasn’t interested in taking over the Balkans; it didn’t want its fellow Slavs to be pushed around by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

With these secret alliances and promises to protect the Slavs, Europe became a ticking time bomb, waiting for a spark to set it off. That spark came from the Balkans, where Slavic separatism was rising.

Slavic Separatism: The Powder Keg Ignites

By the early 1900s, the Austro-Hungarian Empire struggled to hold itself together. Many of its Slavic subjects in the Balkans wanted independence. They were tired of being treated like second-class citizens and started to dream of breaking free.

One of the most determined groups was The Black Hand. Their goal was to free Bosnia and unite all Slavic people under a single nation — what they called Yugoslavia.

In 1914, members of this group learned that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, would be visiting Sarajevo, a city in Bosnia. To them, he was a symbol of their oppression, and they saw his visit as the perfect opportunity to strike.

Watch the following video to see how the assassination plot unfolded and how Serbia was involved.

The plan didn’t go smoothly. Several members of The Black Hand lost their nerve, and one of them even botched a suicide attempt.

But when Franz Ferdinand’s driver accidentally took a wrong turn, he brought the Archduke and his wife within a few feet of Gavrilo Princip, one of the plotters. Princip seized the moment, fired two shots, and changed history.

Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the assassination since the weapons used by The Black Hand had come from there. This gave Austria the excuse it needed to declare war on Serbia.

And just like that, the network of secret alliances began to drag the entire continent into conflict.

War and the Ripple Effect

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand is often seen as the event that ignited World War I. But the war itself set off a chain reaction that reshaped the world.

The chaos of WWI created the perfect conditions for revolutions in Russia, leading to the rise of Vladimir Lenin and the spread of communism. The harsh peace terms imposed on Germany after the war fueled anger and resentment, setting the stage for Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and eventually leading to World War II.

Some historians even argue that if it hadn’t been for that fateful wrong turn in Sarajevo, both World War II and the Cold War might never have happened. It’s impossible to know for sure, but one thing is clear: the events of 1914 had a lasting impact that’s still felt today.

As you move into the Got It? section, consider the complex web of alliances and tensions that made this regional event so explosive.

• How do these events connect to the world we live in now?