THE LEAD UP TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Events Leading up to the First World War

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia on the 28th June 1914 in Sarajevo by the Serbian Nationalist Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Black Hand Gang, would result in the bringing together of a range of the complex alliances across Europe.

It began with Russia declaring war on Austria-Hungary after it had invaded Serbia which in turn resulted in Germany declaring war on Russia. France then declared war on Germany. Subsequently, Germany put the Schlieffen Plan into action and attempted to invade France by going through Belgium first.

The Schlieffen Plan dated back to 1905 and was drawn up by the Head of the Great German General Staff Alfred von Schlieffen. It was designed to solve the potential problem of Germany fighting on 2 fronts, west and east. A proposed to deliver a major blow to the the French through a decisive attack through Belgium, thereby and knocking France out of the war before Russia could mobilise their army. It was estimated that 6 weeks which would be long enough to beat France.

The plan below shows how the Schlieffen Plan was intended to work.

However the Germans quickly found problems the first of these was they came under heavy resistance from the Belgian army around the city of Liege. Prior to the war they had built a string of forts around the city and these proved to be no pushover to take, they lasted for days until the Germans brought up heavy artillery and reduced the forts to rubble. This made them death traps for all German attackers, the Belgian resistance lasted until 15th August. This proved to be very important as it halted the Germans long enough for the French to mobilise. Of more importance it revealed to the Allies the power of the new and undeployed German Howitzers.

Britain declared war on Germany on 4th August 1914 following its invasion of Belgium.