The War to End All Wars: "The Great War"–Chapter 2

Long-range artillery, rapid-fire machine guns, poison gas, flamethrowers, tanks, and airplanes that bombed and strafed introduced new kinds of terror and record levels of suffering and death.

Long-range artillery, rapid-fire machine guns, poison gas, flamethrowers, tanks, and airplanes that bombed and strafed introduced new kinds of terror and record levels of suffering and death.

The Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, America’s emergence as a world power, the Second World War, and continuing turmoil in the Middle East all have their roots in the First World War.

Crowds lined the parade route, waiting to catch a glimpse of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the imperial throne of Austria-Hungary, seat of the thousand-year-old Hapsburg Empire.

Smiling expansively and nodding to the crowd, the archduke was riding in an open car through the streets of Sarajevo on the fateful Sunday morning of June 28, 1914.

Sarajevo was the capital of Bosnia, a rebellious province recently annexed by Austria-Hungary, usually referred to simply as Austria.

Scattered among the crowds that morning were six young terrorists. Five of them were teenagers, university students of Serbian descent who had been born and raised in Bosnia.

As the imperial motorcade drove toward Sarajevo City Hall, one of the terrorists hurled a small bomb at Franz Ferdinand’s passing car.

The bomb landed in the street and exploded against the next car in the procession, spraying shrapnel and injuring two officers on the archduke’s staff.

The bomb landed in the street and exploded against the next car in the procession, spraying shrapnel and injuring two officers on the archduke’s staff.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand convinced high-ranking Austrian officials that a war was necessary to curb Serbia’s ambitions.

Serbia “must be eliminated as a power factor in the Balkans,” warned Count Leopold von Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister. Berchtold predicted a swift Austrian victory over Serbia, with no wider repercussions.

They feared that an Austrian war against Serbia might set off a deadly chain reaction, pulling in other nations, such as Serbia’s ally, Russia.
Europe’s Great Powers, as they called themselves, considered their options and began to eye one another warily.

Several crises in the recent past had been resolved peacefully by diplomacy.

Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Peace Prize, had predicted that his powerful explosives might very well put an end to all war. Rather than annihilate one another, the nations of Europe would have to settle future disputes through negotiation and compromise.

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and King George V of Great Britain, grandsons of Britain’s Queen Victoria, were cousins.

Czar Nicholas II of Russia was a cousin by marriage: His wife, Alexandra, was one of Victoria’s granddaughters.

“The world is moving away from military ideals,” declared the influential British journal Review of Reviews, “and a period of peace, industry, and world-wide friendship is dawning.”

The French had suffered a humiliating defeat in their war with Germany in 1870–71, when France was forced to surrender the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, a loss that France could neither forgive nor forget. Fear and resentment of Germany had drawn France into a military alliance with Russia, which also looked upon the newly powerful German Empire on its border as a threat.

Germany’s chief ally was Austria-Hungary, an unwieldy empire of several major religions and numerous languages and nationalities, including large numbers of Serbs who wanted to break away from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and declare their independence.

Rivalries among Europe’s Great Powers had led to an elaborate network of military alliances, in which one nation pledged to support another in the event of war.

Germany and Austria-Hungry had joined with Italy in what was called the Triple Alliance. France and Russia had an alliance of their own. And Britain, while avoiding formal alliances, had signed ententes (understandings) with both France and Russia, forming what was known as the Triple Entente.

So along with the naval armaments race between Britain and Germany, European nations were competing in an arms race on land.

Seeking security in military superiority, they recruited ever larger armies and navies, piled up more and more of the latest new weapons, and built wider and stronger fortifications along their national borders.

Czar Nicholas II warned that “the accelerating arms race” was “transforming the armed peace into a crushing burden that weighs on all nations and, if prolonged, will lead to the very cataclysm it seeks to avert.”

Austria blamed the government of Serbia for the royal murders and for constantly stirring up trouble. Austrian foreign minister Berchtold called for a “final and fundamental reckoning with Serbia.”

Austria issued an ultimatum—a list of demands—that, if accepted, would compromise Serbia’s independence.

Austria now began to mobilize its armed forces, calling up hundreds of thousands of reserve troops and moving men into combat positions.

The German ambassador to Russia warned that Russian mobilization would compel Germany to gather its troops in turn, “and that then a European war could scarcely be prevented.”

Alarmed at the prospect of war, Czar Nicholas appealed directly to his cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm.

“To try and avoid such a calamity as a European war,” the czar telegraphed, “I beg you in the name of our old friendship to do what you can to stop your allies from going too far.”

“I am exerting my utmost influence,” he wrote, “to induce the Austrians to deal straightly to arrive [at] a satisfactory understanding with you.”

As one country’s mobilization led to another, the rush of events overwhelmed the ability of diplomats to resolve the crisis. From then on, military calculations rather than diplomacy guided decisions in every European capital. Europe’s leaders began to act as though war were inevitable.

The Germans now dispatched ultimatums to both Russia and its ally France, warning that “[German] mobilization will follow unless Russia suspends war measures against ourselves and Austria-Hungary.”

The ultimatum to France declared, “Mobilization inevitably means war,” and demanded a guarantee of French neutrality.

On August 1, Britain’s King George V telegraphed his cousin Czar Nicholas: “I cannot help thinking that some misunderstanding has produced this deadlock. I am most anxious not to miss any possibility of avoiding the terrible calamity which at present threatens the whole world.”

The intricate German war plan called for the deployment of a million troops transported by 11,000 trains according to a precise timetable.

Even today, historians continue to debate the tangled and confusing causes of the conflict, the series of accidents, blunders, and misunderstandings that swept the nations of Europe toward war in the summer of 1914, whether war might have been avoided, and which persons or nations were most responsible.

And once a country is fully armed and poised to attack, war, it seems, is hard to avoid.

The events that unfolded as Europe careened toward catastrophe appeared to defy logic and common sense.