Explain how the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the July Crisis acted as the trigger that turned long-term tensions into war

What this dot point is asking

This dot point asks you to explain how a single event, the assassination at Sarajevo, turned into a full European war within a few weeks. This is the trigger of the First World War, also called the short-term cause or the spark. You should be able to describe the assassination, follow the steps of the July Crisis of 1914, and, most importantly, explain how this spark connected to the long-term causes you have studied. The key idea is that the assassination did not create the tension in Europe. It lit a fire in a continent that was already soaked in gunpowder.

The answer

The spark: the assassination at Sarajevo

In June 1914 the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, visited the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia, a region Austria-Hungary controlled but which many Slavs wanted to join Serbia. While he was being driven through the city, he and his wife were shot and killed by a young Serbian nationalist who belonged to a secret group that wanted to free the Slav lands from Austrian rule. Austria-Hungary was furious and blamed Serbia for encouraging the attack.

The July Crisis begins: the ultimatum

Austria-Hungary now saw a chance to crush the Serbian threat once and for all. With the backing of its powerful ally Germany, it sent Serbia an ultimatum, a list of harsh demands, in July 1914. The demands were so severe that accepting all of them would have meant almost giving up Serbia's independence. Serbia agreed to most of the demands but not every one. Austria-Hungary used this as its reason to declare war on Serbia. The local quarrel had now become a war.

The chain reaction across Europe

Here the long-term cause of the alliances took over and turned a local war into a world war. The steps followed quickly:

• Russia, the protector of the Slavs, began to mobilise its army to defend Serbia.
• Germany, allied to Austria-Hungary, demanded Russia stop, and when Russia refused, Germany declared war on Russia.
• Because Russia was allied to France, Germany also declared war on France.
• To attack France quickly, Germany invaded neutral Belgium, and this brought Britain into the war on the side of France and Russia.

Within roughly six weeks of the assassination, all the great powers of Europe were at war.

Why mobilisation made it worse

One reason the crisis spun out of control so fast was the war plans and mobilisation timetables created during the arms race. Once a country began to call up and move its army, its rivals felt they had to do the same at once or risk being caught unready. Mobilisation was hard to stop and was treated almost as an act of war. So the fear of being too slow pushed each power to act, and the diplomats lost control of events.

Connecting the spark to the long-term causes

The most important point for your essays is the link between the trigger and the long-term causes. The assassination only led to a world war because of the conditions already in place: the alliance system that pulled the powers in, the militarism and war plans that demanded fast mobilisation, the colonial rivalry that had built up distrust, and the nationalism that had made the Balkans a powder keg. The spark was needed, but so was the gunpowder. Without the long-term causes, the assassination might have stayed a local tragedy.

Examples in context

Example 1. The ultimatum Serbia could not fully accept. Austria-Hungary's ultimatum was deliberately written to be almost impossible to accept in full, because Austria-Hungary wanted an excuse to crush Serbia. Serbia agreed to most of it, which won it the sympathy of other powers, but Austria-Hungary seized on the parts Serbia rejected to declare war. This shows the crisis was driven by Austria-Hungary's wish to act, not only by the assassination.

Example 2. The invasion of Belgium and Britain's entry. Germany's war plan required a fast march through neutral Belgium to reach France. Britain had promised long before to protect Belgian neutrality, so the invasion gave Britain both a legal reason and a clear public cause to enter the war. A quarrel that began in the Balkans now reached all the way to Britain, showing how widely the spark spread.

Try this

• Cue. Describe the assassination at Sarajevo in one or two sentences, naming the victim and who carried it out.

• Cue. List, in order, the steps from Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia to Britain entering the war, including the invasion of Belgium.

• Cue. Explain the idea that the assassination was the "spark" and the long-term causes were the "gunpowder", giving one long-term cause as an example.