Day 2 Power Point

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Day 2 Power Point
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Focus Activity
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Causes

• Excerpt from May 7 1919 Count Brockdorff-Rantzau,
  leader of German delegation to the Versailles
  Peace Conference
• No one would want to assert that the disaster
  began only at that disastrous moment when the
  successor of Austria-Hungary fell a victim to
  murderous hands. In the last fifty years, the
  imperialism of all European states has
  chronically poisoned international relations.
  Policies of retaliation, policies of expansion,
  and disregard for the right of peoples to
  determine their own destiny, have contributed to
  the European malady which cam to crisis in the
  World War and placed the issue in the hands of
  the military

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Causes of the First World War

• Alliances
• Triple Alliance Germany, Austria-Hungary and
  Italy
• Triple Entente France, Russia and Great Britain

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Causes of the First World War

• Imperialism
• Spheres of Influence
• Berlin Conference and the Scramble for Africa

The Rhodes Colossus
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Causes of the First World War

• Nationalism
• Definition?
• Unifications (Italy, Germany)
• Self-determination and Ethnic Struggles (e.g.
  Serbia and Austria-Hungary)
• Irredentism
• Italy Trieste, Istria and Gorizia
• France Alsace-Lorraine

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Causes of the First World War

• Militarism
• Massive military buildup in the late 19th and
  early 20th centuries
• Impact of industrialization
• Nervous, tense environment (Invasion Novels The
  Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers)

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Militarism Per Capita Expenditures on Armaments
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Immediate Cause

• Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and wife
  Sophie
• Heir to the Austrian Imperial throne
• Murdered by Gavrilo Princip
• 19-year-old member of Black Hand
• Serbian
• Sarajevo, Bosnia (recently annexed by A-H)
• St. Vitus Day (June 28, 1914)
• Commemorates 1389 Battle of Kosovo
• Austria blames Serbia sends ultimatum

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Immediate Cause

• Balkans powder keg of Europe

Gavrilo Princip Archduke Franz Ferdinand Who
s who?