More than a hundred years ago, the great powers of Europe were secretly preparing for a large-scale war, and they all wanted to prove their strength and compete for more interests. On the surface, a single bullet detonated the war that spread across Europe, but the reasons behind it are complex.
The roots of the war.
The hatred between France and Germany can be traced back to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, in which France lost the Alsace-Lorraine region and always wanted to take revenge on Germany and regain lost territory.
Germany achieved reunification at the end of the 19th century and became a powerful country, just wanted to show its strength, but looked up at the world but found that the great world map has been almost divided, and it has fallen far behind other countries in the distribution of colonies, and Germany wants to re-divide the world and expand its sphere of influence.
The Balkans are a sensitive region in Europe because it is on the edge of the Ottoman Empire, which is an old empire, but its rule has declined, many peoples want independence, and there are European powers behind them who want a piece of the Ottoman pie.
Austria-Hungary was an ally of the Ottoman Empire, perhaps because of its sympathy, and seeing the misery of the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary had to support it in order to maintain its rule in its own country and prevent the spread of nationalism. But this clashed with the interests of Tsarist Russia, a pan-Slavist country that wanted to protect the Slavs in the Balkans, so it became a sworn enemy with Austria-Hungary.
During this period, all countries in Europe experienced the industrial revolution, their economy, science and technology, and military have developed rapidly, and they all have stronger war capabilities and stronger war desires. They all want to take advantage of this changing world, so they are actively expanding their armaments, building their own alliances, and preparing for future wars.
In order to cope with a possible war, Germany wanted to establish a strong alliance, it first allied with Austria-Hungary, and then wanted to win over Russia to form a Triple Alliance, but the relationship between Austria-Hungary and Russia was too poor to coexist peacefully, so Germany had to abandon Russia and turn to an alliance with Italy, and the Triple Alliance was formally formed.
Tsarist Russia is also an old fritter, as soon as he saw that Germany had formed an alliance with Italy, he knew that the war might start, so he immediately formed an alliance with France, because France and Germany were mortal enemies, and France had a strong navy that could help Russia fight the German threat. Later, as mentioned earlier, the main purpose of Germany's war was to re-divide the world order, Britain was the largest colonial country, and Germany's purpose was, in the final analysis, to pry the cake of the British.
Therefore, before the start of the First World War, the competition between Britain and Germany at sea was fierce, and Britain, France, and Russia formed the Triple Entente. In this way, Europe was divided into two camps, and a major war was on the verge of breaking out.
The fuse of the war June 28, 1914, was a day destined to go down in history, because on this day, an assassination event triggered the First World War.
On this day, the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Duchess Sophie Hohenberg, came to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, to inspect the Austro-Hungarian army there. The couple's marriage was also a topic of conversation at the time, and Sophie was a commoner, and her marriage to the crown prince was met with a lot of opposition, and she could not appear with the crown prince in public or enjoy royal courtesy.
But on this day, because it was a military invitation, she could ride in a convertible with the crown prince and attend the welcome ceremony, which was a rare opportunity for her, and she could finally have the opportunity to show her pride to the world, but she didn't expect it to be exchanged for a tragedy.
In Sarajevo, there was a group of nationalists who wanted to overthrow the Austro-Hungarian Empire and establish Yugoslavia, called the ** party, who planned to assassinate the crown prince on this day as a way to stimulate the national movement in the Balkans. They ambushed six Assassins in the Crown Prince's path, all armed with pistols and grenades, ready to strike at any moment.
When the crown prince's convoy crossed a bridge, the first assassin threw a grenade, but his method was inaccurate, and the grenade did not hit the crown prince's car, but exploded into a car behind, causing several people's **.
The Crown Prince's convoy immediately accelerated to flee the scene, and the other Assassins had no chance to make a move, so they could only watch the Crown Prince's car drive past.
At this time, the crown prince's motorcade was supposed to go straight back to safety, but the crown prince wanted to visit the wounded officer in the hospital, he asked the driver to change the route, but the driver was not familiar with the city, he made a wrong turn at an intersection and drove to the door of a café, and there, there was an assassin drinking coffee, his name was Gavrillo Princip, he was a 19-year-old Serb and also a member of the ** party. He had just given up his plan to assassinate the crown prince and wanted to escape the city, but he didn't expect that the target would appear in front of him like this, according to the current words, it was called sending people to the head!
When Princip saw the crown prince's car, he immediately drew his pistol, rushed to the front of the car, and fired two shots at the crown prince and his wife, one in the crown prince's carotid artery and the other in the abdomen in Sophie, both of whom died instantly.
It is estimated that even Princip could not have imagined that the two small bullets that he fired crookedly could directly trigger a world war that destabilized the whole of Europe, and he became famous in the annals of history. Upon learning of his son's assassination, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor was furious and pointed the finger directly at Serbia **, deciding to punish Serbia, he turned to Germany for support, and the German Emperor Wilhelm II expressed his full support, he sent a "blank check" to Austria-Hungary, no matter what Austria-Hungary did, Germany would support it.
As a result, Austria-Hungary made a series of harsh demands to Serbia, and Serbia did not want to go to war with Austria-Hungary, it knew that it was not an opponent of Austria-Hungary, so it turned to Russia for help, Russia was a protectorate of Serbia, and when it saw that the Slavic brothers were humiliated, it immediately patted its chest and wanted to stand up for Serbia.
The two countries had not been able to negotiate a few times before the talks collapsed, and Franz Joseph I, who had not yet recovered from the loss of his son, declared war directly on Serbia.
The war soon turned into a world war, involving almost all European countries, lasting more than four years, causing tens of millions of deaths, countless traumatizations, and it changed the pattern of the world.
The course of the war After the war began, all countries began to move, and Germany began to implement its own "Schlieffen Plan" formulated before the war, the purpose of this plan was to first eliminate France, and then turn to Russia, because Germany believed that France was the most dangerous enemy, and Russia was the weakest enemy, France had a strong army, and Russia had a huge territory, and Germany wanted to solve the French problem before Russia mobilized.
The German plan was to attack from the north of France with most of its army, bypass the French fortifications on the German border, and then quickly occupy Paris and force France to surrender, so that France could be excluded from the war. But there was a difficulty with this plan, that is, Germany would pass through Belgium, and Belgium was a neutral country, it did not want to participate in the war, and it also had the protection of Britain, and if Germany invaded Belgium, it would provoke Britain and let Britain enter the war, so that Germany would directly face the two enemies of Britain and France.
When confronted with multiple-choice questions, Germany issued an ultimatum directly to Belgium through Belgian territory, from the principle of unambiguity, to reach the French border.
In order to appease Belgium, Germany also promised not to infringe on the sovereignty and interests of Belgium, but Belgium rejected Germany's demands, it insisted on its neutrality, and it also turned to Britain for help, and Britain also expressed its support for Belgium, it issued an ultimatum to Germany, Germany was not used to Britain at all, after all, the two countries had not been very happy before, so it declared war on Belgium and invaded Belgium directly. Britain felt quite faceless and declared war directly on Germany, so that the Triple Entente formed a complete lineup against the Triple Alliance.
The German offensive was soon met with resistance from Belgium, the Belgian army, although not strong, but they were brave, they made stubborn defenses in places such as Lièges and Antwerp, which caused a great obstacle to the German offensive, and they were also supported by the Anglo-French army, which sent a large number of troops and supplies to help Belgium resist the German invasion.
Germany's plans were disrupted, it wanted to solve the French problem in six weeks, but now it has been delayed for a long time, and it is also facing the threat of the Eastern Front, because Russia has begun to mobilize, it has sent two corps, and launched an attack on Germany and Austria-Hungary, which has put pressure on both Germany and Austria-Hungary, and they have to bring back part of the army from the Western Front to deal with the Russian threat.
Although the German army on the Eastern Front is not much, but they are very elite, at that time, Tsarist Russia, has long fallen from the throne of the European military police, several foreign wars have not been won, in the face of the German elite, the Tsarist Second Army is almost powerless, almost annihilated by the German elite.
Tsarist Russia, which was originally ambitious, directly blocked the Eastern Front for the German-Austrian coalition army. Back on the Western Front, the German attack triumphed all the way, and the walls of Paris could already be seen, but the French counterattack was very tenacious, and launched a large-scale ** on the Marne, they used taxis and trains to quickly mobilize a large number of troops, flanking the German flank, forcing the German army to retreat, this battle was called the "Marne Miracle", which saved the fate of France and also broke the German plan.
The German blitzkrieg failed, it was not able to defeat the French in a short time, and both sides began to dig trenches to protect their positions, which was the most classic trench warfare of the First World War.
When the war is fought to this extent, it is boring. In order to fight for a little bit of land, they have to pay tens of thousands of lives, they are in the trenches with mud, rats, germs, corpses, they have to endure each other's artillery fire, machine guns, poison gas, etc., their life is a nightmare.
Because the war on the Western Front was at a stalemate, both sides wanted to find other battlefields to change the situation of the war, so they extended the war to the whole world, they waged wars in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and even the sea and air, and they also attracted some new allies, such as Japan, Italy, the Ottoman Empire and other countries, they all wanted to gain some benefits from the war, but they also paid some costs.
The turning point of the war In 1917, the fourth year of the First World War, the war underwent some major changes that affected the course of the war and its outcome.
First of all, Russia withdrew from the war, because Russia began the Bolshevik Revolution, overthrew the rule of the tsars, established a communist **, Lenin and the German-Austrian forces signed a peace treaty, called the "Brest-Litovsk Treaty", this treaty made Russia give up a lot of territory and interests, but it also allowed Russia to get rid of the suffering of the war and start its own socialist construction.
The United States entered the war, because the United States and Germany had some conflicts, Germany in order to break the British naval blockade, began unlimited submarine warfare, it did not distinguish between friend and foe, regardless of international law, attacked a lot of merchant ships and passenger ships, one of which was called Lusitania, it was sunk by German submarines, causing 1198 deaths, including 128 Americans, which made the anti-German sentiment of the American people aroused. Germany also tried to co-opt Mexico and make Mexico go to war with the United States, this conspiracy was intercepted by the British and told the Americans, which made the Americans even angrier, so the United States ** Wilson declared war against Germany, and the United States became a new ally of the Entente, it brought new troops, materials, finance, and morality to the Entente, it reinvigorated the Entente, and it also made Germany feel the pressure.
The entry of the United States into the war became the last straw that overwhelmed Germany, and the war on the Western Front took a turn, because the Entente began to use some new ** and tactics, tanks, aircraft, radio, etc. appeared one after another, allowing the Entente to break the stalemate of trench warfare and start a series of offensives, forcing the German army to continue to retreat, these battles are called the "Hundred Day Offensive", they mark the victory of the Entente on the Western Front, and also mark the defeat of Germany on the Western Front.
The end of the war In 1918, the fifth year of the First World War, the war finally ended.
Because Germany was no longer able to fight, and its allies had surrendered, they could only accept the peace terms of the Entente countries, and signed the Treaty of Versailles, which allowed Germany to admit its responsibility for the war, pay huge reparations, cede a large number of territories and colonies, reduce its own army, abandon its own navy and air force, and accept the supervision and control of the Entente, this treaty made Germany lose its dignity and planted the seeds of future revenge. The Versailles Treaty only bought the world a chance for peace for 20 years.
This is the truth of the First World War, it was a war with no winners, it was a war without meaning, it was a war without need, it was a human tragedy.