Was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand the most important cause of World War one?

that they should try and take out France in 6 weeks while the Russians get sorted in 6 weeks and therefore avoid a war on two fronts. This Shieffen plan failed as the Russians mobilised their forces quicker than the Germans expected and also the Belgians put up a bit of a resistance when German forces attempted to go through Belgium to get to France.        The alliance system wasn’t the cause of the war. The reason we know this is because the Italians weren’t drawn into the war. They didn’t have to follow the alliance system. It did cause tension but didn’t force anyone to fight.The Moroccan crises both built up tension. Neither actually caused a war but the first crisis threatened war between France and Germany and the second crisis in 1911 brought Europe to the brink of war. The first crisis came about when the Germans had two main aims. The first was that they wanted to break the Britain-France alliance. They hoped that Britain would refuse to help France after Germany had made a direct challenge to French interests. The second aim was to demonstrate its intent to enlarge its overseas empire. The crisis that followed threatened war between the French and the Germans but this was avoided when all parties agreed to an international conference in Algeciras (January 1906). At the conference the Germans were isolated and with British support the French were given control of Morocco.         Basically what happened in the second crisis was the Moroccan sultan asked for French help in putting down a rebellion. The French accepted but the Germans demanded the troops were withdrawn. Germany sent a gunboat to a Moroccan port – Agadir, to supposedly protect Germans from internal disorders but in reality the reason was so the German government could blackmail the French into giving up some of their colonies in return for recognition of French control of Morocco. As in the first crisis there was a danger of war and as in 1906 Germany had to back down and relations between France and Britain were strengthened. All of the major European powers spent a lot of money on arms as the graph shows.Kaiser Wilhelm the second – the emperor of Germany was very militaristic and was jealous of Britain because they had a large empire. Germany decided to sort of challenge Britain’s navy superiority and they spent loads and loads of money on ships and navy. As the graph shows, Germany’s money spent on arms increased by nearly 350 percent during 1872 – 1912. In 1906 Britain made the HMS Dreadnought and this seemed as if Britain’s navy superiority would be secure but the Germans stole the design and made a similar ship and so an arms race began each side tried to out produce the other. Other countries joined the race such as Russia when they were humiliated in Japan and in the Bosnian crisis. This could have contributed to help cause world war one as if these countries had spent all the money on buying arms then they would want to use it.All these events built up tension and some actually nearly did start a war but the trigger for this war came when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Ferdinand and his wife were shot by a Bosnian Serb student – Gavirilo Princip. Princip was a member of “Black Hand”, an organisation committed to forcing Austria out of Bosnia. Although there was no evidence to link Princip with the Serbian government, the Austrian government used Ferdinand’s assassination as an excuse to present Serbia with an ultimatum. Serbia only agreed to 9 out of the 10 points of the ultimatum and so Austria declared war. Serbia asked Russia for help and so the Russians mobilised their troops on July 30 and then on July 31 Germany sent an ultimatum to Russia demanding that they suspend all warlike measures within 12 hours. Germany also sent an ultimatum to France demanding they stay neutral. Both France and Russia ignored these ultimatums and Germany declared war on Russia and as France was Russia’s ally, they mobilised their troops. Germany demanded from Belgium the right to send troops through its territory so they could get to France. Belgium refused but Germany invaded anyway. On August 4 Britain sent an ultimatum to Germany at 11 am giving it 12 hours to withdraw from Belgium. Germany didn’t and so at 11 pm Britain declared war on Germany.All these events were triggered by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and so I would say that this was the most important cause of the first world war.