Why do you think the Sarajevo murders lit the fire when previous events such as the Moroccan Crisis in 1905 had not?

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Why do you think the Sarajevo murders lit the fire when previous events such as the Moroccan Crisis in 1905 had not?

In the years leading up to the Sarajevo murders and the outbreak of World War 1 many events took place that led to the building of tension between the 6 main powers of Europe, although, none of these events caused a war.  My aim is to investigate and understand why the Sarajevo murders caused a war to begin, when previous events such as the Moroccan Crisis did not.  In order to fulfil my aim I will be considering three main points: 1) Austria’s worsening relationship with Serbia

                             2) The build up of international problems

                             3) The way the alliance system worked

  A Serbian nationalist named Princip was the assassin that shot the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife.  For a long time before that fatal day in June 1914, tension had grew between Serbia and Austria.  Their relationship had worsened from 1878 and onwards, when Serbia had become an independent state.  Many Serbs were left behind and still lived inside of the Austrian Empire, they desired to become part of a free Serbia.  This is where the rivalry began. The Austrian government blamed the Serbian government for causing this uproar to break free of Austrian rule. The Austrians knew that the loss of 8 million Serbs to Serbia would begin the break-up of their empire.  Therefore when the Archduke was assassinated it provided the ideal excuse for Austria to declare war on Serbia and crush them before it was too late.  The Bosnian Crisis of 1908 helps us to understand why Austria was so confident about declaring war on Serbia.  In 1908 when the Slav State of Bosnia was annexed by Austria-Hungary, Serbia were extremely angry as they had ambitions to include the Slav people of Bosnia within their independent state.  As Serbia was a small country they could do nothing and so they looked to Russia (another much larger Slav nation) for help.  Russia agreed but in 1909 backed down due to German interference when they declared their support for Austria-Hungary.  This is important, as Austria-Hungary could now feel confident that they could rely on German support and so that is why in 1914 Austria-Hungary did not hesitate in declaring war on Serbia.  Furthermore the reasons why the Bosnian Crisis was not the spark that lit the bonfire are: i) Russia backed down as they had not had enough warning to build up their arms.  While by 1914 they were ready as they had been preparing from 1908 onwards and were determined not to back down again.  ii) Austria-Hungary did not feel confident they could rely on German support until after the Bosnia Crisis.

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During the years leading up to the war tensions grew between the major powers of Europe.  International problems developed that lead to the most important crises in explaining why the war happened when it did.  The Moroccan Crisis of 1905 was between France and Germany.  France desired to occupy Morocco as a colony and were on the verge of achieving their ambition, when Kaiser Wilhelm ll made a speech in which he said he would support the Moroccans in their struggle against the French.  It was intended to undermine the growing Anglo-French friendship as Germany thought that Britain would ...

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