The assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinand happened on June 28th 1914. He was shot dead while visiting Sarajevo, by the Serb gavrilo princip. Germany then encouraged Austro-Hungary to declare war on Serbia, who held an alliance with Russia. This led to Germany invading France through Belgium on the 3rd of august, 1914. Despite the fact that the assassination didn’t affect Britain directly, the fact that Germany had attacked through Belgium meant that Britain had little choice but to go to war with Germany, as Britain had, in 1839, signed a treaty guaranteeing Belgian independence. Hence, the German invasion of Belgian was just as important as the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, if not more so.
Another cause was a build-up in Anglo German hostilities, caused primarily by the series of ententes signed between 1902 and 1907, including the Anglo Japanese alliance(1902), the Anglo French entente(1904) and the Anglo Russian convention of 1907. The Kaiser attempted to destroy these ententes, especially the one signed with France in 1904. This was attempted through his perpetuating of the Moroccan crises of 1905 and 1911, whereby he attempted to force France out of morocco, hoping Britain would not support France. However, this attempt merely turned the entente between France and Britain into an informal alliance by 1912. There were many causes to the First World War, both long term and short term. The signing of these ententes and the build up of Anglo German hostilities was a long term cause, while the assassination of the archduke and the invasion of Belgium were both short term causes.
The Second World War began in September 1939, when Britain declared war on Hitler’s Germany, when she invaded Poland, as with Belgium in the First World War, this was a short term cause of the war. Also, the Versailles treaty was a long term cause of the Second World War. It caused a massive desire for revenge amongst all of the German people, due to the belief that it was unnecessarily harsh following the First World War. The terms of the treaty included the losing of land to France, Poland and Czechoslovakia, as well as over 6.6 billion pounds to be paid in reparations. Following Hitler’s rise to power, Germany quickly began to revise the terms of the treaty, by rearming it’s military, and reclaiming land from France(the Rhineland in 1936) and from Austria in 1938. Despite Britain putting up with this due to a policy of appeasement, after Germany invaded Poland in 1939 britain had to act, and declared war.
So, in conclusion, it is possible to see that the long term causes of both the first and the Second World War, primarily the signing of the Anglo French entente in 1904 and the Versailles treaty in 1919, were far more important in leading to the wars. However, the short term causes, such as the assassination of the archduke, and the invasions of both Poland and Belgium were also fairly important, they were partly due to the Anglo German hostilities reaching a breaking point. The alliances signed at the start of the 1900’s were not as important as the Anglo French entente, as they did not lead to anything more serious.
