World War One is one of the most important events in modern history to date. It was obviously, the first war involving countries from all around the world (hence the name World War One), and it was the first time that trench, mechanized, chemical, air and submarine warfare were all used. It was also the first time that the capacity of the human race to destroy was displayed.
In 1871 Germany invaded France and took the French states Alsace- Lorraine as their own . The French felt threatened by this- causing the alliance systems to be formed. There were two main alliance systems- the Triple Entente (France, Britain and Russia) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy*).
The first signs of the beginnings of a war was the tension between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. The Serbs had felt oppressed by the Austria-Hungarians, as many of them lived in the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina where they were under Turkish rule but governed by the Austria- Hungarians. When the Turkish Empire began to weaken at the beginning of the 20th century the Austrians took over the largely Slavic provinces.
A Slavic terrorist organisation, the Black Hand, which was made up of young men who were sick of this oppression and decided to ‘make a political statement while striking a blow against oppression’ by murdering the heir to the Hapsburg Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This was the trigger to the war that spanned 4 years, involved many of countries, not only in Europe, but all over the world, and resulted in over 35 million casualties, 215 585 of which were Australian.
*Italy was allianced with the Triple Alliance at the outbreak of war, however they later swapped into the Triple Entente to support France.
