Question 11

Did the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand make a general European war inevitable?

It is important to distinguish between localised Balkan issues and why there was a wider involvement of the major Powers, and how one led to the other after the assassination.

Paragraph One

• Pre-war years characterised by arms race and Great Power rivalry etc.

• But there was widespread anti-war sentiment, spread of international agencies, and willingness to settle issues by arbitration

• A general war was not assumed to be inevitable, and neither was this the reaction when news of the assassination broke

Paragraph Two

• Traditional diplomacy had preserved peace since congress of Berlin (1878)

• It localised Balkan Wars

• Austrian ultimatum to Serbia made war between them inevitable; but not a general war

Paragraph Three

Austria’s Slav problem

• Vienna worried by growth of Slav nationalism

• Certainty that Russia would not accept another humiliation over Balkans e.g. Bosnia-Herzogovina 1908

• Russia would not allow Austria to crush Serbia

Paragraph Four

Austrian ultimatum to Serbia

• Very severe (details)

• Russia confirmed she would act to prevent Serbia being destroyed

• I.e. Austro-Serb conflict made Austro-Russian conflict possible

• Danger here – rivalry between Triple Entente and Triple Alliance made general war possible

Paragraph Five

• Such situations not unknown so war not inevitable

• Great Britain suggested an international conference to keep the dispute at a local level

• Germans made unfavourable response and on 28^th July Austria declared war on Serbia – even this was not irretrievable (Austria not ready for war)

• Kaiser encouraged Austria though – he favoured Austrians occupying Belgrade and then giving diplomacy a final chance

Paragraph Six

Mobilisation:

• Huge continental conscript armies and their timetables meant that once started were difficult to stop, so military factors then predominated

• 1870 war showed that the state that lost the mobilisation race lost the war.

Paragraph Seven

• German chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg heard that Great Britain would almost certainly intervene if Germany and France went to war.

• He was now trying to reverse previous policy and restrain Austria

• German Chief of Staff von Moltke heard that Austria was only going to mobilise in the Balkans but without mobilisation against Russia in Poland, the German army in East Prussia would be overwhelmed and the Schlieffen Plan compromised. Austria was promised support

• It was recognised that when Russia mobilised war would be impossible to stop because of the size of her army

• Germany would have to move quickly before the Russian ‘steam roller’ got moving – The German Schlieffen Plan was formed to deal with a war on 2 fronts –France would be dealt a lightning blow and knocked out before Russia was ready; then the full weight of the German army could be turned east to defeat Russia.

Paragraph Eight

In conclusion, a general war was not inevitable as a result of the assassination, nor was it considered to be so. It did become more likely as the July crisis developed because of the system of alliances and the inflexibility of the mobilisation plans – once military factors were given priority, the slide towards war became irresistible.