What are the short term causes of WW1?
Everybody wanted a war. The continent was spilt into armed camps – there had been an arms race for some time. The short term cause was the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Yugoslav nationalist. The Austrians were backed by the Germans, the Serbs by the Russians. The French were allies of the Russians. The Germans attacked France in a sort of pre emptive strike (the Schlieffen plan) through Belgium. Belgium’s neutrality was guaranteed by Britain. Its like a set of dominoes toppling, but nobody wanted it to stop. Millions of men joined up enthusiastically, it would all be over by Christmas….
