July 31, 1914

One hundred years ago today Germany issued an ultimatum to France that they would declare war on them if they did not pressure Russia (an ally of France) to demobilize its Army. France refuses, but does not mobilize its forces at this time. Russia offers to negotiate an agreement to demobilize its army if Germany does the same. Germany refuses.  The Austro-Hungarian army  fully mobilizes.

July 30, 1914

One hundred years ago today Russia ordered a full mobilization of its army. Germany issued an ultimatum to Russia that if Russia did not demobilize its army it would mobilize its own army. Russia refuses and Germany proceeds to mobilize its army.

July 29, 1914

One hundred years ago today the first shots of World War One were fired. A flotilla of Austro-Hungarian river warships shells Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.

Elsewhere in Europe the Russian Empire began a partial mobilization of its army against the Austro-Hungarian Empire to show its intent to defend Serbia if Austria-Hungary invaded. 

The Kaiser of Germany and the Czar of Russia (who were cousins and both grandchildren of Queen Victoria) began an exchange of telegrams that would continue into the next day. The Kaiser was trying to convince the Czar to demobilize the Russian army and the Czar insisting that he must come to the aid of tiny Serbia, a fellow Slavic nation, against the aggression of the much larger Austro-Hungarian Empire.        

July 28, 1914

One hundred years ago today the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia at 11:00 in the morning. This started what would be called the First World War. The war was originally expected to be resolved quickly, but would instead last for over four years.

The war would be disastrous for both Austria-Hungry and Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire would collapse and its Monarchy would be abolished as a result of the war. The Kingdom of Serbia would endure the war but a quarter of its population and sixty percent of the male adult population would not survive the conflict.    

July 25, 1914

One hundred years ago today the Kingdom of Serbia replied to the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum. It accepted the demands of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum with expectation of provision number 6 (as summarized by the Serbian delegation in its response):

"Bring to trial all accessories to the Archduke's assassination and allow "Austro-Hungarian delegates" (law enforcement officers) to take part in the investigations."

This was refused as:

"The Royal Government considers it its duty as a matter of course to begin an investigation against all those persons who have participated in the outrage of June 28th and who are in its territory. As far as the cooperation in this investigation of specially delegated officials of the I. (Imperial i.e. Austria-Hungarian) and R. (Royal i.e. Serbian)Government is concerned, this cannot be accepted, as this is a violation of the constitution and of criminal procedure. Yet in some cases the result of the investigation might be communicated to the Austro-Hungarian officials."

Austro-Hungarian refused this comprise, broke off diplomatic relations and began to mobilize its army.

July 24, 1914

One hundred years ago today expecting an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on July 25, 1914, Serbia began to mobilized its armed forces.

What is Mobilization?

Mobilization is an extremely important part of how nations have gone to war since the mid-nineteenth century and it was particularly important during World War One. Mobilization is the process whereby a nation takes its peacetime army and population and prepares it for military action. To make the army (and navy) "mobile" and ready for war. To understand how mobilization worked you have to understand where the people being mobilized came from.

Most nations at that time (and today) with large armies were based on conscription. Many of the nations involved in the war used "universal conscription," meaning that all eligible and able male citizens were required to serve in the military for a specified amount of time (usually one to three years depending on the nation). After that time expired these people could choose to remain in the fulltime military, or they could leave be assigned to a reserve unit and be discharged to civilian life, only being required train with their reserve unit periodically. Once the reservist (a member of a reserve unit) reach a certain age they would be discharged from the reserve unit and no longer expected to provide military service.     

Some a some nations involved in the war began with all volunteer armies (Great Britain for example) where people joined the military voluntarily but were required to be reservist following leaving the military for a specified amount of time. So when the war began all the British troops were volunteers or reservist who had been called back to military service.

By the end of the war many volunteer military nations would rely on "partial conscription" when there were not enough volunteers to meet the need. This is where the military decides it needs a certain number of soldiers and sailor and it randomly selects from the eligible male population that number of individuals and requires them to join the military. It is commonly called "The Draft" in the United States.

So that is the basic make up of a military in the era of World War One. There were people in the military serving "fulltime" stationed in and around military bases and reservist who lived all over the country who, for the most part, lived and worked completely independent of the military, with the exception of some periodic training. This is very much how most modern militaries work today as well.

When a national "mobilized" all members currently serving in the armed forces would have a their leave (vacation) cancelled and would be readied in to combat units. Messages would be sent across the nation (via telegraph at the time) for all reservist to report to their duty or muster (meaning gathering) stations were they would be organized into their combat units armed and given their military equipment and uniforms, if they did not already have them.

At the time of World War One the inventions of telegraph and railroads allowed for a large nation to expand their armies from a few hundred thousand to millions in a matter of days by calling up reservist (something that was impossible only a few decades earlier).

Mobilization meant paralyzing a nation in all ways except preparing for war and nations did not take it lightly. Shops, factories and farms would be shut down all over the country as millions of men would leave their jobs at a moment's notice. All civilian transportation would defer to military transportation to get these millions of men were they needed to be. Railroads, telegraph stations, boats and barges would be put under military control. You can imagine today the effect it would have if you saw on the news that all flights were cancelled so the military could use the airliners to move troops and then when you turned on your computer to send a message to someone about it you got a message on your computer that all civilian access to the internet had been temporarily suspended to free up bandwidth for military use.   

With this in mind you can imagine why one nation would become very nervous if its neighbor began a mass mobilization. Shutting down its entire civilian economy and putting millions of armed men on its boarders was rightly seen as tantamount to a declaration of war. As there was little possibility that any other action would be taken at that point. It was far too great of an undertaking to be just for show. In fact some nations were worried that if they mobilized and did not go to war, they would look weak and foolish to their neighbors and their own citizens.  

July 23, 1914

One hundred years ago today the Austro-Hungarian Empire issued an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. This ultimatum was in response to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as it was determined the weapons used in the assassination were Serbian in origin.  This ultimatum made severe demands on the Kingdom of Serbia. The purpose of the ultimatum was to be unacceptable and for its refusal to be justification for a declaration of war. The demands of ultimatum were described by the Austro-Hungarian diplomat Count Alexander Hoyos as "such a nature that no nation that still possessed self-respect and dignity could possibly accept them."The goal of the war which the Austro-Hungarian Empire hoped to start was to expand its influence and control over Kingdom of Serbia thereby strengthening its control over the Balkans (Southeast Europe). 

Austro-Hungarian Empire gave the Kingdom of Serbia forty-eight hours to respond to the ultimatum.

The ultimatum had the following demands:

The Royal Serbian Government will furthermore pledge itself:

1. to suppress every publication which shall incite to hatred and contempt of the Monarchy, and the general tendency of which shall be directed against the territorial integrity of the latter;

2. to proceed at once to the dissolution of the Narodna Odbrana to confiscate all of its means of propaganda, and in the same manner to proceed against the other unions and associations in Serbia which occupy themselves with propaganda against Austria-Hungary; the Royal Government will take such measures as are necessary to make sure that the dissolved associations may not continue their activities under other names or in other forms;

3. to eliminate without delay from public instruction in Serbia, everything, whether connected with the teaching corps or with the methods of teaching, that serves or may serve to nourish the propaganda against Austria-Hungary;

4. to remove from the military and administrative service in general all officers and officials who have been guilty of carrying on the propaganda against Austria-Hungary, whose names the Imperial and Royal Government reserves the right to make known to the Royal Government when communicating the material evidence now in its possession;

5. to agree to the cooperation in Serbia of the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government in the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the integrity of the Monarchy;

6. to institute a judicial inquiry against every participant in the conspiracy of the twenty-eighth of June who may be found in Serbian territory; the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government delegated for this purpose will take part in the proceedings held for this purpose;

7. to undertake with all haste the arrest of Major Voislav Tankosic and of one Milan Ciganovitch, a Serbian official, who have been compromised by the results of the inquiry;

8. by efficient measures to prevent the participation of Serbian authorities in the smuggling of weapons and explosives across the frontier; to dismiss from the service and to punish severely those members of the Frontier Service at Schabats and Losnitza who assisted the authors of the crime of Sarajevo to cross the frontier;

9. to make explanations to the Imperial and Royal Government concerning the unjustifiable utterances of high Serbian functionaries in Serbia and abroad, who, without regard for their official position, have not hesitated to express themselves in a manner hostile toward Austria-Hungary since the assassination of the twenty-eighth of June;

10. to inform the Imperial and Royal Government without delay of the execution of the measures comprised in the foregoing points.

July 6, 1914

Note: Posted July 6,  2014 on Facebook:

 

One hundred years ago today a diplomatic message was delivered at the highest levels of government from the German Empire to the Austro-Hungarian Empire which would be the first step in starting World War One. Without this message the war would most likely not have occurred (at least not in 1914). The secret (at the time) diplomatic communication stated that if the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were to go to war for any reason, the German Empire would commit full military support to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With this communication the first domino was tipped and the war was all but inevitable. Why? The beginning of World War One is complication. I will add a longer companion post that will explain in more detail the political circumstances that led to this terrible war.

Why the War?

In this post I will list the major belligerence of World War One and provide a brief (as brief as I can) explanation as to why that nation participated in the war. One thing to keep in mind about World War One is that at the beginning almost all the participants were eager and enthusiastic start the war.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire:

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (who was heir t...he throne) was the trigger for starting the war but it was not the root cause. The root cause is that that Austro-Hungarian Empire desired increased influence in the Balkans (Southeast Europe). Serbia was a small weak independent Balkan nation bordering Austro-Hungary. The assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was done by a Serbian and gave the Austro-Hungarian Empire the justification it was looking for to launch a war against Serbia allowing it to forcibly install a pro-Austro-Hungary government or take control of it outright and make it part of the Empire. The problem was that Serbia had close ties with Russia. Who would certainly come to Serbia's aid if attacked. So Austro-Hungary reach out to Germany to counter the Russian threat. With Germany on its side it believed it could defeat Russia in a war. That would mean that Austro-Hungary could easily defeat Serbia (and any other Balkan Allies who supported Serbia) and a defeated Russia would not have the strength or will to interfere with further Austro-Hungarian expansion into the Balkans.

The German Empire:

A unified German nation was a relative new comer to European politics (it was formed in 1871). In many ways it had become the most powerful nation in continental Europe. But it was late to the "imperial game" and most of the rest world had fallen under the direct or indirect control the other European powers. Germany felt like it was cheated out of the opportunity to have profitable overseas colonies. Additionally it felt like it was not take seriously by the other European powers in international affairs and felt threatened by a hostile France to the west, a hostile Russia to the east and a hostile United Kingdom controlling the seas to the north. When Austro-Hungary approached Germany about a joint war with Russia this offered Germany the opportunity it was looking for. Germany believed it could defeat Russia easily with help from Austro-Hungary. With Germany's rival to the east defeated it could turn its full attention to France which it was confident it could defeat if it did not have to worry about Russia. A defeated France would be forced to surrender some of its overseas colonies to Germany as a concession. With Germanys rivals to the east and west defeated and with control of former French colonies, Germany would be in a position to compete with the United Kingdom (at that time the worlds super power) economically, politically and military. The Austro-Hungarian Empire's offer of assistance with a war with Russia was all that Germany needed to start down this path.

The Russian Empire:

The Russian Empire had close political and social ties to Serbia in 1914 (as it does in 2014). Russia viewed itself as the defender of all Slavic people. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia, Russia's international prestige would be at stake if it did nothing. But more than that the Russian government was extremity unstable, the Empire was plagued with revolts. The opportunity of a war to defend a fellow Slavic nation was viewed as the perfect opportunity to heighten the Russian monarchy in eyes of the Russian people, inspire loyalty and perhaps function as a unifier of this increasingly fracturing Empire. Russia was confident it could win a war with Austria-Hungary and Germany as it had an alliance with France. With France to keep Germany occupied. Russia and Serbia could quickly crush the Austro-Hungarian Empire forcing the German Empire to surrender as it could not stand alone. Such a war was exactly what the Russian Empire thought it needed as a rallying cry to heal its internal strife.

The 3rd French Republic:

France was concerned about the growing power of the German Empire on its eastern border. It was eager to check its growth and the possibility of a war between Russia and Germany was the perfect chance to weaken Germany and restore the French military reputation following the defeats at the hands of Germany in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and regain territory lost to Germany during that war. A war with Germany with Russia as an ally seemed like a surefire way to regain this territory and to ensure that Germany would be weakened and less able to compete with France on the international stage.

The United Kingdom:

The United Kingdom was the most powerful nation on earth in 1914 and wanted to stay that way. Much of its strength came from it powerful navy that had no equal. But in the decades leading up to World War One Germany had been building a more and more powerful navy. There were fears that in a few more years it could rival the navy of the United Kingdom. That would allow Germany to be a major competitor in international politics and potential for Germany to interfere with colonies of the United Kingdom (a major source of its wealth) . A war against Germany while its navy was still weak could ensure naval dominance over Germany for decades and make sure that it could not become a competitor to the United Kingdom. Allowing it to maintain the status quo which had the United Kingdom as the lead nation in Europe (and consequently the world). So when Germany entered Belgium to invade France, the United Kingdom cited its treaty with Belgium as a rational it needed to declare war on Germany.

Other nations:

As war went on other nations would enter the conflict. The Ottoman Empire would join with Germany for an opportunity to gain territory from a weakened Russia and gain increased influence in the Balkans (which Germany and Austro-Hungary would allow in exchange for help in the war). Italy would be convinced to join on the side of the United Kingdom and France for the opportunity to take territory from Austro-Hungary. Japan would declare war against Germany to gain control of its Asian colonies. Finally late in the war the United States of America would declare war on Germany in response to Germanys aggressive actions to stop American support for France and the United Kingdom.

By the end of the war most nations on earth would fight on one side of the conflict or the other.

June 28, 1914

Note: Posted June 28, 2014 on Facebook:

Today one hundred years ago Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Sophie Duchess of Hohenberg were assassinated by the Serbian Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip.

This event was the breaking point for political tensions in Europe and triggered the start of what would be called "The World War" or as we know it today World War I. This war would rage for more than four years and would result in 16 million deaths and 20 million wounded, both military and civilian. The war would change the political, social and cultural landscape of the planet. It's far reaching affects still effect us today. Every war the USA has fought since World War I can be directly linked to the consequences of the war and many of the international crises we face today are related to this war including the current the conflicts in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.