The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914 Essay Example

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand had one of the strongest ripple effects in contemporary history, sparking off a series of war declarations across Europe and plunging the world into one of the worst conflicts. Before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the mood across Europe appeared better. The war was not guaranteed to occur, and most of the conflicts were attributed to the key actors in positions of power. If Franz Ferdinand had not been killed, then Austria-Hungary would almost certainly not have gone to war because he was the head of the faction that wanted to avoid war. Before his assassination, Franz Ferdinand constantly butted heads with Chief of Staff Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf concerning the issue of the pre-emptive strike against Serbia. Archduke Franz Ferdinand's death would have been prevented, and much of the blame rests on Austrian authorities. If he had survived the visit at Sarajevo, he might have prevented the Austrian invasion or at least delayed it.

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The Austrian-Hungarian Empire was facing demands from various nationalities with different cultures and languages. The Austrian authorities had been suppressing the nationalism of the provinces (Freeman, 45). Franz Ferdinand's uncle who was the reigning emperor together with his ministers were unable to satisfy the demands of the regions. Franz Ferdinand advocated for increased federalism and was aiming at uniting the Austro-Hungarian Empire with the Slavic lands and be recognized as a third crown. Franz Ferdinand was perceived as a great threat to the S for Serbians for having ambitions to unite Austria-Hungary into the Slavic kingdom (Freeman, (235). The Austrian authorities had to pay the price for suppressing the nationalism which was an assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

After the assassination of the Archduke, the empire disintegrated into smaller nation-states. The Austrian authorities had the power to solve the demands of the various nationalities and prevent the assassination of the Archduke which was fuelled the disintegration of the states. Austria-Hungary suspected the Serbian authorities were behind the assassination. This made the issue to be a good opportunity to settle scores with Serbia (Bodden, 343). There was a perceived notion that Serbia was fuelling discounted among its south Slav provinces. Serbian government believed that excessive influence would put limits to its independence.

The conflict grew and became much of a problem to Austria. Serbia kept growing in size and power. The assassination of Archduke provided a chance to settle the issues permanently. The assassination brought rapid events, and Austral Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack. This made the Austria-Hungary to declared war on Serbia. Russia supported Serbia while Austria-Hungary sought help from Germany. According to the freeman, this made Europe tear into war as countries warmed up to support the central powers that consisted of Germany and Austria-Hungary while others supported the allied powers consisting of Russia, France, Britain and the united states (Freeman, 321). This led to the devastating conflict of the First World War. The Austria-Hungary authorities saw the situation as a chance to settle a long-standing quarrel with the Serbians, but the Germans believed it offered a continental problem.

The government of Germany and its population had the urge to propel their country to the status of world power. At the time Germany was an industrial powerhouse and was leading in modern technology with powerful positions in global markets. Germany was in many ways advanced regarding wealth and prosperity. This made Germany to exploit Austria -Hungary situation of the assassination of the Archduke to gain power and prestige. On the other hand, Russia had great interest to preserve Serbia independence. At the time Russia was rebuilding its strength after suffering defeat by Japan. It was for this reason that leaders in both Germany and Austria-Hungary exploited the assassination for political ends. The central powers and allied powers face each other in what was called the First World War. There was massive bloodshed until 1918. There was an estimated death of 9 million soldiers and many civilians.

The central powers surrendered to the allies. There was a peace conference in Paris in 1919. The allied powers presented their desire to build a post-war world that was safe from future wars of such enormous scale - the rising nationalism that the Austria government was unable to contain lead to the independence of the Slav provinces. After the defeat of Austria-Hungary during the First World War, the provinces gained independence in various forms. The Bohemia which consisted of the Czech and Slovakia became independent as Czechoslovakia. The Serbian speaking provinces became part of the kingdom of Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, and Yugoslavia. The Austrian authorities fueled the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. The Serbians wanted an opportunity that would trigger the breakage of Austria-Hungary's Slav provinces (Freeman, 54).

Conclusion

The Serbian military is believed to have played a key role in the organization attack though it can be wholly blamed that the archduke assassination was the major cause of the world war. There is considerable evidence that there was significant tension mostly between Germany and Russia who had already started to mobilize troops along the borders (Bodden, 289). There existed readiness for the war among all the leading European nations. Many of the powers were already in the starting blocks waiting for a conflict. The world war1 was mostly blamed for the rise of nationalism. Princip the assassin who shot Franz Ferdinand wanted Bosnia to be part of Serbia. Austria had issued Serbia with a lot of demands which forced them to investigate the killing and crackdown on anti-Austrian propaganda.

Works cited

Freeman, Henry. World War I: A History from Beginning to End. , 2016. Print.

Bodden, Valerie. The Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Mankato, Minn: Creative Education, 2009. Print.