Originally posted by Supercharger
Europe was bound by treaties and split up in two camps..France, Brittain and Russia on one side and Germany, Austria hungeria and the Ottoman Empire. The crownprince from Austria was shotted in Sarajevo and that plunged Europe into war
What happened was that after the Crown Prince was killed, AUstria demanded to be able to hold an investigation in Serbia. The Serbs refused saying that they will conduct the investigation.
Austria gave Serbia a 1 month utimatum to allow the Austrian secret police full access to Serbian territory or the Austro Hungarian empire would invade. The Serbs, of course refused and Austria invaded.
The Russian have always seen themslves as protectors of the Slavs (we saw them in Kosovo a few years ago) and they came to the rescue of Serbia.
At the time there was a series of protective alliances, (Austria with Germany and the Turks... The Russians with France). Austria actvalted their alliance with Germany, and then the French got scared of German mobilization and got into the war as well.
The English stayed out of the war until the German invasion of Belgium, where the Brits were very much afraid of Germany having access to the trade routes into the River Thames and also for Germany not respecting Belgian Neutrality.
Those were the moves that led to the war, but there were many other times where war almost started and was averted at the last moment, like the Balkan crisis of 1912. The main impetus of the war was over the Ottoman Empire "The Sick man of Europe" and who would control the Empire once it fell apart. There are other reasons as well, but the Ottoman problem started long before and led to British and French involovement in the Crimean Wars in the 1850s.
AHHHH!!!!! Enough with this history lesson!!!