FROM the 1890s onwards Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, envious of Britain’s industrial and colonial success and exhilarated by German unification, began pouring resources into battleships, weapons and manufacturing. Britain and other European nations, sensing danger, nervously followed suit.
Amidst rising tensions Austria-Hungary announced on 8th October, 1908, a formal claim on Bosnia. They had occupied it ever since helping the Russians to eject the Ottoman Turks in 1878, and now undertook to Westernise it, for its own good. Slav nationalists were outraged, and on June 28th, 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo.
In the ‘July Crisis’ that followed, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Bosnia’s neighbour, Serbia, backed by Germany, but Tsar Nicholas II of Russia bitterly disappointed cousin Wilhelm by taking Serbia’s side. When France also defied him, Wilhelm ordered his troops to cross neutral Belgium and teach the French a lesson, leaving Britain no alternative but to enter the war on 4th August, 1914.
Précis
German industrial and military build-up had created such unbearable tension in Europe that when Austria-Hungary picked a fight with Serbia over Bosnia, and Germany backed the Austro-Hungarians, all Europe was dragged into the conflict. Britain, initially a spectator, came to the aid of Belgium and France on 8th August, 1914. (49 / 60 words)