The shooting of Archduke Prince Ferdinand

On the 28th of June 1914, at 10:45, the Archduke Prince Ferdinand was shot by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. The Prince was shot on a visit to Bosnia. He famously said: 'I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few Serbian bullets waiting for me.'

There was a huge national outcry at the Archduke's death. Austria Hungary blamed Serbia on the killing, and before asking their ally Germany (GERMANY) for assurance, promptly launched war on Serbia.

Now Serbia and Russia were good allies, as they shared a lot of culture and religion. So Serbia asked Russia for help and they were like sure, so they started mobilising their troops. But Russia were industrially, well, backward so usually it would take them about 6 weeks to get their army completely mobilised (oh and btw, they had like the biggest army in the world).

Germany were like excuse me and sent a message to Russia ordering them to stop mobilising their troops. Russia were like sorry no and so Germany launched war on them.

Now Russia and France were like best buddies and so because one got launched war on that means the other gets launched war on too. Britain is like sorry guys Imma stay outa this, but this is magically okay because you know, it's Britain.

The Schlieffen Plan

The Schlieffen plan was the German's way of ending the war. The end goal was a victory by Christmas, which as we know, didn't happen.

The German troops needed to get to France so they could take out them, but they also needed to take out Russia. Trouble is, they can't split up their troops because you know, together forever and all that biz. No, actually it meant they were stronger as one force and weaker as two in separate places. It's like a strawberry split in two isn't as tasty as one all together.

Germany also shared a direct border with France, so obviously the French had concentrated a lot of their troops there. No need really, the Germans weren't stupid; they knew that if they marched through there they would be toast.

So they went with the all new sneaky battle plan to march through Belgium instead and surprise the French. AMAZING. And plus, once they take over Paris in six weeks, no more no less, they can go defeat Russia since they have more army people. PERFCT.

It was all or nothing really. The Germans either took over Moscow and Paris, or they took over nothing and were slaughtered.

Back to real life!

The Germans start their Schlieffen plan and march through Belgium. But they never did their homework, which means they never found out that Belgium and BRITAIN (yes, BRITAIN) were allies, and pretty close too. See, in 1867, long before the triple Entente, Belgium and Britain signed a treaty saying that if one got invaded then the other would help them beat off the enemy. So when Germany marched through Belgium, Britain stuck to their promise and declared war on Germany.

Belgium was only a little country, so Britain sent over their also little army called the British Expeditionary Force (AKA the BEF). This was a small but well trained group of men. They slowed down the Germans but didn't completely stop them, but they did give the French enough time to prep themselves.

By the time the Germans reached France the French had got themselves ready to defend their country. By the time the British got there too, the Germans couldn't get anywhere near Paris. But that wasn't their only problem. The Russians had mobilised their army way quicker than the Germans had thought they would so the Germans now needed to split their army, which was the complete opposite of the point of the plan. But they couldn't just let the Russians storm through Germany, so they halved themselves and

	Created by Carmen Trinh over 8 years ago

Note on History revision :0, created by Carmen Trinh on 18/10/2015.