The Development of World War I: Causes, Alliances, and Trench Warfare

The Development of World War I

1914 was a new crisis in the Balkans which damaged Europe.

The outbreak of conflict

The Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian crown was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb nationalist terrorist group called Black Hand. Austria declared war on Serbia, starting the game of alliances between central powers and triple entente. The working class was pacifist and anti-war, everything happened so fast and they decided to go to war. Those who were opposed were persecuted and punished.

War of movement and trench warfare

The Schlieffen plan decided to attack against Paris invading Belgium. The Germans wanted to invade France but the French army managed to stop the advance in the Battle of the Marne. German strategy had failed, the German army wasn’t enough to defeat the Russian forces. Trench warfare was hard, long, and a symbol of WWI. In 1916, the Battle of Verdun took place, the Germans wanted to break the allied lines, but the French soldiers withstood the German attack. Allies had an unsuccessful attack, on the eastern front Russians attacked the Germans but they were blocked quickly.

The worldwide spread of the conflict

No advances, new battlefields: Austrian-Hungary victory at Caporetto, Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria on the side of the central powers. In 1915, submarine war, Lusitania sunk by German submarine, United States protested but they didn’t enter the war. In 1917, war.

Stalinism

New political institutions: changes in organization and structure of USSR reflected in the new Soviet Constitution 1936. The new constitution kept the Soviets as the holders of the political system. They were not free. Soviet state tried to give itself a democratic appearance. Freedom of expression was allowed as long as the socialist system was not attacked. The upper deliberate body was the Supreme Soviet. Municipal power was exercised by local Soviets, the central power of the Soviet state rose, and Stalin underwent a hard check any nationalist autonomy fickleness.