Part III: War Erupts in Europe

Before we go into the details of the war erupting in Europe, let me familiarize you with some of the alliances between countries in Europe. First was the Treaty of London's Article 7 which agreed that the United Kingdom would protect Belgium's neutrality, basically protect it from any foreign invasion. The next was the Franco-Russian Military Alliance which was, well just what it sounds like, a military alliance between the French and Russians. This alliance along with the United Kingdom formed the Triple Entente which later expanded to form the Allies which included these countries plus the USA, Serbia, Italy, Japan, and others. The enemies of the Entente were the Triple Alliance which comprised Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy although Italy eventually left to join up with the Allies. The remaining powers of the Triple Alliance along with the Ottoman Empire formed the Central Powers.
The last alliance I'm going to mention is the dual alliance treaty between Austria-Hungary and Russia to protect each other if Russia attacks.

A map of Europe in 1914. Brown denotes the Triple Alliance and dark green denotes the Triple Entente.

So what happened?

Well as you may remember, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Serbian nationalists which made Austria-Hungary declare war on Serbia. Now, you may know that Russia and Serbia do have linguistic ties and they also had some economic and political ties that Austria was aware of. However, Austria didn't think that Russia would really get into a war with them. That was a huge miscalculation on the part of the Austrians. Russia did feel a need to protect Serbia and so, on the same day, Russia began

Author: Avi Goel
Remember to check out Part 2 if you haven't done so already!