Did World War 1 really start because an arch duke got shot?

Question

I thought the 'face that launched a 1000 ships' only happened in mythology.

Answer 1

Actually that was a Ruse the French & Britsih used that excuse to blockade Germany, why? Because Germany was making better durable goods.

Then when the F&B threw out Wilsons 13 point plan it assured WWII, have a good one.

Answer 2

Ferdinand being shot in Serbia may have been the excuse Emperor Franz Joseph needed to invade Serbia, but WWI really didn't have a good reason to start.....Austria-Hungary massed troops along the Serbian border because they were having trouble with separatists, which is close to the Russian border, so Nicholas massed troops there,so Germany massed troops along the Russian boarder 'cause they support Austria-Hungary, and since the British and French were allied with Russia, they massed troops along the western German boarder.....and since the Germans thought the best defense was a good offense, they crossed into the low countries, to get around behind the French lines, sparks started to fly, and they were off and running....leading to the end of the 640 year old Austro-Hungarian Empire, a bad treaty in 1918, a 20 intermission, then a continuation of the same conflict only we call that half WWII. So Arch Duke Ferdinand's assassination may have been like 911...an excuse to do what you had planned to do anyway if you had the right provocation.

Answer 3

Yes, WW1 started because an arch duke got shot. That isn't usually what people mean when they say "the face that launched 1000 ships" though. That's a reference to Helen of Troy, who started a war that allegedly happened like 3000 years ago. The war started by Helen of Troy was between countries on opposite sides of a sea. So one country's army sailed to the other country, which took a lot of ships. WW1 was mostly between a bunch of countries on the same continent, and there weren't a lot of ships involved.

Answer 4

It was the final straw that tipped Europe over the edge into a war that had been rumbling for a while.

The assassination of arch duke Franz Ferdinand of Austro-Hungary by Gavril Princip, a member of the Black Hand group, a serbian seperatist movement, caused Austro-Hungary to invade Serbia. Serbia had an alliance with Russia which made Russia mobilize its troops in their defence.
A-H was allied to Germany brining them into the conflict.

France allied to Russia and a long standing dislike of Germany because the loss of its territories in the Franco-Prussian War (1870) meant that it was itching for a fight anyway.

Britain with its alliances to both France and Russia joined the party as both it and Germany had a longing to go up against each other since Germany had started to build its own equivalent of the British battleships, the Dreadnoughts.

So all in all, it was too much effort NOT to have a war.

Answer 5

Gavrilo Princip , 1918) was an ethnic Serb, but later proclaimed to be a Yugoslav Nationalist with links to a group known as the Black Hand and Mlada Bosna, who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The event was the catalyst for the Austria-Hungarian action against the Kingdom of Serbia that led to World War I. Friction was already heating up Europe after the death King Edward of Britain. WW1 effectively ended rule by royalty in Europe, as well as the Turkish ottoman, and Austria-Hungarian empires

Answer 6

Not really. The victim, Franz Ferdinand, even was a person no one really liked to become a ruler. But also in those times politicians thankfully took such an event as a pretext.. Although in the case of Germany, it had no aggressive intentions, but was becoming incresingly frightened by all their neighbours' arms race. So it was a trigger, too, yes. Of course, there was as everywhere industrial power (companies profiting from war) behind the politicians to force them into the war - no one thinking it would become such a cruel one (topped only by the second one - as yet..)

Answer 7

That was how WWI got to the point; the duke's murder was the catalyst, but the countries that started the war, which does not include the US, were looking for something to start a war so they could see how new war technologies would actually work in battle and to see, which cousin would win. The leaders of Britain, Russia, and Germany were all related.

Answer 8

As with "the face that launched a thousand ships," the shooting of Franz Ferdinand and his wife was the result of long and short term political, economic, social, cultural and religious causes. The shooting in turn then had short and long term results. Rather like any other human activity come to that!

Answer 9

Thousands of Things started th "Great War" and it would be foolish to list them all. However most of the tension was caused by the Germans and English competing, competing colonies in Africa, and floppy broken treaties. Ferdinand's assassination was just the excuse for the countries to officially declare war. You could teach an entire class on "The events leading to WW1 but this is what it boils down to.

Answer 10

There was a lot going on in the background, but , basically, yes. But don't condemn with 21st century thinking. You've got to consider the thinking of the time and the politics. It would also help greatly to read up on European history from about 1870 with the rise of Bismark. I'm amazed that Helen of Troy even came into it. It just shows, if you want to learn something, go to the local library.