Running head: America and the Great War

America and the Great War – The Back Story
Don Folk
DeVry University

Abstract
World War I began in central Europe in June 1914. A great many factors, over the course of forty years, contributed to the start of this War, including nationalism, imperialism, militarism, as well as territorial and economic conflicts amongst various European powers. The culminating factor was the assassination of the Archduke of Austria Hungary, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife Sophie, at the hands of Gavrilo Princip, a Serb. Princip became a member of Major Tankosic's Black Hand partisan academy in 1912, but health issues kept him off-duty until June 28, 1914, when he assassinated Archduke Ferdinand (Brigham, 2010).

America and the Great War – The Back Story
Introduction
World War I, the largest war to that date, was fought all around the world and left consequences that are still felt today. Communism was born when Russia fell, Central Europe fractured into a group of disparate nations, the fall of the Ottoman Empire gave rise to the Arab nations, and Nazi Germany was born of the ashes of the defeat of Germany (Askeda, 2011).

The Rise of Pan-Slavism in Eastern Europe
There was great tension between Austria-Hungary and Serbia in the early twentieth century, due in large part to the Pan-Slavic movement in Eastern Europe, which would ultimately lead to World War I. Prior to acquiring national identities after World War I, most central European and eastern nations had been the subjects of imperial regimes, whether German, Ottoman, or Austro-Hungarian. Scholars in the nineteenth century began to call for the people of central and Eastern Europe to recognize themselves as a singular culture, whom they termed the “Slaves.” This cultural “Pan-Slavism” movement began among the Austrian Slavs in 1848 and spread to all of Eastern