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How Far Was Germany Responsible For World War 1 Essay

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Although Germans had a great part in the outbreak of the First World War, all responsibility must not lay on her, for she was not the only country involved in the outbreak. Many will argue that “Germany must bear ultimate responsibility for the outbreak,” but historical evidence proves that this is not so. First of all, it is Serbia who provoked the initiation of the First World War. This provocation came in the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, by a Pan-Slavic nationalist. This problem would not have escalated to greater lengths if the Serbian government had warned the Austrian-Hungarian government of the intended plot to murder their Archduke, of which they had knowledge. When the Austrian government learned that …show more content…
All the stipulations of the ultimatum were accepted by the Serbian government, except for one, which gave Hungarians the right to punish those Serbian officials suspected of having been involved in the crime. Refusing to accept this stipulation, the Serbian government refused to accept the entire ultimatum. This refusal caused Austria to declare war on Serbian, on July 28. Although historian John G. Stoessinger says in Why Nations Go To War, that the German Kaiser wanted Austria to punish Serbia as quickly as possible, historian Sidney Bradshaw Fay argues, in The Origin of War, that Germany became involved in the war because they were being true to a treaty of alliance they made with Austria in 1878. Finally, Russia also has blame in the outbreak of the First World War because she had an influence in the decision made by Serbia. Serbia’s decision to refuse the ultimatum was due to the support that Russia was offering Serbia. At this time, Russia had been defeated by Japan in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904, and Czar Nicholas II saw the war as a way to show two things: that Russia was still a powerful country and that he was protecting his fellow

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