“The spark that ignited the Powder Keg of Europe”
From July of 1914 to November of 1918, Europe and the rest of the World were engaged in a conflict that is known as World War I. It claimed the lives of close to ten million military personnel and nearly seven million civilians. In addition, twenty-one million military personnel were wounded, and eight million were considered missing (WWI Casualties.wikipedia.org). Following the Napoleonic Wars, Europe had undergone a time of great unrest and tension. The Major Powers of Europe functioned in a system of Great Power alliances, which prevented one alliance from risking war with another. This system of alliances began to fall apart as the Ottoman Empire crumbled, and Germany united into one major power rather individual states. These events shifted the power balance and changed political interests for many European Countries. Furthermore, the unrest in the Balkan region of Europe, eventually led to the Balkan Wars of 1912 to 1913. The political turmoil in the Balkans had become known as “The Powder Keg of Europe”, and the German Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck, predicted in the late nineteenth century that this region would be the cause of great conflict in Europe. Von Bismarck’s prediction was accurate when one event caused the “Powder Keg” to “explode”. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is the event that triggered the war, and caused a chain reaction of War Declarations through out Europe and the World.
Gavrilo Princip was a Serbian Nationalist born in Bosnia in 1894 (Gavrilo Princip.wikipedia.org). He grew up in a poor village in Bosnia and later moved to Belgrade, Serbia. While living in Serbia, Gavrilo became a member of a nationalist movement group know as the Black Hand Society. The members of this movement favored a union between Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina; which was a province controlled by Austria-Hungary. Dragutin Dimitrijevic was the Chief of Intelligence in the Serbian Army and...