History of World War I
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie were assassinated by a Serbia nationalist while they were visiting Sarajevo, in the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Although Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not very well liked by most, his assassination was viewed as a great excuse to attack Austria-Hungary's troublesome neighbour, Serbia. (History, 1996-2013) However, Austria-Hungary didn’t react quickly to the incident but made sure they had the backing of Germany before they proceeded. And this gave Serbia time to get the backing of Russia. The calls for back-up didn't end in Russia because Russia also had a treaty with France and Britain. As Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914, much of Europe had already become entangled in this dispute (Rosenberg, 2012).
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The two main forces during the war were Allied force which includes France, the United Kingdom, Russia and United States later after 1917; and the Central Power which includes Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy who joint the Allies in August 1914 and Turkey who joint later. |
When the Great War began, Australia had been a united country for only 13 and it was still a dominion of the British Empire. Therefore, when Britain declared war on Germany, Australia was also at war as were all other countries in the Empire. In Australia, a wave of enthusiasm for the war effort swept the country. The Australian men rushed to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and most of them thought that the war was going to end before they arrived Europe. The Australian government promised British to supply 20,000 men to support their motherland, but in reality, there were about 50,000 men enlisted by the end of 1914. The reason for the passion of war was that the whole generation of young men in Australia had group up with no real experience of war and were told that heroes were rarely killed or wounded and they won battles every time. (Smith, 2012)
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