An Cosantóir June 2014 www.dfmagazine.ie
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by SGT WAyNE FITzGERALD
THE 100th ANNIVERSARy OF THE
OUTbREAK OF WORLD WAR ONE
I
t is beyond doubt that WWI helped shape and cre-
ate the world over the last century. The power of
the great houses of the Victorian and Edwardian
eras was vastly diminished, women joined the work
force in many roles other than the traditional one of
domestic service and also got the vote in britain and
Ireland in 1918, and new technologies developed during
the war effort were harnessed to drive forward indus-
trialisation. On the battlefield poison gas, air power,
mass-produced artillery and ammunition, new types of
weapons and explosives, submarine warfare, and tank
warfare all made their baleful appearance.
Many factors were
involved on the road
to the Great War.
One of the most
significant was
a change in the
balance of power.
Although it was the
arrival of Germany
onto the interna-
tional scene that
led to an unbal-
anced Europe, in
this on-line piece
we will look at
why the Balkans
became the tip-
ping point.
Two main
factors that
disturbed the
balance of power
that had held
sway for almost
a century, since
the Congress of
Vienna in 1815,
were the unifica-
tion of Germany and the vacuum in the Balkans that
arose from the increasing decline of the power of the
Turkish Ottoman Empire, which had ruled the region
since the 15th century. Throughout the 19th century
Greece, Serbia, Romania, Montenegro and Bulgaria
had all achieved their independence and in 1878 Bosnia
was ceded by the Ottomans to be administered by the
Austro-Hungarians under the Treaty of Berlin.
In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, a move that
enraged Serbia because of the large amount of ethnic
Serbs living in Bosnia, as well as other Slavs, of whom the
Serbs saw themselves as natural leaders. They also felt
Bosnia should be united with them in a Greater Serbia.
