Week Two

 

 

The Extension of Diplomacy
On the morning of July 28, 1914, in the city of Sarajevo, capital of the province of Bosnia-Herzogovina, the man on the right fired one pistol shot into the throat of the man on the left.  This act of political violence set in motion the chain of events that would result in the outbreak of "the Great War."

 

Assigned Readings:

G. J. Meyer, A WORLD UNDONE, Part One: July 1914, pp. 3-101

Sarajevo
The Black Hand
The events in Sarajevo, July 28th and their background

The July Crisis
The timeline of the July Crisis

Documents taking Europe to War
"The Blank Check," July 6, 1914
The Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum to Serbia, July 23, 1914
The Serbian Response to the Ultimatum from Serbia, July 25, 1914
The "Willy-Nicky" Telegrams, July 29 - August 1, 1914
The German Declaration of War on Russia, August 1, 1914
The German request for passage through Belgium to attack France, August 2, 1914
"Brave Little Belgium" - the Belgian refusal to allow free passage, August 3, 1914
"The Scrap of Paper," August 4, 1914

The Main Combatants
"Trenches on the Web" War Atlas Index

See also
The Schlieffen Plan, 1905
The Deadly Alliances - details and reference for all the entanglements

For more information
Lectures on the Balkans


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  Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania