To Arms - Film Analysis

1) Which three empires met at the Balkans?
Russia, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey)

2) How did Emperor Franz Joseph rule the Hasburg Empire?
Franz Joseph was the emperor of Austria and the king of Hungary. He was the uncle of Franz Ferdinand and ruled for 66 years. During his reign, Franz Joseph resisted any type of change, hated political reform and was referred to as the ‘last European monarch of the old school’.

3) How was the Hasburg Empire regarded internationally?
The Hasburg Empire was a polyglot empire and had more than 10 different nationalities in it. The empire was a highly divided and oppressive state with nationalism play a significant role. There was ethnic unrest in Austria-Hungary because the Austrians and Hungarians held power while the other nationalities did not. Internationally, the British Foreign Office drew up a tables describing each nationality as a guide to who was who in the Hasburg Empire due to the many different nationalities present.

4) Write a paragraph to summarise the key aims and intentions of the Black Hand.
The Black Hand was an underground military government based organization in Serbia. They wanted unification through the means of violence and believed that killing kinds was an effective way to bring about political change. The Black Hand even went as far as killing a Serbian king who was regarded as being too close to Austria-Hungary. Dragutin Dimitrijevic, chief of the Serbian Military Intelligence was a conspirator in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian-Hungary throne. He believed that Franz Ferdinand wanted to invade Serbia when he came to visit to observe military manoeuvres. The Black hand wanted to assassinate him to break off Austria-Hungary’s south Slav provinces so that they could be combined into a Greater Serbia or Yugoslavia.

5) Write a paragraph to summarise the key aims and intentions of Franz Ferdinand.
Franz Ferdinand was a different ruler from his uncle, Franz Joseph. He did a lot of hunting, and by the age of 50, had killed over 200,000 criminals. In 1914, he was the emperor in waiting with his uncle going to die soon. Franz Ferdinand defied his family by marrying Sophie who was not of royal blood. He had radical ideas for political reform, being open to political change unlike his uncle and aimed to avoid war at the Balkans. Franz Ferdinand realised that if the ethnic minorities had little political power, they would start to look to other countries and knew that this would bring about the end of his empire so he intended to solve this problem to protect his own future.

6) What was the irony of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand?
The assassination took place on July 28 which is ironic because it was a significant day, being a Serbian religious holiday as well. The initial assassination attempt was a failure and Gavrilo Princip was ready to accept defeat when there was a bad twist of fate. Franz Ferdinand’s driver took a wrong turn and stopped right in front of Princip who was buying a sandwich at the corner of the street leading to a successful assassination. Also, Princip died in 1918 which was towards the end of the war that he technically catalysed. The assassination took place on Franz Joseph street which is ironic as well. It can also be said that it is ironic that Franz Ferdinand wanted peace when he was alive, but it was his death that cause World War I to happen.

7) Explain the intention of Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia.
Austria-Hungary wanted Serbia to learn to fear them again. She wanted revenge for the assassination but at the same time did not want to rile up Serbia’s powerful allies. Therefore, she sent an ultimatum to Serbia with terms and conditions that Serbia could never logically accept. The Austrian ultimatum left diplomats surprised. In the end, Serbia accepted all but one term of Austria’s ultimatum which lead to the outbreak of World War I. Austria-Hungary gave this ultimatum with the intention to have an excuse to go to war with Serbia over their ‘unreasonable’ disagreement to the ultimatum.

8) What was the significance of the mobilisation of Russia’s troops on July 26?
The Russian military called up their reserves which was the second key stage in the crisis. Once a key power, Russia, got involved, it led to a domino effect in which all the powers had to join in. Once the millions of Russians soldiers had mobilised on July 26, war became imminent because these soldiers wanted war and fighting to happen, as it had been what they had been trained to do.

9) What was the significance of the ‘Willy-Nicky’ telegrams?
Wilhelm II of the German Empire and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia exchanged telegrams on the eve of the July Crisis leading up to World War I. They were third cousins and sent telegrams to warn each other of impending mobilisations and to try to stop further damage which were of no use. The significance lies in the fact that the War was beyond the power of politicians and left in the hands of the military.

10) What was Germany’s only hope of victory in the War?
Germany had 14 days before the Russian army reached them. Germany’s only hope of victory in the war was to deal with Russia in the east and French on the west.

11) Why was it impossible for Britain to remain neutral?
On the 1st of August 1914, Germany declared war on Russia and on the 3rd of August, Germany declared war on France. At this time, Britain was still in a state of peace. However, they were bound by treaty alliances and the leaders knew that they could not remain neutral and had to take part in the War. They had a responsibility to honour their alliance with France and Russia which was why they could not remain neutral.

12) What did Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, estimate Britain’s wartime losses to be?
The British empire is estimated to have lost 1.1. million civilians in World War I.

13) Explain why Germany was ‘horrified’ by Austro-Hungarian manoeuvres.
This was because Germany thought that Austria-Hungary would concentrate its military manoeuvers on the Russian advance but Austria-Hungary instead concentrated its troops to fight Serbia not Russia.