of Belgium would have been seen as a threat to Britain. In the end, Britain did not to ignore the
events of August 4th 1914, when Germany attacked France through Belgium. Afterwards,
Britain declared war on Germany (source). There were many events that led Britain to declare
war on Germany. One of the reasons was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to begin
with. The second would be the alliances as well, and the third would be imperialism.
Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. He was assassinated on
28 June 1914 by a terrorist from one of Austria-Hungary's powers, Serbia. Austria-Hungary
blamed Serbia,
even though the terrorists did not have any connections with the Serbian
government. July 31 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia (source). This led all the
sequence events which involved all the major European powers in war by the middle of the year.
Although the assassination was the reason, the First world war had its roots in long term social,
economic and political developments in Europe in the decades before 1914.
Great Britain’s prime minister at the time was David Lloyd George. Great Britain only
gave tactful help to Serbia along with France, until the start of the great war these countries
started giving military support to Serbia who was at war with Austria-Hungary who had the
support of Germany. Imperialism clashed with, the growth of nationalism. Its policies were pursued firmly by the major European powers. In Russia and Austria-Hungary important
interests was extending their empires into the Balkans (source).
An alliance is a political, military or economic agreement between two or more nations.
Military alliances contains promises of support between nations, often in the event of war
(source). German insecurity, if real and not a cloak for a more aggressive agenda, was at least as
much promoted by concerns about France and Britain’s growing military strength due to
increased defense expenditure.