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we've spent the last 40 years or at least that's what it feels like

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watching Europe inch closer and closer to war. now all of the alliances and [map of Europe shown]

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ethnic tensions and land grabbing and growing militaries have brought us here.

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to the summer of 1914. so people hang on to your hats things are about to get

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hairy. world war 1 began as lots of people predicted would in the Balkans. as

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we've mentioned in previous lessons Serbia kept getting its wings clipped. [map of Serbia with wings]

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all it wanted was to create an empire of Slavic peoples and yet

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austria-hungary kept stepping in and mucking around with Albania and Bosnia

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and Herzegovina. the Serbians were peeved. but they weren't the only folks in the

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Balkans who were upset over Austria Hungary's actions. the Bosnians were [men with swords drawn]

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annoyed too because they were Slavs and wanted to be a part of Serbia's Slavic

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dream team. and so as people sometimes do when they live in repressive countries

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and are mad well some Bosnians became terrorists. this Bosnian terrorists

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attacked organization was called the black hand. the goal of the hands [hand written letter shown]

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involved in the black hand was to bring all the Slavs together into one country,

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and what better way to do that than to assassinate the heir to the

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austro-hungarian throne. that's right On June 28 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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and his wife Sophie were visiting Sarajevo, the capital city of bosnia and

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Herzegovina. after avoiding a bomb meant for them the car containing the Archduke [newspaper article about the assignation]

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and his wife got caught in a traffic jam while a terrorist named Gavrilo Princip

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who happened to be enjoying a coffee at a nearby cafe took this as a sign that

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it was his moment to step up and commit a couple of murders, which he did. with

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dear Franz dead the austro-hungarians came looking for blood. well on July 23rd

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austria-hungary ordered Serbia to give its officials full access to the

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investigation of the assassinations as well as the authority to prosecute any

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and all Serbians who'd been in on the plot. well Serbia said ok to all of [list shown]

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austria-hungary's demands except one there would be no austro-hungarian

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prosecutions Serbians. ooh wrong answer Serbia. five

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days later austria-hungary cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war. a conflict

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between Serbia and austria-hungary was all it took to fire up the old alliances. [drawing featuring a stewing pot labeled "Balkan Troubles"]

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Russia and France quickly mobilized against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

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Germany declared war on France on August 1st 1914. Britain declared war on Germany

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three days. later the Ottoman Empire tried to stay out of the whole mess but [headlines "England declares war on Germany"]

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got pulled in on November 5th. well by the end of 1914 we had the Central

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Powers of Germany austria-hungary and the Ottoman Empire on one side with

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Bulgaria clamoring to join the team. on the other side were the Allied powers of

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Britain and its Commonwealth countries along with France and Russia. well

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eventually Italy the United States and Japan would get in on the action too. [various flags pictured]

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so folks there's clearly a lesson to be learned here.

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