World War IThe question is: who and/or what caused World War I? Well, at the beginning of the 20th century Europe seemed to enjoy a period of peace and progress. But beneath the surface different forces were at work that would bring Europe into the Great War. The causes of the First World War were many. Three important causes were: the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the tangle of alliances and the costs of the war. These causes had a great impact on the First World War and cast doubt on whether it would ever end. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand occurred when the crisis began. He was going to visit Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. And Bosnia at the time was under the rule of Austria-Hungary. When he came to visit him, the Serbian nationalists were very angry. The date the Archduke decided to visit was a special date in Serbian history (June 28). So on June 28, 1914, as the Archduke was driving through Sarajevo in an open car, one of the conspirators threw a bomb. But he missed Archduke Ferdinand and wounded an officer in another car. Later the Archduke asked to visit the wounded officer in hospital. Little did he know that the conspirator was still waiting. When the car drove off, Gavrilo Princip jumped and shot twice in the back seat. Moments later his wife and the archduke died. The costs of the war further worsened the tragedy. More than 8.5 million people died. When a pandemic spread across the world it killed more than 20 million people, twice as many as the war itself. There were financial burdens with the cost of rebuilding and paying that would burden an already burdened world. Everyone everywhere was bitter about the war. The allies blamed the problems on the defeated enemies who paid the war damages. Even under the stress of war, the governments of Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed. The dreams of building a new social order out of chaos were over. The tangle of alliances destined to create powerful combinations that no one would dare attack.