Originally posted by GetRadNZThe explosive that was World War One had been long in the stockpiling; the spark was the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This caused a chain effect between nations and lead to the first world war. It only took one man of significance to be
assassinated.
It's a waiting game, we can't dismiss the possibilities just yet. The events of this month could well be the beginning of something sinister.
Cheers
Brady
World War I as a declared state of war lasted from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918.
After a decade of unstable alliances and military buildups, World War I was triggered in 1914 by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. It ended in
1918 with the Treaty of Versailles.
On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were
shot dead in Sarajevo, by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six Bosnian Serb assassins coordinated by Danilo Ilić. The political objective of the
assassination was to break off Austria-Hungary's south-Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Greater Serbia or a Yugoslavia. The
assassins' motives were consistent with the movement that later became known as Young Bosnia. Serbian military officers stood behind the attack.
At the top of these Serbian military conspirators was Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence Dragutin Dimitrijević, his right hand man Major Vojislav
Tankosić, and Masterspy Rade Malobabić. Major Tankosić armed (with bombs and pistols) and trained the assassins, and the assassins were given
access to the same clandestine tunnel of safe-houses and agents that Rade Malobabić used for the infiltration of weapons and operatives into
Austria-Hungary.
The assassins, the key members of the clandestine tunnel, and the key Serbian military conspirators who were still alive were arrested, tried,
convicted and punished. Those who were arrested in Bosnia were tried in Sarajevo in October 1914. The other conspirators were arrested and tried
before a Serbian kangaroo court on the French-controlled Salonika Front in 1916-1917 on unrelated false charges; Serbia executed three of the top
military conspirators. Much of what is known about the assassinations comes from these two trials and related records.
Assignment of responsibility for the bombing and murders of 28 June is highly controversial because the attack led to the outbreak of World War I one
month later.
WWII started and ended with these dates
By convention the date generally given by historians is 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.
It ended on 2 September 1945 with the surrender of Japan.
The following other events are occasionally cited as possible starting points:
* 3 September 1939: Britain and France declared war on Germany following the German invasion of Poland.
* 7 July 1937: The Japanese invasion of China (the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War).
* 1931: The Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
As you can see here it is always a waiting game after the trigging point.