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How did World War 1 start?

February 13, 2017 Ticia 20 Comments

Have you ever wondered what caused World War 1? How World War 1 started? If you look at the facts of it, it should never have happened.  It’s a fascinating history lesson.

how did world war 1 start an interactive map lesson

I got two different versions of it as a freshman in high school.  First, for whatever reason, my freshman English teacher decided everyone in the class should write an essay on someone who’d been assassinated.  I know, odd.

One of my classmates got Archduke Francis Ferdinand. I got Abraham Lincoln, a slightly easier topic, in the grand scale of things.

Second, my history teacher was obsessed with the Balkans.  She was convinced that the Serbian crisis that was going on at the time was going to explode into World War 3.  She gave us many a lecture on current events, and the Serbian attempted genocide, and how the only way there is ever peace in Serbia is from an outside influence keeping them down.

Supplies for How World War 1 started history lesson

As you scroll through you’ll see I did three different versions of this lesson, but here’s for all the variations of the lesson: Mystery of History 4* or Heritage History Early America

How World War 1 started version 1: map of pre- World War 1 Europe, markers*

How World War 1 started version 2: World War 1 puppets to act out the start (on my subscriber page, join my newsletter)

How World War 1 started version 3: world maps, vis-a-vis markers (if you use laminated world maps like I suggest in the link on how to make a world map), otherwise push pins* and yarn*

So how did World War 1 start?

pre World War 1 Europe more or less

Well, I wanted to make sure my kids understood the powder keg that was Europe right before World War 1, so I printed out a map I found here, blown up and cropped down to what I needed and grabbed one of the books from the Heritage History Early America CD

brushing up on the start of World War 1

I had to print it out rather than read it on my Nook because……..  Well, I ran my Nook through the washing machine, and it was on a 2-hour cycle from the last load.  It came out with a slight arc to it and didn’t look to be too healthy.  I’m saving up for a new one, and have a loaner from a friend right now…………….  But, as you can see it works quite fine to print it out.  It does have an advantage that now I can mark it up to my heart’s content.

We started reading about the “Balkan Powder Keg,” if you look at the map up above there are a lot of little countries surrounding Serbia, and all of them wanted to be bigger.  They thought their best bet to get bigger was to attack Serbia.  Serbians were known for not being a country that got along with each other particularly well, so they looked to be easy pickings.

Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary visited Serbia.  There was an attempt on his life, and it failed.  The bomb missed his car and blew up the car behind his.  He was hurried to a safe house and was in the process of heading home, when a, for lack of a better term, suicide gunner, came in and shot him and his wife.

how did ww1 start

Of course, Austria is rather upset about someone in line to get the crown being assassinated, so they immediately send a rather nasty letter to Serbia demanding reparations of absurd levels or they will attack.

Well, Serbia is allied with Russia at the time.  So, Russia says, “If you attack Serbia, then I’ll attack you!”  Now the theoretical war has expanded to three countries.

how did World War 1 start a confusing mess of alliances

Austria-Hungary is allied with Germany, and they say, “But if you attack Austria, they’re my friends so I’ll attack you.”  And now four countries are in the war.

How did World War 1 start more alliances
It’s the stars versus the smiley faces in World War 1

At which point all of the allies start getting pulled out.  Great Britain and France say, “Well, we’re Russia’s allies, so we’ll have to get in on this too.”

Italy is Germany’s ally, but their alliance says they only have to help if Germany is attacked, so they’re planning on sitting this whole thing out………  But it didn’t quite work out like that.

Because it’s before wide-spread telephones, and obviously emails are out of the question, the telegrams start flying and everyone is sending letters to everyone else, demands start flying.

how ww1 started puppet show
I just watched the videos I filmed all those years ago, and…… Well, let’s just say their version of how it started is slightly different from history. You’ll notice they are not uploaded.

This next part we acted out with popsicle stick theater.  Sir Edward Gray of Britain took it upon himself to talk this all down, and for a while it looked like it was going to work, and then Germany just said, “Oh look we’re being attacked, I declare war on France.”  (they claimed France had launched bombs.  After the war was over they acknowledged that was a lie). If you want to make your own figures here’s the World War 1 puppets.

WW1 start cause

Then we looked at allies.  At the start of the war Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy were allied.  But Italy said, “I don’t have to be part of this since you weren’t attacked,” and they changed sides.

start of WW1 who is with who

Then we looked at Britain’s allies in the war.

World War 1 start
I decided at the very bottom I decided I like the bigger size of picture.

Then we looked at the neutral countries in World War 1.  This is what truly brought Britain into the war.  Luxemburg, that itty bitty country that is completely covered by its pin is allied with Britain.  Actually, it has a non-aggression pact with people.  It won’t attack anyone and it won’t take sides in a war, but if it’s attacked it will be defended by Britain and France (here’s where I was working on memory).

Germany decided going through Luxemburg was the easiest way to get to France.  They delivered a letter to Luxemburg saying, “Let us go through your country or we will destroy you.”  Luxemburg, of course, said something that loosely translated meant “Over our dead bodies,” and Germany did their best to oblige.  So Britain got involved.

What caused World War 1

And that is how all of Europe got into a war.  Next week our co-op lesson is “How did the United States get into a War on a different continent?”

Ever wonder how other wars started?  Try some of these history lessons for a start

  • How did the Seven Years War start?
  • How did the American Revolution start?
  • How did World War II start?
how did ww1 start interactive map lesson

history 11th grade, 2nd grade, 6th grade, modern history, US history, World War 1

Comments

  1. maryanne @ mama smiles says

    January 17, 2013 at 12:33 pm

    I would have loved to have you as my history teacher!

    The Balkans really are a powder keg. From my reading, the conflicts go at least back to the 11th century, probably earlier.

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      January 17, 2013 at 2:52 pm

      That’s what I remembered as well. It amazes me, on a routine basis, how much the rest of the world can be effected by one small country.

  2. Aadel says

    January 17, 2013 at 3:00 pm

    There is a hilarious video about this from Horrible Histories – my girls love it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfxrTD-kPps

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      January 17, 2013 at 4:00 pm

      I’ll have to show that to the kids because they’ll love it! We watched a 1918 cartoon on the sinking of the Luisitania and boy were they ever upset on that one.

  3. Kristina says

    January 18, 2013 at 11:23 am

    love this! Way explain it!

    Reply
  4. Natalie says

    January 18, 2013 at 11:33 pm

    It looks like you are going through some sort of History of Wars curriculum. Interestingly, listening to the SOTW Anna remarked that every chapter contains death and killings. Rather sad.

    Reply
  5. Julie says

    January 20, 2013 at 2:38 am

    That’s the best explanation I ever heard. I pinned it for when we get into World War I.

    Reply
  6. William Fowler says

    June 8, 2014 at 12:42 am

    I’m terribly sorry to say, but there are a lot of bits in this that are inaccurate. I am a “picky ww1 scholar” or whatever so forgive me but i must correct the errors. Franz Ferdinand did NOT visit Serbia. He visited Bosnia, a newly-annexed province bordering Serbia. Secondly, The United Kingdom did not enter the war because of the invasion of Luxembourg, but because of the invasion of Belgium, with whom they had a long standing treaty to protect. Lastly, just so I don’t make this too long, Austria-Hungary’s demands to Serbia were not terribly severe: only Removal of anti-Austria propaganda, supression of anti-Austria terrorist groups, and allowing Austrian police in to help investigate. Please tell your kids that there were no good or bad sides during the war. Both were equally bad. I’m glad you are teaching them about history!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      June 8, 2014 at 10:30 pm

      Thank you for letting me know the bits I got wrong. I find WW1 to be a very complicated subject that is easy to get wrong. One of the texts we were using was written shortly after WW1, so it had a lot of “propaganda” in it for the British/American side.
      I’d very strongly agree in WW1 there were no bad sides, it was a struggle for them at such a young age to understand that though, I’m looking forward to teaching this war again in a few years when they’re older and better able to understand the nuances of it.

    • Julie says

      January 16, 2020 at 4:45 pm

      Finally, someone knows the difference between Bosnia and Serbia and their locations. But it’s easier to blame Serbia for every war on the planet.

  7. Natalie PlanetSmartyPants says

    February 18, 2017 at 7:02 pm

    Great explanation. SOTW also explains WWI start rather well. I do hope we are not gearing up for WWIII!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      February 18, 2017 at 10:14 pm

      I really don’t think it’ll go that far.

  8. Aishwarya K says

    February 24, 2022 at 3:33 am

    This is such an amazing way to explain history. I loved it! I wish I had you as my history teacher.???

    Reply

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Ticia Adventures in Mommydom Hi, I'm Ticia! This is the adventures of my family in life and learning. Follow along with us as we share our adventures. We're having a lot of fun and learning as we go.

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