The War To End All Wars

Most of my research on WW I focused on the British involvement, since my grandfather was English and he served in the Royal Field Artillery RFA. Around 1907 my grandfather joined the RFA special reserves when he was  around eighteen years old. The special reserves would be comparable to our national guard. Upon joining there was a period of training and then each year they were required to go to three months of additional training. If war was declared, then they special reserves would be called to active duty, as would our national guard.

The simple explanation of what started WWI, was the assassination of Austria's Archduke Ferdinand, by a Serbian nationalist. However, the assassination acted as a fuse for the events and tensions that had been building between European countries. Smaller countries like, Austria and Serbia were worried that they could be invaded by larger countries. For protection, they formed treaties with other countries, so by 1913 Europe had constructed a house of cards that was about to collapse.

When the Archduke was assassinated, Austria declared was on Serbia, and why not, they didn't like each other anyways. However, Serbia had a treaty with France, and Germany had one with Austria. These treaties caused Germany to declare war on France, as well as Russia; since Russia was in a treat with France. One by one other countries were dragged into the conflict.

England thought themselves isolated from the troubles in Europe so they hadn't entered into binding treaties with anyone, but they did have strong ties with Belgium. Belgium was a neutral country and wanted to remain so, but  the war masterminds in Germany had developed what was called, "The Schlieffen Plan". The plan's strategy was to attack France from Belgium. Like any good neighbor, Germany told Belgium what its intentions were, and they had the choice of allowing them passage, or Germany would drag them into the war.

The Crown Prince of Belgium was a nice guy, but a little touchy on the subject of his country being invaded. He made his feelings clear with the German Ambassador, then turned to England for help. The English populous didn't want to get involved, but they rallied around Belgium in its efforts to protect its boarders. Besides, if Germany took over both Belgium and France, they would control the ports on the English Channel, which would not give England a warm fuzzy feeling. With this scenario in mind, England warned Germany against invading Belgium. What did Germany do? What all bullies do, go ahead anyway.