It was on a nice, clear-skied Sunday afternoon on the 28th of June, 1914, that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, along with his beautiful wife, were brutally assassinated by a man named Gavrilo Princip. Gavrilo was one of the ordinary members of a Serbian Terrorist Group called the Black Hand at Sarajevo. Sarajevo was the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovnia. But what he didn't realize was that he was about to trigger what would become to be one of the bloodiest wars in history. The assassination and the tense feelings between Europe and Austro-Hungary was a primary "trigger" that had a domino effect and proclamations of war were being set off left and right, which ultimately resulted in what we know today as the “Great War”. Tense feelings, over time, were slowly rising in Europe for a number of years through Nationalism, Imperialism, Militarism, and Alliances. These tensions had reached a boiling point so high that a major event was needed to subside the tensions between the countries. This was the assassination of the Archduke. Therefore The assassination, Nationalism, Militarism, Imperialism and Coalitions were causes of World War One. Australia was involved in the war solely because of the fact that it was a component of the British Empire, therefore having obligations towards Britain, and growing in patriotic support for the mother country. The patriotism shown by Australia was a main factor in deciding their fate in World War One.

NATIONALISM

Around the 1900, there was a strong and passionate devotion that started to occur towards a people's country. Instead of having different dukes or kings, people started to acquire nationalism or patriotism towards there country, a sense of pride towards their country. The pride in one’s country resulted in countries obtaining the idea that they were superior to other countries. Which created the notion that giving up other land, countries or people to far benefit your own country was a good thing to do. They had the idea that because your country is “better” and therefore has more rights than the opposing countries. These actions started alliances and unities between countries who had the same goals and therefore got the notion that they could fight together. For example with the unity between Britain and France, they united because they both believed they were fighting outside threats to their country that threatened their security. In the case that Germany needed to be defeated, the alliance was formed, because in reality, the Nationalism in Britain and Russia was that they were better than Germany, which caused them to think that together they would be superior to it. As for Germany there were two thoughts. The biggest thought in their mind was that they needed to enter into the war as soon as possible, due to the reason that they were being surrounded by other aggressive countries such as France, Britain and Russia. The Germans also bought into this idea, as this nationalism that started to present itself into Germany soon one-eightied into jealousy. When countries start thinking that they are superior to others, jealousy creates itself between the countries and in return, results into tension. Nationalism in Germany had been flipped into jealousy when Britain and France became allies, and therefore Germany made allies with countries out of this jealousy. This in return strengthened the tensions between the opposing countries all the way up unto the assassination of the Archduke.

MILITARISM

In the preceding years that lead all the way up to the war, a majority of the main powers were in need of a strong military in order to show off their empire-building dominance, and thus, strong militaries were very popular during that period in time. As a direct result of that event, European powers yearned to "up" their military power and be more powerful other countries speaking in terms of Military power and dominance. As one