A Not-So-Serious Rendition of the Build-up To World War 1 With Regards To: The Balkans–Part 6 of 6
After the assassination, Serbia’s already not great reputation went down even more. Austria wanted to go in, destroy Serbia quickly while everyone was still against them, and crush any pan-Slav activism that could turn the Austrian-held Slavic lands against Austria.
But Austria couldn’t just move in quickly, as it was now a time where politics ruled. There was disagreements within the Empire on how to strike, there was dealings with Germany, Russia, and even France on what the exact plan of action should be, and all sides were keeping secrets from the other. I won’t go exactly into all the details because that will make this hella long, and doesn’t really involve any Balkan states which is what this comics about, but here are two good videos on it.
All this held up the process, and so by the time Serbia finally got an ultimatum, it was no longer completely hated, as people had moved on by then. So, when it didn’t agree immediately to all of Austria’s demands, people were like, “Alright, we can negotiate, don’t want anything like the total destruction of Europe to happen ahaha.”
The ultimatum was meant to either humiliate Serbia and make them practically under Austria’s rule, or make them go to war. So, when the idea that neither could potentially happen, Austria looked at what they had, and decided to try to engage in a quick war to capture Serbia's capital Belgrade (which was very close to the Austrian border) and then go from there.
But as history shows, that did not at all happen. And thus starts World War One.
