P5+Chain+of+Events+that+led+to+WWI

[|Assassination] of Archduke [|Franz Ferdinand], heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo on 28, June 1914. > vast army in her defence, , allied to Austria-Hungary by treaty, viewed the Russian mobilisation as an act of war against Austria-Hungary, [|declared war on Russia] on 1 August
 * Austria-Hungary **, [|declared war on Serbia] on 28 July 1914.
 * ** Russia **, bound by treaty to Serbia, announced mobilisation of its
 * Germany **


 * France **, bound by treaty to Russia, found itself at war against Germany and, by extension, on Austria-Hungary following a German declaration on 3 August.
 * Britain **, allied to France by a more loosely worded treaty which placed a "moral obligation" upon her to defend France, declared war against Germany on 4 August.

With Germany's invasion of Belgium on 4 August, and the Belgian King's appeal to Britain for assistance, [|Britain committed herself to Belgium's defence] later that day. Like France, she was by extension also at war with Austria-Hungary.
 * United States ** President Woodrow Wilson [|declared a U.S. policy of absolute neutrality], an official stance that would last until 1917 when Germany's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare - which seriously threatened America's commercial shipping (which was in any event almost entirely directed towards the Allies led by Britain and France) - forced the [|U.S. to finally enter the war] on 6 April 1917.