How was Russia's role in the events leading to World War I different from that Austria-Hungary?
1 Answer
Austria-Hungary is seen as the aggressor while Russia the defender of a small, defenseless and poor country, Serbia.
Explanation:
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo in 1914 is seen as the accelerator of an already unstable situation in Europe:
The Austrian-Hungarian Empire was slowly losing its grip on his satellite states that wanted independence and the possibility to create their own government. As his emperor Franz Joseph the empire was old and tired. The problem was that in these conditions he couldn't afford to be lenient in particular after a tragedy as the one happened in Sarajevo; to be lenient would have caused an eruption of similar rebellious episodes in almost every nation of the empire. He had to be tough and severe.
So although poorly prepared and with almost no will to fight a war, Austria-Hungary had to take the role of the Aggressor and try to subdue and humiliate the small Serbia to show to everybody that the empire was still strong.
Almost as a mirror-like situation, Russia was seen as the defender of the Slav populations and came from a series of military and social disasters; exactly as Austria, Russia couldn't afford to "lose face" in front of all the other nations letting a "brother" Slav nation to be trashed and humiliated.
In the same way as Austria, Russia was terribly ill prepared and even more poorly led to face a war so that her role of Defender was more of a gamble than a real threat.
Both nations faced the incoming war without knowing that they were marching towards a terrible and dreadful situation and soon they both would become bogged down in a suicidal confrontation leading to disastrous consequences for both.
