Abstract
Since the beginning of the XIX° century, Europe had known a series of crises, due to serious issues which were causing mounting friction amongst the Powers. Nonetheless, at the beginning of 1914 Europe seemed to be at peace, and the international relations between European countries seemed less tense than they had been in the previous decades. But this picture of an increasing stability was illusionary, and masked great underlying problems. Like this, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian heir, on the 28th of June 1914 in Sarajevo, leaded to the triggering of the First World War. How this event, which seemed to concern only Viennese and Serbian affairs, can have leaded to a World War? What are the origins of the First World War? The question of the causes of the First World War has become a major historical problem, especially because the First World War seemed to be of a great significance as a turning point in the world History. A lot of historians have worked on this question and most of them agree on the fact that it exerts direct and indirect causes, short-term and long-term causes, to the continuation of war.
