Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was shot dead by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip, catalyzing World War 1. It is often questioned how the assassination of one person could birth one of the deadliest wars in human history. Graphs shed light on how this was possible. First, consider this graph highlighting the alliances of the western world before June 28.
We can already see two separate major groups in Alliances with each other. Russia and France have been allied since 1896, and Russia and Serbia have already had a history of diplomatic relations. On the other hand, Germany and Austria, due the Dual-Alliance, have been allied since 1879 and also have had a history of alliance with the Ottoman Empire. So it seems that if someone where to connect Serbia and Austria with a negative tie, a domino effect would transpire, pinning European powers against each-other. The assassination of Austria-Hungary heir Franz Ferdinand served as this tie (any other negative even would have done the trick as well). His death resulted in roughly this graph:
Some alliances/negatives have been omitted for the sake of clarity. What’s important to note is how the presence of a negative resulted in triadic closure for positives, Serbia and France are now allied and Austria-Hungary has become allied with the Ottoman Empire. Also, note how the graph is balanced and thus can be represented as two allied groups pinned against each other. In this case the left group is the Allied powers and the right being the Central Powers. Germany’s decision to attack France by way of Belgium caused the Allies to acquire Britain and Belgium and Germany’s bombing of the Lusitania resulted in the United States forgoing the neutrality seen before Ferdinand’s death.
In conclusion, when there are two separate but large components of a graph, there exists a potential energy so massive that even the death of a single person can cause something as deadly as World War 1. These events will follow the properties of graph theory. As stated in class, this was also the case when the new world collided with the old in the early 15th century.
Source:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/archduke-franz-ferdinand-assassinated
http://www.worldwar1.com/tlalli.htm