ABSTRACT
In the meantime, events in Europe seemed to lead inexorably toward war. When the German states unified into a single German nation in 1877, France became worried about the expanding empire. Germany, for its part, feared that France and Russia would combine to carve out parts of its territory. In 1909, with the Ottoman Empire unable to defend its far-flung holdings, Austria-Hungary fully annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it had been administering on behalf of the Ottomans since 1878. Russians and Serbians saw this as an egregious invasion, and a weak Russia responded by promoting tension between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. The 1917 Revolution is understood by Russians as two separate revolutions. In the "February Revolution," the failures of the Russia military in World War I, food shortages, and general economic unrest built upon longstanding grievances against the Tsar and government corruption.
