What did russia do to get the U.S. to enter World War 1?

Answer 1

On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip (a Bosnian) shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. He claimed at his trial that Ferdinand was "an enemy of the South Slavs". Actually, Ferdinand was the most powerful friend of the Slavs within the Austrian government, which should lead one to wonder who put Princip up to the deed (see below).

On July 5, (German) Kaiser William formally but secretly encouraged Austria to invade Serbia in response, and Germany kept sending aggressive messages to Austria, while Austria promised Germany to make demands on Serbia that "the possibility of its acceptance is practically excluded". Eventually, on July 23, under German pressure, Austria sent the note to Serbia, demanding an answer within 24 hours.

On July 24, Serbia answered, agreeing to nine of the ten demands. On July 28, Austria declared war on Serbia, and on July 29, Austrian artillery started a bombardment of Belgrade.

Russia had been friendly to Serbia, and had tried to dissuade Austria from attacking. After the bombardment began, Russia began to mobilize its army. On July 31 Germany demanded that Russia demobilize within twelve hours, and on August 1, Germany declared war on Russia.

I have never seen any comment on what is apparently a very odd coincidence. The building of HMS Dreadnought had caused great consternation in Germany as it became clear that it was impossible to build a ship that would match her and still be able to go through the Keil Canal. Germany decided to enlarge the canal to accomodate bigger ships. Germany's aggressive attitude led many (notably Admiral Fisher) to predict that Germany would start a European war as soon as the canal was finished. The canal was officially opened in July 1914, a few days after Ferdinand was assassinated.

Was the German intelligence service behind Princip's act? Germany's only real ally in Europe was Austria-Hungary, and Ferdinand's policies were likely to weaken Austria's dependence on Germany. Certainly Germany had much more to gain by Ferdinand's death than Serbia did. Not only did it preserve Austria as a reliable ally, but it brought about the war that the Germans certainly believed must be fought soon or never. (Russia had gone through internal convulsions in 1905, but was in 1914 rapidly modernizing and growing stronger.)

Such a conspiracy would normally come to light after the war, or as the conspirators retired to write their memoirs. WWI was so disasterous for Germany that it seems reasonable to suppose that no-one would want their name associated with a plot to start it, just as no Americans that I know of have published memoirs claiming credit for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Answer 2

Russiaentered the first world war with the largest army in the world, standing at 1,400,000 soldiers; when fully mobilized the Russian army expanded to over 5,000,000 soldiers (though at the outset of war Russia could not arm all its soldiers, having a supply of 4.6 million rifles).

Answer 3

Russia did not do any thing to get the US to enter WW1 The US entered WW1. the US had been backing Britain prior to its actualmilitary involvement in WW1 and at a certain point in the proceedings needed to intervene to make sure it would get paid for its "contributions" to the British war effort.