The July Crisis – Decision-making exercise (requires teacher support sheet).
This key period – often overlooked by students who say that the assassination was simply followed by a ‘domino effect’ of countries declaring war – is approached in a ‘decision-making’ format. “Your teacher will provide you with a “decision point” for the first event. Discuss with a partner or in a small group what the best policy would be for the country in question. Discuss as a class. The teacher will then tell you what actually happened. In the first column of “5 July” write this down. In the second column of the same row, note down if this could be used as evidence that a particular country was to blame for the war, or maybe innocent. You will then move on to the next decision point. Repeat the process until the table is finished”.

This forms part of the newly updated ActiveHistory scheme of work on The Origins of World War One.