The First World War began in August 1914. It was directly triggered by the assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, on June 28, 1914 by Serbian revolutionary, Gavrilo Princip. This event was, however, simply the trigger that set off many declarations of war. The actual causes of the war are more complicated and are still debated by historians today. But there were two important causes that are truly believed to be the factors of World War One.
The two underlying causes that led to World War One were Alliances and Militarism because there were rivalries between nations, alliances between countries caused direct declaration of war, and arms races had commenced. A number of alliances had been signed by countries between the years 1879 and 1914.
These were important because they meant that some countries had no option but to declare war if one of their allies declared war first. An example of this comes from a Chicago Tribune article labeled “The Crime of the Ages. Who did it? Where all of the nations are declaring war on each other because of their allies, causing a chain reaction of war declarations due to the start of it when Serbia had war declared on them by Austria-Hungary. (Doc. 4) Now Europe had much tension as the battle line was drawn with Central Powers being Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side and Allies consisting of many nations like Great Britain, France, and Russia with Italy joining later. Italy had been a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. However, the Italians joined the other side after accusing their former partners of unjustly starting the war. Doc. 3)
The Term Paper on Global Wine War 2009-New World Versus Old
In the 1960s, 1970s or even 1980s, if you ask someone, which countries produce the best wine in the world? They would have said France, Italy or Spain. However, if you ask someone the same question nowadays, the answer would be different. The new wine industry players such as Australia, the United States and Chile are changing the global industry structure, leading the global industry trend, and ...
The cause of all this havoc was the rivalries between nations in Europe that sparked the war. The tension between countries was matched by tension within countries. Especially in southeastern Europe, in an area known as the Balkans. Ethnic groups revolted as Austria-Hungary and Russia stood by. The region was a “powder keg” just waiting to explode, and with the Black Hand ordered assassination of the archduke of Austria-Hungary, it did. All this fighting in the Balkans was due to everyone wanting all the Serb people in one nation and to eliminate Austria-Hungary from the picture.
This growing European divide had led to an arms race between the main countries France, Germany, and Great Britain. The armies of both France and Germany had more than doubled between 1870 and 1914 due to the war and there was fierce competition between Britain and Germany for mastery of the seas. (Doc. 7) Germany had been increasing their armaments to defeat the Allies, so their Schlieffen Plan would come into action and work. (Doc. 9) But everything did not occur how Germany thought they would. All the commotion caused by Germany had happened because they had realized that they are in the middle of the World War One battlefield.
So they had to step up their armaments and be the winner or loser of the war. (Doc. 8) The causes of World War One included a growing sense of militarism, which was accompanied by an arms race and alliances that had been a huge cause of all the war declarations and rivalry between nations. The war itself did not have any good effects. It left countries in debt with many casualties at hand. War was not really a good thing for Europe as its regions were destroyed and it was a long war that lasted four years. This was the complete opposite of what soldiers thought ‘would be a short and simple war’.
