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Causes of WW1 Introduction The First World War, also known as The Great War, The War to End All Wars, and World War I (abbreviated WWI) was a global military conflict that took place between 1914 and 1918. It was a total war, which left ten million dead and shaped the modern world. Europe in 1914 was a dangerous place. The five Great Powers were divided into two strong and powerful alliances. They were about to fight each other in the most awful war the world has ever known. To understand how this happened, we must go back to 1879. In 1879 Germany quarrelled with Russia. Germany was worried that Russia would attack, and so agreed with Austria that the tow countries would help each other if either were attacked. Three years later, Italy joined them, and the Triple Alliance was formed. The alliance upset France and Russia. In 1892, they agreed to help each other if either was attacked. Great Britain was worried about the situation in Europe and began to look for an ally. In 1904 Britain signed, an agreement with France called the ‘Entente Cordiale’. Three years later Britain made similar agreement with Russia. The alliance between Britain, France and Russia was known as the Triple Entente. By 1907 Europe was divided into two sets of alliances, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. The countries in both alliances were well armed and powerful. It only needed one flashpoint for the war to break out. This flashpoint happened in the Balkans. Much of the fighting in World War I took place along the Western Front, running from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. On the Eastern Front, the vast eastern plains and limited rail network prevented a trench warfare stalemate from developing, although the scale of the conflict was just as large. Hostilities also occurred on and under the sea and — for the first time — from the air. More than 9 million soldiers died on the various battlefields, and nearly that many more in the participating countries' home fronts because of food shortages and genocide committed under the cover of various civil wars and internal conflicts. In-fact, more people died after the war than during the war. The war caused the disintegration of four empires: the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian. Germany lost its overseas empire, and new states such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia were created. The causes of World War 1 The causes of WW1 can be divided into two sets. Long term causes and Short term causes. Short term causes: The flashpoint or the trigger of WW1, was the Murder in Sarajevo. 28 June 1914 was a warm and sunny day. It was the national Day of the Serbian people; it was also the wedding anniversary of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Duchess Sophie were paying an official visit to the town of Sarajevo, in the province of Bosnia. Lurking amongst the crowds who came to cheer were students intent on murder. Suddenly one of them threw a bomb at the royal car. The bomb exploded in the road, injuring several people. Franz Ferdinand was furious. When he reached the town hall he shouted angrily at the mayor and decided to cancel the visit immediately. He wanted to visit the injured, and then go home. On the drive back to the station the chauffer took the wrong turning and stopped the car to reverse. One of the rebel students, Gavrilo Princip, was walking past. He aimed his pistol and fired at the royal couple. By 11.30pm, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were dead. Six weeks Europe erupted into war. This was a short-term cause because it happened and that was it. it hadn’t been something that had been going one for ages. It was not expected, and was unknown unlike most of the long-term causes. There were some mistakes in this visit, why did the royal couple had an open top car? It was so easy for the murderer just to jump in and stab the royal couple or shoot them as it happened. They should have had a person to tell them the way around the ton. Taking the wrong turn is just a big mistake. Long term causes: There were many long term causes. The Balkans: Turkey had once ruled the Balkans. Turkey became very weak in the nineteenth century. Slav people living in the Balkans gradually drove out their hated Trukish rulers. New Slav nations – Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria - were set up. Austria-Hungary was afraid that Slavs living in Bosnia and other Balkan States within the Austrio-Hungarian Empire would break away and join Serbia. This would mean the collapse of the Empire. To prevent this, Austria-Hungary wanted to control the Balkans. Russia desperately needed to use ports on the Mediterranean Sea. This would make trade easier. Russia also needed to be able to sail its war ships out of the Black Sea in times of trouble. Russia needed to control the Balkans. Germany needed oil for their industries. The Kaiser wanted to build a railway between Berlin and Baghdad where there were rich oil fields. This railway would have to pass through the Balkans. Germany needed the Balkans to be friendly. Gavrilo Princip was a member of the Black Hand – a gang dedicated to uniting all Slav people in the Balkans. Austria believed the Serbian government supported the Black Hand. The time had come to teach Serbia a lesson. MAIN causes M: Militarism A: Alliance I: Imperialism N: Nationalism Militarism: Militarism means that the army and military forces are given a high profile by the government. The growing European divide had led to an arms race between the main countries. The armies of both France and Germany had more than doubled between 1870 and 1914 and there was fierce competition between Britain and Germany for mastery of the seas. The British had introduced the 'Dreadnought', an effective battleship, in 1906. The Germans soon followed suit introducing their own battleships. The German, Von Schlieffen also drew up a plan of action that involved attacking France through Belgium if Russia made an attack on Germany. The map below shows how the plan was to work. Alliance: An alliance is an agreement made between two or more countries to give each other help if it is needed. When an alliance is signed, those countries become known as Allies. 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. Imperialism: Imperialism is when a country takes over new lands or countries and makes them subject to their rule. By 1900, the British Empire extended over five continents and France had control of large areas of Africa. With the rise of industrialism, countries needed new markets. The amount of lands 'owned' by Britain and France increased the rivalry with Germany who had entered the scramble to acquire colonies late and only had small areas of Africa. Nationalism: Nationalism means being a strong supporter of the rights and interests of one's country. The Congress of Vienna, held after Napoleon's exile to Elba, aimed to sort out problems in Europe. Delegates from Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia (the winning allies) decided upon a new Europe that left both Germany and Italy as divided states. Strong nationalist elements led to the re-unification of Italy in 1861 and Germany in 1871. The settlement at the end of the Franco-Prussian war left France angry at the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany and keen to regain their lost territory. Large areas of both Austria-Hungary and Serbia were home to differing nationalist groups, all of whom wanted freedom from the states in which they lived. Naval-Rivalry Britain and Germany were the chief rivals at sea. Under Admiral Tirpitz, State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office from 1897, a long-term shipbuilding programme began. The German Navy Law of 1898 increased the German battleships from nine cruisers to twelve. In 1900 Germany passed a Navy Law which doubled the German battle fleet. In the meantime, Britain produced her first Dreadnought (literally, the word means fear nothing). Dreadnoughts were large, fast and heavily armed battleships with 12inch guns. They set a new standard in naval armaments and rendered all previous battleships obsolete. The naval race became intense. Between 1909 and 1911 Germany built nine Dreadnoughts while Britain completed 18 Dreadnoughts. In 1913, Germany widened the Kiel Canal to allow the easy passage of her Dreadnoughts from the Baltic to the North Sea while Britain built new naval bases for the Dreadnoughts in northern Scotland. Colonial-Rivalry After 1870, the European nations began to acquire colonies in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Their imperialistic activities accelerated from 1880 onwards. Between 1895 and 1905 imperialistic expansion reached its climax. Colonial rivalry was a cause of the First World War. In Africa, all the European powers except Austria and Russia had colonies there. Thus there were many clashes among France, Britain, Germany and Italy. For example, France rivalled with Italy over Tunis and with Germany over Morocco. Italy turned to Germany and Austria when she lost Tunis to France in 1881. Russia and Britain could patch up their differences and form an entente in 1907 as a result of their mutual fear of Germany's expansionist activities in the Balkans. Russia, Britain and France could become firm friends after 1907 partly because of aggressive attitude of Germany in both the first and the second Moroccan crises. Germany found that, without a navy, she could not send much military help to the Dutch. Shortly after the event, Admiral von Tirpitz, the German Minister of Marine, proclaimed the need of a strong navy. From 1898 onwards, Germany built more battleships. In the first and the second Moroccan crises, war nearly resulted. France and Britain nearly came to war over their rivalry in the Sudan in 1898. Rivalry of Russia and Austria in the Balkans Russia and Austria-Hungary resumed their Balkan rivalry, focusing on the Kingdom of Serbia and the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Austria-Hungary had occupied since 1878. In 1881 Russia secretly had agreed in principle to Austria's future annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But in 1908, Izvol'skiy foolishly consented to support formal annexation in return for Austria's support for revision of the agreement on the neutrality of the Bosporus and Dardanelles--a change that would give Russia special navigational rights of passage. Britain stymied the Russian gambit by blocking the revision, but Austria proceeded with the annexation. Then, backed by German threats of war, Austria-Hungary exposed Russia's weakness by forcing Russia to disavow support for Serbia. After Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia became a major part of the increased tension and conflict in the Balkans. In 1912 Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro defeated the Ottoman Empire in the First Balkan War, but the putative allies continued to quarrel among themselves. Then in 1913, the alliance split, and the Serbs, Greeks, and Romanians defeated Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War. Austria-Hungary became the patron of Bulgaria, which now was Serbia's territorial rival in the region, and Germany remained the Ottoman Empire's protector. Russia tied itself more closely to Serbia than it had previously. The complex system of alliances and Great Power support was extremely unstable; among the Balkan parties harbouring resentments over past defeats, the Serbs maintained particular animosity toward the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other Long term causes: Suspicions and jealousy between the countries Alliances (some broken as Italy changed the side it was fighting for) There was a lot of tension between countries There were great power struggles between countries for empires There would be fame through victory Britain had a large navy, Germany wanted a large navy (Jealousy) Building up army (Militarism) Conclusion: As you can see there was a lot of tension between the countries and it only needed a spark to start the fire as the fuel to was ready to ignite. The historians have many different viewpoints on the causes of the `Great War'. Volker Berghahn believes that the reasons for the war occurring were Germany started the war to stop trade unions from striking. Another historian named Tuchman claims that the railways were the key because once they started they were not going to be able to stop. Taylor also agreed with Tuchman that the trains and timetables would not stop after Germany mobilized. Taylor claims that: "All the mobilization plans have been timed to the minute, months or even years before and they would not be changed. A change in one direction would ruin them in every other direction." Taylor This shows that if the trains were stopped and/or changed it would destroy the plans. Once set in motion these railways could not be stopped even by the Kaiser. The last historian Joachin Remak claims that the blame cannot be placed on one man or country, he believed that: "All were sinners, all were sinned against." Remak The point of view that is most persuasive is Remak's because the blame cannot be blamed on one country because there are many causes of the war that have been brought up by many different countries. This essay is only for research purposes. If used, be sure to cite it properly! |
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