Causes of World War One

The primary cause of World War One is that Europe was dominated by powerful powers like France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Russia and Britain. At this time Britain had the largest empire and navy.

The War also is historical product of Germany’s configuration in the 18th and 19th century to protect its territory, which is posed primarily by France. As well, the world war one was caused to some extent of the fragility of the alliance system. For example in 1860’s Germany was made up of small or little states. However, in the period of 1864 to 1871 the largest state Prussia had three wars. This culminated in bringing the rest of Germany under its control. In the last war it defeated France and seized Alsace-Lorraine. At that time, the Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck was fearful that France would take revenge by creating an alliance with powerful powers in Europe such as Russia and Austria. To stop this happening, Bismarck made alliances with all major mainland powers in Europe such as Russia, Hungary, Austria and Italy. As well, Germany maintained good relationship with Britain. This made France powerless.

However, the Bismarck diplomacy failed. In 1888 and 1890 Kaiser forced Bismarck to resign and the treaty with Russia lapsed. This made Russia and France alone against the alliance of Germany. This produced nervousness and they signed dual entente. Tension began to rise as dispute between two of the powers had the potential to draw the other three. For 40 years Britain did not involve itself in European affairs. However, after the dual entente between Russia and France, Britain declared to patch up with France even though France was their traditional rivals. In 1904 British signed entente cordiale acknowledging French control of Morocco and French acknowledging British control of Egypt. This agreement even though it was not a military pact or agreement Germany thought it was anti-German and Germany broke their earlier agreement with Britain. In 1905 Kaiser visited Morocco and declared Morocco to be independent of French control and hoped Britain would not support France and the agreement with France will collapse.

After this there was a peace conference to solve this dispute and in this conference Germany declared war. Britain and France thought it was a bluff. As well, the conference revealed weaknesses in the triple alliance and Italy deserting Germany and backing France. Germany argued that Austria is the only country allied with them.

Other than the alliance system collapse imperialism by Germany led to militarism and Nationalism in Balkans and the weaknesses of the shlieffen plan led to July Crisis culminating in World war One.

For example Imperialism of Germany very late compared to Britain, France and Russia they were vulnerable. Under Kaiser Germany wanted to be a great power and wanted to have access to raw materials, new markets and added respect and prestige. However, they lacked colonial greatness because of they have started too late and had less significant places in Africa, Islands in the Pacific and parts of china. For the imperialist adventure they had conflict with Britain and France in Africa and they lost because of the military power of Britain and the agreement between Britain and France became a military pact or alliance. This also culminated Germany to increase military expansion and militarism. That is imperialist adventure of Germany led to militarism.

Imperialism by the major powers including Germany increased the necessity of strong army and war as a viable policy to gain or to maintain superiority. This led to arms race particularly navy expenditure and ship building in Britain and Germany. For example in 1906 Britain launched HMS Dreadnought which could outgun and outrun any battle ship afloat. In response to this Germany built its own Dreadnought and British spend more in response to Germany’s military expenditure. In 1870-1914 military spending by European powers increased by 300% and conscription adopted by all continental powers in 1871. By 1914 more than 12 million men could be called in, in the event of war.

Germany drafted a plan called Schlieffen plan. It was based on the premise the faster a nation mobilizes its army it has more chance of success or to do a knock out blow before the enemy was even ready. The plan was also based on the superior railway system Germany had to mobilize its army to frontline. In addition, this plan assumed that France wanted revenge and war with France is inevitable. This plan proposed to invade France through Belgium and to first attack France then Russia as they don’t have enough military power to do so. This pan had many flaws. The major flaws were that the invading through Belgium also created a war with Britain as Britain signed an agreement declaring Belgium independent. As well, it has flaws as the plan cannot be changed and its railway system was inflexible and war with Russia is war with France.

The Nationalism in the Balkans is a crucial factor culminating in Russia and Britain to declare war against Germany as Russia supported Serbs and Germany supported Austria. As Germany implemented its Schlieffen Plan Britain was involved in the war. The nationalism is caused because Austria and Hungary had many different nations as less

than 50% was Hungarian or Austrian. As well, Slavs wanted to join with Serbs to have their own nation and Turkey, Russia, Austria and Hungary had interests in Balkans. As they had interests in Balkans nationalism by Serbs had the potential to cause war. In 1908 Austria annexed the provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina fuelling slave nationalism. In 1912 Balkans league was created to attack Turkey. This led to the deteriorating relationship between Serbia, Austria and Hungary which caused Balkans wars. Yugoslavia created. This led Austrian generals to call for a quick war to crush Serbia.

As discussed above imperialism of the major powers, militarism of major powers, Schlieffen plan and nationalism led to the July crisis culminating in World war one. The events of July crisis led to world war one is as follows:

July 1914: Austrian authorities in Balkans.

Franz Ferdinand (Austrian) heir assassinated while in Bosnia by a Serbian terrorist.

This was used as an excuse to go war with Serbia if Russia supported Serbia.

Austria needed the support of Germany for the war with Serbia.

23rd July: Austria sent ultimatum to Serbia

28th July: Austria declared war against Serbia. Russia supports Serbia.

31st July: Russia mobilizes. Germany sends ultimatum to Russia to demobilize.

1st of August: Germany declared war. Schlieffen plan implemented.

2nd of August: Germany invades Luxembourg then Belgium

Germany invades Belgium after Belgium rejected the ultimatum by Germany

Britain then declared war against Germany

This culminated in World War one.