Direct Cause Of Ww1 Essay

Although the direct cause of WW1 is seen to be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on the 28th of June 1914, the four main factors of World War 1 were militarism, alliances, imperialism and nationalism. Great Britain had a large navy and Germany wanted to have a large navy as well. This resulted in Germany and France competing to build a larger army and between 1870 and 1914 all major powers, apart from Great Britain and United States, doubled the size of their army.

Alliances within Europe were meant to promote peace and were seen as a reason to not engage in war however a single argument between two countries (Austria-Hungary and Serbia) meant that all allied nations were required to join the fight, this is exactly what happened

The overall expedition was a failure however courage and endurance of these men created the ANZAC legend. The whole purpose of the Gallipoli campaign was to seize the Dardanelles and open a sea route to Constantinople (now known as Istanbul). By doing so, Britain and their allies would be able to establish a front against their enemies during the First World War. Australia thought that being in Gallipoli, an attack in turkey would shorten the length of the war because turkey would be defeated and Austria- Hungary would be threatened however the Turks were more prepared than was anticipated. The Germans weren’t directly involved in the Gallipoli campaign however they were allies with Turkey and defeated Australia in many of the other campaigns during the First World

Britain was considered as the ‘mother land’ so Australia felt as if they had to fight, follow and support the mother land. Australia did not end up having conscription however the conscription debate impacted Australia as a nation greatly. Prime minister, Billy Hughes attempted to introduce the conscription twice. One referenda was held in 1916 while the other was held in 1917, however both failed and lost to the ‘no’ vote. The whole conscription debate divided Australia as there was only very little difference between the amount of people who were for and against the debate. Many Australians supported conscription because it was felt that it was Australia’s duty to support Great Britain and conscription meant ‘equality of sacrifice’. During the first world war voluntary recruitment had failed and Australia had a good reputation that needed to be protected, therefore many Australians felt as if conscription needed to be introduced especially since other allied countries had already introduced it. Many others opposed the conscription because no people had the right to be killed or wounded and if men were conscripted there wouldn’t be enough hands to farm. It was also unfair that the working class would bear the burden to fight while ‘important’ or higher class men didn’t have