The Causes of the First World War
Carmen
There were quite a few causes of the first world war (WW1). The long-term causes were the militarism, alliance system, imperialism and nationalism- MAIN. The short-term cause was the fact that Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. I personally think the most significant cause to WW1 is the alliance system and here, I will justify why I think like this.
I think the most significant cause of WW1 was the alliance system. This was most important because different countries would not be involved if they weren’t allies. Before the war happened, Russia, France and Britain had formed an alliance- the Triple Entente. All three countries think that Germany would be a threat to them. Russia thinks that Germany’s army base is too big; UK thinks that Germany’s wealth and navy increased to threaten UK; The relationship between Germany and France had been sour as Germany stole a land from France, and had been in a long-standing feud with Germany from then. Then, Austria-Hungary and Germany formed an alliance with Belgium and the Ottoman Empire joining in. Then, when Austria declared war on Serbia, Russia declared war on Austria as Russia had a contract with Serbia that they would
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During the 1900s, many people took pride in their countries and wanted to prove the world how great their country is. And to do that, they would have to declare and win a war against their rivals. It led to the war for the reason that the overconfidence fueled their strength in militarism. This is probably why other countries such as Portugal and Italy joined the war- simply because of their confidence. There were downsides to it- it made the war longer then everyone thought it would be as there were so many countries fighting, hence being called World War 1. It was more important than imperialism as countries were already taking over each other’s