The Great War Argumentative Analysis

In his liturgical work On War, Clausewitz states that “war is a mere continuation of politics with the addition of other mean” (18). Nothing could better characterize the political map of Europe in the early years of the 20th century leading up to The Great War. The political environment of pre-WWI Europe was filled with treaties and alliances created to prevent war and an emphasis of offensive realism and balanced multipolarity. If the great powers of Europe had focused more on liberalism and not practiced persuasive rhetoric then the conflicts that dominated the years of 1914 through 1918 may have been prevented. Leading up to the start of the war, Europe was divided into two main parties: the Allies, which was constructed of the Franco-Russian

It would seem that after centuries of war within Europe, that each country would practice liberalism through cooperation to attain mutual peace. This may have been the intent of each country, but after 45 years of peace in Europe, many countries had forgotten the true horrors of war and had instead been infected with nationalism. In practice their actions were more aligned with realism and with each country continuing to increase their military power. Then it became increasingly difficult to insure political restoration was the answer. When your best tool is a hammer, then every problem looks like a

The intent of the alliances may have been to prevent war but in practice they were perhaps what influenced it the most. If in practice they had stayed true to wanting to avert war then it may have worked, but each country (primarily Austria-Hungary) had used large amounts of rhetoric to influence their own agenda. Nationalism ended up becoming too strong as each country began to place the importance of superiority over peace of the nations. Political leaders used persuasive language to manipulate the regions into a competition of who is the strongest nation. As with many conflicts in history, pride often overcomes the idea of peace. As each country focused more on realism and unipolarity rather than liberalism and cooperation then it is easy for conflict to start. Once the table has been set for war, as it had before 1914, then all that is needed is an excuse to fire the first shot. After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, it was almost impossible to further political negotiating other than by means of