World War 1 Causes Essay

The Underlying Cause of World War I World War I was the start of a series of battles to come. The countries involved in the war were: the United States, Russia, Italy, Britain, and France allied against Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire. World War I lasted four long years, between the years of 1914 to 1918, which was much longer than anyone had expected. During those four years, 20,000,000 people had died. In the late 19th century, the leaders of European thought that creating a balance of power would prevent this occurrence. The real causes of World War I had to do with the formation of alliances, the large amount of money spent and colonization. Before World War I, alliances were made, which had divided the world’s countries. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy were all united and had been allies to reach each other’s benefits (European Alliances, 1914 Map). “Germany worried about one day having to fight a war on two fronts or two different bodies” (European Alliances, 1914). In this map, it was stating how the country, Germany, was worried about being surrounded by countries they were not allied with, but those countries were allied together. This is one of the causes of World War I due to the countries being allied

“All of the countries spent a significant difference on armaments between the years of 1890-1914” (Overy, 1999). The amount of money being spent on armaments increased so much during the time period of 1890-1914. Also, according to The London Times History of the World, new edition edited by Richard Overy, it shows that in 1890, Germany spent 28 million pounds and in 1914, the country spent 117 million pounds. Another example is how much money Russia spent: in 1890: 34 million pounds, in 1914: 90 million pounds. Due to the large growth on money spent on armaments in each country, this caused them to keep spending more money because of the