Chibuike Ezenekwe
Period 1
February 10, 2015
The Cause of World War I
In the end, the once funny war was no longer funny at all. World War I was fought for four years, from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918. About 20 million people were wounded and over 16 million people were killed. That includes about 10 million military personnel and about 7 million civilians. The war had many underlying causes that molded and shaped the war the way it did. At least four of those causes were militarism, nationalism, imperialism, and alliances. Of those, nationalism was the most underlying. Although nationalism was the main cause of the war, other causes were alongside nationalism that contributed to the cause of World War I. Among those causes were
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Many nations gathered colonies to build up national wealth and influence other nations. Seeing that both France and Britain had many colonies, Germany and Italy decided they wanted colonies too. This competition for colonies caused conflicts in many places. In document F, it shows the size of colonial empires of nations. Seeing that Britain had a wide area in square miles and a high population in colonies, one would think that the other nations would notice this and become worried. This actually happened, and when it did, more conflicts erupted which also contributed to World War …show more content…
nationalism is the main cause. Many nations thought they were better than the others, which can and did lead to many problems. It could anger the other nations to fight or it could influence the nation with a high source of nationalism to do irrational things. In the background essay of the documents packet, it states that in the area of southeastern Europe known as the Balkans, the spirit of nationalism ran high which caused problems. Ethnic groups revolted and the Serbian nationalism group called the Black Hand was the trigger which fired off war. They planned to assassinate the Archduke of Austria when he came to visit Serbia, hoping that would lead to a rebellion that would lead to Serbian independence. Just the opposite happened. When they assassinated the archduke and his wife, more than a rebellion started. Things got out of control and soon all of Europe was at war. This caused World War