Historical Essay Example: Causes of World War 1

How did World War 1 Start

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Source: Kelly Martin. (n.d)The Top five Causes that Led to World War I. About Education

The source highlights the major issues that lead to the world war one. The author lists five reasons that could have result in the world war. However, he gives an American perspective leaning on the actions of America and the effects that faced the country after the war. Other than that, it offers a comprehensive outlook of the reasons behind the start of the war.

Article Review

The article takes note of the changes that occurred between the 19th and the beginning of the twentieth century that led to the First World War. It notes that, apart from the murder of Archduke Ferdinand, other factors had already built up the pressure and the assassination was similar to a spark of fire in already dry grass. The article is, however, rather brief and does not give much detail on the listed causes. The three to five sentences descriptions on each cause are not all that satisfactory.

Other than the length, there are fewer issues on the level of facts captured by the article. The paper gives an insight as to the issue listing the pertinent matters intricately. Also, the author takes note of the need to relate the information and as such takes an American perspective by explaining the effects of the USA’s involvement and the number of the soldiers lost in the overture. However, concisely, the article covers all the necessary issues pertinent to outlining the reasons behind the breaking out of the First World War.

What Caused WW1

When talking about the world war one, one tends to find him/herself met with two types of scenarios. These include the immediate reasons behind the onset of the First World War and the underlying dark reasons behind the war. Some of these underlying, broad set reasons included nationalism, imperialism, militarism and alliances. Well, while these were the deep set goals, there was one reason that acted as the trigger towards the war. And this was the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This trigger gave the other factors the chance to show themselves as during the outbreak, the Serbians who were allied to coalition forces were assured of the backing of coalition forces and anyone else that was allied to coalition forces (Kelly).

Alliances

Many countries within Europe made political and military alliances that would see the rest of their allies protect them in an eventuality of war. This meant that, if a single country was attacked, the rest would be equally called upon to defend their allied nations. In the period before the beginning of the First World War, Germany had allied herself to the Austro-Hungarians to form the triple. Italy also joined the alliance in 1882 forming the central powers alliance. In fear of this, France made an accord with Russia in 1894 and also entered into a treaty termed entente with the British in 1904. The British also formed an alliance with Russia in 1907 to form the triple entente. By creating the partnerships, the governments, and the politicians saw this as a way to cause other nations to be wary of their borders given the number of people they had to contend with given any occurrence of war (Joll & Martel, 2007; Truman, 2015).

Militarism

The fear of the alliances made some countries increase their stockpiles of weapons. The powers came out as if they were competing. When Britain constructed the HMS Dreadnought, Germany made a similar ship and as such, increased the tension. Many nations, due to their nationalistic tendencies kept building up their strength so that they could safeguard their borders at eventuality of war. In a way, the alliance between Britain, Russia, and France made Germany feel unsafe, and as such, she started building up their Navy and Empire (Kelly).

Imperialism

Major nations of Europe had other territories that they had already taken over. They were majorly the sources of raw materials making these countries increasingly wealthy. Major players in this included Britain and France, each of which applied different ways of governing these territories (Truman, 2015). Others such as Germany and Italy had been left out, but they started scrabbling for territories afterward, and that was at the beginning of the 20th century. Since the central powers could not find colonies because they had already been taken over by the triple entente members. The relations between these countries kept deteriorating as time went by given the privileged position of some economies about others (Joll & Martel, 2007).

Nationalism

At the time, there were vast empires that composed of people of many ethnicities. Most of these people wanted to be free from these empires. Many of these nations, for instance, the Serbs wanted to be released from the massive empires. The Black Hand was the instigator and the power behind the start of the war as earlier indicated given that their member was the killer of the heir to Austro-Hungary throne. From there, we find that if this nationalistic force never tried to bring about a separatist agenda, then it would be very hard for the war to start. However, the war served multiple purposes in that it exposed the deep lying cracks within the big empires and the eventual independence of the concerned parties (Kelly; Truman, 2015).