Causes of the First World War

Alliances were a huge impact on the causes of the first world war in 1914. Alliances were a major problem because they were thought to be formed for protection but really caused further problems in the future. Turned sides against one another, some countries joined and left alliances, thus causing problems and then not dealing with them.

Alliances were first formed for the idea of protection of one country to another, with the idea if one country was attacked by another country; the countries in that alliance would come to the aid of the victim country and provide military help in addition to support to keep the country stable. This idea can be traced back to the 1800’s where th4e fist alliances could be seen being formed. For example Serbia and Russia were in alliance with one another, and Austria Hungary and Germany were in alliance with one another. When one country of an alliance was attacked, the other countries in that alliance began to fight that countries problem. When the archduke was assassinated, Germany began to form ultimatums for Serbia to abide by for Austria Hungary, rather than having Austria Hungary deal with its own problems. This lead to problems being created between more countries then needed because rather than just having a problem with one country of an alliance, the whole alliance now had a problem with the opposing country thus creating a larger conflict then needed.

When the war started larger alliances were then formed. On one side was the triple alliance containing the United States, great Britain, and Russia, and on the other side was Germany, and Austria Hungary, and eventually Italy who joined later into the war. This is significant because one of the major causes of the war was the assassination of the archduke, yet Serbia isn’t even involved in either of the alliances. This further displaying that the alliances provoked the beginning of the war because some of the countries from the original problems weren’t