World War I

World War I began with the death of an archduke. Archduke Franz Ferdinand beloved that slaves along with his empire required more power. Archduke Franz Ferdinand use to be emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On June 28, 1914, a group of Serbs who believed that the slaves belonged to them attempted an assignation of the archduke Ferdinand by trying to blow him up. The group was known as the “Blackhand.” This group failed to blow up the archduke but did successed in stabbing him to death. Some say it was an accidental stabbing, nonetheless still killing him as planned. This death pushed austro-hungry to declare war on Serbia on July 28, 1914.

Along with this death that impacted the beginning of World War I, there were many more reasons why World War I began. The alliance system which consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy went to war with Great Britain, France, and Russia. Russia was tied to a previous treaty to defend Serbia against Austria-Hungary, so on July 30, 1914, Russia goes to war. Germany now entered the war to protect Austria-Hungary against the Russians who had already entered the war. On august 3,1914, German troops attack France, a Russian western ally, thus causing great Britain to enter the first world war the very next day by declaring war on Germany.

The arms race is another cause of the fist world war. At this time, Germany had the most successful army of those in the war. Germany instituted a large draft of military forces to make up their general staff. Although they did have the most successful army, they did not have the largest. The largest army in Europe was the German kieser army, but the largest army in the world is the British army. The British already announced that they would have an army two and half times greater than threat of any other army. The British army was so large they were able to scatter their army on various parts of the world, such as in India. The German kieser believed they could come up with a navy to defeat the British army. From this belief emerged the Schrieffer plan. With this plan a small part of the German army was sent to Russia and a much larger part of the army was sent to Paris by train. The key to this plan is how quickly Paris could be defeated. Once Paris was taken out, the German army could help take out Russia from all sides.

Other causes such as imperialism, nationalism, progressivism, navalism, and militarism also contribute to the start of word war I.

Imperialism was thought of as a cause for the First World War with Bosnia, Austria-Hungary, and Germany all believing that they had better ideas than the others. Austria-Hungary believed that the slaves needed more power but Bosnia believed that the slaves belonged to them, for their own economic and political benefit they wanted to control the slaves.

Nationalism is a belief that people of the same language, belief, traditions, and customs belong under the same nation. Many different nationalities lived close together causing everyone to wonder where one nationality began and where one ended. These nationalities all wanted to begin developing their own rights, their own nation-states that they started sacrificing their neighbors to get ahead. All this confusion and fighting led to the First World War.

Progressivism is a belief that societies progress through time. Progressivisms wanted to make change a good thing, to make politics uncorrupted with the idea of progressivism. America was seen as a superior land and fantasy that Britain, Germany, and Russia all strived to get what America supposedly offered through its ideas of progressivism. This slow change of progressivism was a factor causing the First World War.

Navalism was evident through out the First World War. Even before World War I navalism was apparent. Just taking a look at the arms race we can see that who ever have the largest army can win the war, is basically what navalism is. Britain had the largest army but Germany was valiantly trying to be the better, biggest army. America already had a great navy and if they entered the war, everyone else knew they were going to have to increase their number of soldiers to compete with the United States and its navy.

Along with navalism came militarism. Militarism was the belief that the stronger the army the better it was. Nations trained their armies through fitness and strength to get ahead through militarism. Intelligence and thinking abilities also were a way to train the armies which made it possible for the Schrieffer plan to come about. The German army pushed its general staff to come up with ways to better its army position, therefore producing this great plan.

Some key events led up to the United States entering the war. A telegraph was sent by Germany’s foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmerman, to Mexico’s German minister. This telegraph asked Mexico to attack the United States if Germany went to war with the United States for