Ism Wwi

Wold War 1, also known as the First World War, lasted from 1914 to 1918. In nearly four years, the causalities soared to nearly forty million along with twenty million military and civilian deaths. Why was this crisis not dealt with in a more conventional, much less destructive way? It is important to note that there had been several crises before in the decade before 1914 and those involving the major powers in Europe had been settled peacefully. So did something go wrong in the handling of the crisis, or did one or more of the countries involved exploit the situation to plunge Europe into war? Beginning in August 1914, the war was directly triggered by the assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, on 28th June 1914 by Bosnian revolutionary, Gavrilo Princip. This event was, however, simply the trigger that set off declarations of war. The actual causes of the war are more complicated and cannot be reasoned with just a single cause. In general, The First World War began because of the mounting tension in Europe and the middle east. However, as David Fromkin states, “WW1 was caused by not one, but four ‘MAIN’ causes: M- Militarism, A- Alliances, I- Imperialism, and N- Nationalism.”

The rise of military resources was a huge part. People started to go into a state of total war where the whole country used all their resources to make guns, tanks, etc. Militarism means that the army and military forces are given a high profile by the government. The growing European divide had led to an arms race between the main countries. The armies of both France and Germany had more than doubled between 1870 and 1914 and there was fierce competition between Britain and Germany for mastery of the seas. The British had introduced the 'Dreadnought', an effective battleship, in 1906. The Germans soon followed suit introducing their own battleships. The German, Von Schlieffen also drew up a plan of action that involved attacking France through Belgium if...