Most of the causes in the world war one were these four main topics.
What made them mad or what started the whole thing was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. (Serbian Black Hand terrorists) (Sarajevo) June 28, 1914. This lead to all of these Causes:
Most of the causes in the world war one were these four main topics.
Mutual Defense Alliances-which is a lot of alliances had been signed by countries between 1879- 1914. They were important because they meant that some countries had no option but to declare war if one of their allies. declared war first.
5 main Alliances:
Russia and Serbia
Germany and Austria-Hungary
France and Russia
Britain and France and Belgium
Japan and Britain
Imperialism- By 1900 the British Empire extended over five continents and France had control of large areas of Africa. The rise of industrialism countries needed new markets. The amount of lands owned by Britain and France increased the competition with Germany who had entered the journey to acquire colonies late and only had small areas of Africa.
Militarism- The growing European divide and had to led to an arms race between the main countries. The armies of both France and Germany had more than doubled between 1870 - 1914 and there was fierce competition between Britain/ 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 Russia made an attack on Germany. The map below shows how the plan was to work.
Nationalism- The Congress of Vienna, held after Napoleon's outcast to Elba, aimed to sort out difficulties in Europe. Delegates from Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia decided they wanted a new Europe that left both Germany and Italy as divided states.
Strong nationalist elements led to the re-unification of Italy in 1861 and Germany in 1871. The settlement at the end of the Franco-Prussian war left France angry at the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany and they lost their regain and also their territory. Large areas of both Austria-Hungary, Serbia were home to opposing nationalist groups, all of whom wanted freedom from the states in which they lived.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Vienna
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/worldwari/tp/causes-of-world-war-1.htm
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/worldwari/tp/causes-of-world-war-1.htm
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