There were four big causes of the World War 1 which are Nationalism, Imperialism, Militarism, and System of Alliances. What do these words mean? Nationalism is the devotion to that country's culture and interests. Nationalism was a major conflict in starting of the first world war because Europe had rivalries with countries leading up to 1914 (The beginning of the war) with countries Russia, Britain, Austri-Hungary, Italy, Germany, and France. Two types of Nationalism occured, which were wanting independence for people and wanting independent nations. Germany had conflicts with all of those countries except Austria-Hungary. All of these alliances between the countries caused the system of alliances.
The System of Alliances were started by Bismarck (The leader of Germany) and wanted to keep Germany's dominance over other countries. The Alliances were Dreikaiserbund of 1872 (Three emperors league,) Dual Alliance of 1879, The Second Dreikasierbund in 1881 (Renewed the first Dreikaiserbund because of a new emperor,) Triple Alliance in 1882, The Reinsurance Treaty of 1887 (Secret alliance between Bismarck and Russia without Austria knowing,) Franco-Russian Alliance in 1893, and Ententes in the early 1900's. France challenged this dominance of theirs because they got defeated by Germany before. So Germany tried to become friends with Russia, Italy, Britain, and Austria so this could isolate France. Conflicts between Austria and Russia did not help this though because these two countries both wanted to dominate the Balkans. Bismarck chose to side with Austria because Austria was weaker than them. Bismarck kept a friendship with Russia so that Russia would not turn against them and go with France. (The picture on the left is Bismarck. The picture on the right is Kaiser William II.)
Bismarck was very smart and had alliances with Italy, Russia, Britain, and Austria. Kaiser William II became the leader later and changed everything in a bad way because he had an ambition to have dominance of world power. This was a major cause because the alliances were made in secret, there was an arms race, and the security between countries caused war to break out.
Imperialism is ruling other countries ecomically with the Industrial Revolution and empires over eachother. The clash of Germany against Britain was a reason for the war, also.
The growth of nationalism and imperialism led to militarism. Militarism is the development of armed forces in countries to protect empires. Each country had empires that wanted armed forces to watch over it so they would have better protection than their enemies in other countries. Germany set up an army reserve system that trained men and was the strongest nation in Europe. However, Britain had the strongest navy. But after awhile, the emperor of Germany wanted to have the strongest sea power and became apart of the naval arms race. Germany passed the German Navy Law in 1898 which increased their battleships to twelve cruisers. While Germany did that, Britain made a dreadnought (large, fast, and heavily armed ships with 12 inch guns) and later made up to 18 while Germany made 9 of them. Military and naval rivalry between countries led to war.
I think that all of these alliances between the countries were smart for the most part and helped keep the countries safe from attacking during the war. I did not like Kaiser William II because he ruined all of the alliances he had from Bismarck before. Bismarck was smart and Kaiser was not at all just because he wanted to dominate the world. I think the alliances were a big reason for the war to break out.
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