World War 1, also known as The Great War, came to an end after four years. It involved assassinations of more than 20 million people. The War began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, but there were also another four main causes that led to WW1. Those four reasons would be Militarism, Alliance, Imperialism, and Nationalism.
Nationalism, is a love and passionate learning about one's culture, and being loyal to your country. During WWI, many nations started to compete for power and territory and this caused a lot of rivalries amongst them. Because competition was so fierce, a lot of people started to fear Germany's growing power in Europe. Also, many groups hated the idea of being dominated by others, that they went to the larger nations to seek protection. They wanted to have their nations be independent as well.
Imperialism was another reason for war. Imperialism is to take over power from other places by economic, political, or military means. The European nations were looking to take over as much territory as possible. They were being supplied with raw materials and were providing markets for manufactured goods. Because Germany was being industrialized, they were now able to compete with France and Britain for the colonies.
Militarism is the practice of having a strong military army and using them as a tool of diplomacy. Military spending increased due to the growth of Nationalism and Imperialism. France and Germany's armies doubled. At this time, Britain had the strongest navy in the world, but then in 1897, Germany's emperor, decided he wanted Germany to be just as strong if not stronger. This created competition between France and Germany to control the seas by building better and larger battleships and destroyers. Of course, everyone wanted to join this race, that's when Italy, Japan and the United States decided to join.
Alliances: Competition amongst the nations caused European countries to make alliances with each other to increase strength and retain peace. There were two main alliances . The first group consisted of France, Britain and Russia. They were called the Triple Entente, and later became known as the Allies. This alliance was made so that they could counter the threat from Germany. The Triple Alliance consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. This alliance was made because Germany and Austria-Hungary didn't want Italy to side with Russia, so this was a way of stopping Italy from joining with Russia. Later on the Austria-Hungary group teamed up with the Otterman Empire and eventually got called Central Powers. The two groups then came up with an act of international security because there was a large group of people and they didn't want to interrupt the power that the country had. It turned out that a major conflict had aroused.
This video I chose is to help someone understand this topic. It is describing what the four main causes that led up to world war 1. It would help someone understand this topic because if you haven't studied this yet, she explains it really well and she also talks about how the war started.
I chose this video because it explained to me what the four main causes were. I also learned tons by listening to to what the four main causes were. I enjoyed this video because I never knew that nationalism, the alliance system, militarism, and imperialism were the four main reasons of why world war 1 started. I remember studying world war 1 but I don't remember studying the four main reasons that led up to the war.
