history assessment on the causes of the great war

Assessment on “Why was there a World War in 1914?”

In the early 20th Century international relationships were very tense. There were the Great Powers, and their alliances, these consisted of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. As well as this even those countries were thriving to become the most powerful in Europe, they were trying to colonise many countries, produce more navy ships and increase their military army.

* On the 28th June 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Franz Joseph emperor of Austria-Hungary, was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip of the Black Hand gang: a group that wanted independence for Bosnia. They were given weapons by Serbia, and so when the assassination had taken place Austria quickly blamed Serbia for the assassination and, on the 23rd of July, gave Serbia an ultimatum for allowing Austria-Hungary soldiers to come into Serbia to find the culprits. Serbia refused and, on the 28th of July, the Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, however it was not before they asked Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany whether Germany would have supported them in the war as they were allies. They did this because they knew that Russia would have felt obliged to helping Serbia in a war as Russia had failed Serbia once before. Germany had agreed to aid Austria-Hungary if they so needed. However Russia were also part of the Triple Entente; which consists of Britain, France and Russia, this meant that Britain and France were also allies with Russia. As well as that, in 1870, France had lost territory and a war to Germany and was not the best of friends with them. As Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, Russia allied with Serbia, whilst Germany allied with Austria-Hungary. However Germany also had a plan to get rid of the French before they could be of any useful assistance to Russia, this was part of the Schleiffen plan. Unfortunately for Germany they had not known that going through Belgium would anger the British and that, on the 4th of August, the British would come to aid France and Russia against Germany and Austria-Hungary. This way this made many countries come into the war. However what really started the Great War was it really just the assassination? In this essay I will try to explain reasons for the start of the Great War, hopefully in great depth…

* I have said before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip. The assassination was linked to the Bosnian crisis as the Bosnians wanted independence from Austria-Hungary; the Black hand gang were trained and supplied by the Serbians. So when the Austrian-Hungarians wanted to avenge the heir to the throne it was not surprising that they wanted to start a war on Serbia, they gave Serbia an extremely terrible ultimatum requests which they were bound to have rejected, therefore

By Gabriel Chiu, Page number 1/7Mr. Keates (History)


this gave Austria-Hungary the excuse to attack. This sparked off the Great War as it gave Austria-Hungary the excuse to invade Serbia and spark off the alliance system. This is evident when you look at the series of events that had happened after Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia. On the 31st of July, Germany was in a state of war; then they declared war on Russia the day after. Then on the 3rd of August they had also declared war on France, and because of this Great Britain felt obliged to start a war against Germany. Then after 6 days France declared war on, Germany’s ally: Austria-Hungary. Next Britain followed their allies and also declared war on Austria on the 12th of August. The assassination was then therefore very important as it brought in to play the Allie system which made this war a “World” war. However the assassination was done because Bosnia wanted to be independent from the control of Austria Hungary.

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The Alliance system expanded the war further than the countries had expected. It was initially only a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia however because of the alliances and obligations countries had with one and other it soon came into a “one thing led to another” effect. As it is seen in the Dual Alliance, between Germany and Austria-Hungary, the deal was that if Russia would ever attack either of them the other would give military aid. As in this circumstance Russia had to fight Austria as it was also obliged, to Serbia, because they had let them down in the Balkans war and had agreed an alliance to support Serbia if they were attacked. Already because of these two alliances an extra two countries have already been brought in. Another alliance system that was created was the triple alliance. In this pact they had agreed that:

(i) If Italy or Germany was attacked by France, each would aid the other;

(ii) If Austria was attacked by Russia, Italy would remain neutral, although Austria would aid Italy if she was attacked by France;

(iii) If one of the parties was attacked by two or more powers, the other signatories were to come to her aid; and

(iv) (At Italy's request), both Austria and Germany agreed that in no case would the Treaty operate against Britain. So in technicality Italy should have sided with Germany and Austria-Hungary however because of (ii) Italy were able to stay neutral. However even so this tie had also made Germany obliged again to aid Austria-Hungary. When Germany was ruled by Bismark the Germans believed that Germany was a satiated state, they didn’t need to colonise any more. So



their ruler decided to forge alliances in Europe a) to stop war and b) to isolate France as they saw them as rivals and needed them to be diverted in their attentions from Alsace-Lorraine, areas that were taken from France by Germany. However these alliances were not as well as they seemed… that was because Bismark was put out of power and Kaiser Wilhelm was put into power. The new German emperor did not believe tat Germany was satiated; in fact he wanted Germany to have a “place in the sun” and because of this Germany started to build on its navy and military forces. They were also very jealous of the empires that Britain and France had. As Germany developed his army France became quite afraid and decided to not be isolated in international politics so they allied with Russia and Britain, in the Triple Entente. This alliance also allowed, if war broke out, to fight Germany on two fronts. Although Britain did not precisely have to join the war as in the agreement their tie was very loose, but there was also a 75 year old agreement between Britain and Belgium that if Belgium ever was attacked Britain would aid them, and it was just in Germany’s ignorance that Germany decided to attack France via Belgium as they saw them as weak and neutral. They did not anticipate Britain’s support. And because Britain had entered the frame; the colonies of Britain, for example Canada and Australia, were also going to fight on the Triple Entente side. It was also in another agreement that Italy was forced back into the frame, they had agreed with the Triple Entente, in the Treaty of London, to assist them. So as it is clear, in various agreements many countries have been obliged to enter this “small” war but eventually because of all of this the many countries that joined in made it a World war. But it was not just because of so many alliances that created the World war in 1914, there were other ones as well that are linked to alliances, one of which were the military forces in many of the countries as they all wanted to be part of the greatest alliance. Another reason why alliances were created from other factors was because so many countries had, or had had, imperialistic views and many of the countries wanted to keep them safe from other European countries so they made pacts. So it is obvious that alliances made a great portion of the fact of “why there was a “world” war” but it was not the only sole reason as to why there was a war.

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Imperialism played a major factor in the war. There were two areas which have been controlled by separate countries which had also angered different countries, these were: Alsace-Lorraine, this was taken from France by Germany, and Bosnia, which was controlled by Austria-Hungary, and they wanted independence. This meant that France would have taken whatever chance that would have arisen to fight Germany back for the land, and Bosnia would do whatever it would take to become independent. This is clearly shown when the Bosnian terrorist group, the Black Hand Gang, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. However looking at these



two examples it is also evident that Nationalism plays a role, especially seeing as Bosnia wanted to be independent, a Nationalism policy. Also Imperialism played a huge role in causing the tension that had arisen in Europe. This was because of the great colonial empires many countries had. Other countries, such as Germany, became envious. And they would attempt to create their own empire. This meant that the greater empires would have been very anxious to see what Germany would have done to gather this great empire, especially at the helm of Kaiser Wilhelm, as he wanted Germany to rule great nations and therefore to have a “place in the sun”. You could take an analogy from a playground fight… Let’s say that there were two gangs, and usually in gangs they would only consist of the strongest kids in the playground. These would be like the Britain, Russia and France (etc) of the early 20th Century. And when two gangs in a playground are formed they usually “taunt” each other and “intimidate” one another. This was sort of what it was like. The bigger and stronger the kids were in the gang the “scarier” they looked. Also when the “scary” kid has also a lot of smaller but “vicious” kids with him it also makes him look bigger and stronger. These vicious kids would have been the colonies of the greater countries in Europe (the big guys in their gangs). When a fight broke out the entire gang would have felt that they needed to fight for their gang which is why having a large group/gang made you “look” stronger and probably be stronger. This is why the satiated countries, such as Britain and France, felt threatened by countries like Germany that were colonising. How did this cause the great war, well, firstly, it built a lot of tension, even just from country to country as they saw each other as a threat. Secondly, many countries wanted to test out there new military that they had got from colonising, and to see who was better. Especially in Britain, because they used to be a colonising country, the people in that country still thought that the wars would have been the same, because of their large colonies. And thirdly, Germany had wanted to try to snatch some of the countries that France and Britain had, so they were ready to take whatever chance possible this made it really difficult for Britain and France. So Britain and France signed an alliance, Germany felt threatened and wanted to stop the two large empire countries from keeping their empires safe. There they created a crisis, such as the first Moroccan crises: Kaiser Wilhelm II made a visit to Morocco and made the “open door” speech which asked whether Morocco should have independence. However this was met with a strong French defiant line and with the British supporting them made the lesser imperialistic state, Germany, isolated. This is a great example of what Germany wanted to do with its country. After its failure Germany, and its allies, then had really bad relationships with the Triple Entente which led to the tension between countries and therefore led to the First World War.



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Nationalism created the spark of the war. It is evident that this happened as the Black Hand Gang, a Bosnian terrorist group, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. They did this because they were controlled by Austria-Hungary. Also France wanted Alsace and Lorraine back. They were very focused on this task as they believed that the two areas were truly theirs. They would have done anything, including start a war with Germany, to get the areas back. It is clearly proven that they wanted the areas back as when Germany joined on Austria-Hungary’s side they very quickly joined that war and supported Russia, but of course you could also say that that was because of the alliance system; furthermore after the war they did take the areas back. Bosnian’s wanted to be independent as they thought that they should have a “Bosnia” country. However Austria-Hungary wanted to keep the state that they had taken. This meant that Austria-Hungary sent their military force to find the culprits who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand; and in doing so they forced Serbia into a war. This, as I have said before, led to the alliance system which expanded the war. However because Germany wasn’t as established as they would have liked to be in Europe, being very nationalistic about their country, they saw the chance to start a war and make themselves known in Europe.

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Military built the bases of this war. This is quite obvious as without the military it wouldn’t have been much of a war! Anyhow the military increased the tension that each alliance had with the other. All the countries were developing there military force and most of them wanted to use it and test it, just to see who was really the best. This especially applied to Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm and the elite German officers all believed that Germany could only have “a place in the sun”, or to make a political stance in Europe was to have a war. Also when Britain released the Dreadnought, an exceptional navy ship in those days, Germany immediately saw it as a threat and decided to make them. This led to the naval race between Germany and Britain and it made their political relations tedious and difficult. We can see the evidence of this when you see that in 1870, both the Triple Entente and Triple alliance combined, the expenditure for military resources was only 94 million pounds whilst in 1914 it rose up to 398 million pounds. Also looking at the statistics, in 1910-1914, France increased their defence expenditure by 10%, Britain by 13%, Russia by 39%; however Germany increased theirs by the most. They boosted it by a huge 73%. Therefore with all this money going into the military it enabled many countries to be able to train their armies and build, enhance battleships. When all this new military investment was going on the



Alliances between themselves also had secret military talks. They did this so that they were ready, and had a plan, for when the war was going to break out. Even they saw, that because of the growth in tension and the growth in the power of each country’s military, that there was going to be a war. They prepared themselves for the “inevitable”. Let me explain why the countries busied themselves with expanding their military, firstly, Germany, with the largest increase, wanted to be imperial. They wanted to make a stance in Europe and also wanted to pinch some of the vast amounts of countries both Britain and France had in Africa and around the globe. Secondly, because of Germany, Britain knew that the French and Russian navy were not strong enough to fend off the German Navy and so they knew that as the German’s would have targeted French and Russian ships, the British navy had to develop and make more Dreadnoughts in order to keep the German’s at bay. Also if the Germans would ever face the Britain’s in a navy battle the British needed to be prepared and also knew that without an increased Navy they would loose. Also as Germany had the Schleiffen plan they needed an increased number of army men to be able to carry their planned “6 week” invasion of France. They did this as otherwise the manpower would not have been enough to fend off the French as well as the Russian’s from the other side. However because of all this increase of military in Europe, especially by Germany, it made the Anglo-German relationship very poor, and deteriorates very quickly. This all meant that if ever there was “peace” talk that would not have worked. Whenever countries begin to grow in their empire and military, parts of that group want to break off, just like the Bosnians and the Black Hand Gang. They wanted independence from Austria-Hungary, and as they assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand the Austria-Hungary military declared a fight with Serbia, which in effect started the war.

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Therefore in Conclusion I believe that it was mainly due to military development that the First World War was created. I do realise that many other areas play important roles in causing the war but I believe that it was the military that led to Countries having imperialistic goals, and therefore creating alliances to protect their conquered lands. But whenever countries take over other countries the other countries become very nationalistic and attempt to break free from the control. This definitely happened when you look at the Black Hand Gang assassination Archduke Franz Ferdinand, it is clear that they did it for nationalistic agenda’s, which I have stated leads back to Militarism. So yes all the factors built up and expanded the war, but I think, personally, if I was to give a judgement, that it was the Military that created the First World War because of the reason I have stated before.

By Gabriel Chiu, DVS. (Mr Keates History essay)


history assessment on the causes of the great war

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