[Type text] [Type text] [Type text]
Tristan Inglesfield
The Causes of WWI
World War I was a war that involved countries from all over the world. It lasted for over four years from 28th July 1914 until 11th November 1918. The main powers fighting were the Triple Alliance, which were Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy and the Triple Entente, which were France, Russia and Great Britain. However Italy refused to join the war in 1914 and then later sided with the Triple Entente in 1915. Russia left the war in 1917 as there was a revolution and the USA joined in the same year. The colonies of these countries also fought meaning that it was truly a 'world war' as there was fighting all across the globe from Europe to the Middle East to Africa.
The First World War primarily happened because of the alliance system. This is not the sole cause of war - other factors such as imperialist ambitions and militarism are important and of course the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the final trigger, but without the alliance system countries would not have had enough support to wage war or if they did others would not have joined in to help them, without these alliances it would not have been a world war but rather a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia.
English: Deutsch:
English: Russian 1914 poster. The upper inscriptio...
English: A simple map showing the Triple Alliance ...Imperialist ambitions played a considerable role in starting to increase tension between nations. These ambitions have a lot to do with Germany. As she was a new country, unified in 1871, she had to prove herself to the world. Kaiser Wilhelm II was jealous of the British Empire and wanted one of his own. He came to power in 1888 and wanted land in Africa but by then Britain and France had taken all of...