Was WWI Inevitable?

Essay by dhalovaHigh School, 11th grade November 2004

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In the beginning of the 20th century no one believed that such a war of world range would erupt very soon. In fact the nations did whatever they could to prevent war on all cost or at least to ensure their advantage if another nation attacks them. But such a war was inevitable and would have sooner or later occurred. Furthermore, the alliances, the improved technology and their desire to gain more land resulted in World War I. no matter whether it was 1914 or 1934, this war would have occurred.

The alliances between the Great Powers were initially designed to protect their members from external attacks. These alliances - the Triple Alliance (Austro-Hungary, Italy, Germany) and the Triple Entente (France, Russia, Britain) - combine in such a way that they "encircled" each other [Rosevear]. This instead of ensuring the peace only made the nations more suspicious of each other.

This tension and the uncertainty whether the other was plotting evil plans against them would have sooner or later ended up with a war. Even the smallest incident could have been able to trigger the so long held tension and the war would have begun.

Since every country was suspicious about the other, they wanted to make sure that they have an advantage in a possible upcoming war. The New Technologies and the already finished Industrial Revolution enabled a lot of nations to build new weapons [Rosevear]. England, for example, wanted a total control over the sea. So they created the Dreadnaught ship to be one step ahead of their neighbors [Rosevear]. The Germans, on the other hand, did not want to "get behind" of the English, so they stole those plans. Thus they tried to advance upon Britain. All the new military...