World War 1
World War 1, the first Great War, lasted from August 1914 to November 1918. World War 1 involved many countries including most of Europe, the Unites States, Australia and other countries throughout the world. World War 1 was the most destructive and violent war in European history and made a great impact. But why did it start? What caused this first total world war to begin? Was it jealousy, or envy? Or suspicion of what other countries were getting up to? But there are many reasons of why World War 1 started, and some reasons are, imperialism, arms races, nationalism and the final trigger, the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand who was heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Imperialism is when a country takes over new lands or countries and makes them follow their rules. In an attempt to increase Europe’s power the European nations started to compete for new colonies, mainly in North Africa since it had not yet been colonized and was also close to Europe. Germany also wanted new lands and countries but only had small areas of Africa, so the competition between the Europeans and Germans increased. This led to a lot of friction between the European nations and Germany.
The threat of the unfriendly division led to an arms race, which was another cause of World War 1. Accepting that Germany was the leader in military organization, the Great Powers of Europe copied the universal conscription, which consisted of large assets and detailed planning of the Prussian system. Technological developments led to the arrangement of general members with defined plans for the attack. The German von Schlieffen plan to attack France before Russia in the event of war was a complicated plan and brought more countries into war. The international rivalry, or competition, causes the arms race to continue on.
Europe had avoided many major wars before World War 1 erupted. But a sudden force swept across the continent the helped bring...
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