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What Were The Underlying Causes Of World War 1 Essay

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The Underlying Causes of World War I

World War was one of history’s greatest tragedies. The war was fought in Europe and lasted as long as four year’s, 1914-1918. The war costed an estimate of ten million lives and also twenty million wounded. Also, the war was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. It is very to understand the causes of this tragedy. The war had three significant causes. They were Alliances, Militarism, and Imperialism. The first cause of World War I was Imperialism. By the late 19th century, Europe has took up so much of Earth, especially in Africa and southern Asia. The war in 1913, Britain controlled more than twelve million square miles of overseas possessions. France had over four million (Doc.F). This didn't look good for Germany and Austria-Hungary who lost one million square miles of possessions between them. They trailed England and France sixteen to one. Germans saw England as a giant octopus with it’s tentacles around the world sucking out the Earth’s resources (Doc.E). Arms and a alliance were necessary to fight this colonial monster. But the arms and alliances were the means for dealing with the real problem. The underlying problem was the unequal distribution of the colonial pie. …show more content…

Europe was divided into two nations while on the other side was the Triple Alliance ( Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.) Also, the Triple Entente (France, England, and Russia) (Doc.A). When Archduke Ferdinand was killed by a Serbian nationalist, therefore Austria logically pointed the finger at the Serbian government thinking it was them who killed them.(Doc.B). By all these ethnic ties...Russia quickly sided with Serbia while Germany sided with Austria-Hungary. Also, England and France sided with Russia. An all out war was caused. Alliances help explain the death of peace in

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