causes of world war 1 and 2 essay

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

World War I

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 11, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009

World War I, also known as the Great War, started in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder catapulted into a war across Europe that lasted until 1918. During the four-year conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers). Thanks to new military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers had won, more than 16 million people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe—especially in the troubled Balkan region of southeast Europe—for years before World War I actually broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the Ottoman Empire , Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the Balkans (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand —heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of events: Austria-Hungary , like many countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia’s ally, France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or “blank check” assurance of Germany’s backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms as to make it almost impossible to accept.

World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed.

Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

The Western Front

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen ), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east.

On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege , using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege cannons—to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France, shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of inciting civilian resistance. 

First Battle of the Marne

In the First Battle of the Marne , fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading German army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris. The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back to the north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both sides dug into trenches , and the Western Front was the setting for a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years.

Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.

HISTORY Vault: World War I Documentaries

Stream World War I videos commercial-free in HISTORY Vault.

World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works of art as “ All Quiet on the Western Front ” by Erich Maria Remarque and “ In Flanders Fields ” by Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae . In the latter poem, McCrae writes from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench warfare and exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes decimated by war.

The Eastern Front

On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland but were stopped short by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914.

Despite that victory, Russia’s assault forced Germany to move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had hoped to win under the Schlieffen Plan .

Russian Revolution

From 1914 to 1916, Russia’s army mounted several offensives on World War I’s Eastern Front but was unable to break through German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the bulk of Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime of Czar Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia’s simmering instability exploded in the Russian Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks , which ended czarist rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.

Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early December 1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by President Woodrow Wilson while continuing to engage in commerce and shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, it was increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of Germany’s unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships, including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and German U-boats sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S. ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania —traveling from New York to Liverpool, England with hundreds of American passengers onboard—in May 1915 helped turn the tide of American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign

With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915. The invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering 250,000 casualties.

Did you know? The young Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia , while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The First Battle of the Isonzo took place in the late spring of 1915, soon after Italy’s entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, also known as the Battle of Caporetto (October 1917), German reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy’s allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British and French—and later, American—troops arrived in the region, and the Allies began to take back the Italian Front.

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain’s Royal Navy was unchallenged by any other nation’s fleet, but the Imperial German Navy had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval powers. Germany’s strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal fleet of U-boat submarines.

After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German navy chose not to confront Britain’s mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.

World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes. Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany’s U-boats, the use of planes in World War I presaged their later, pivotal role in military conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903. Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions. During the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push Germany out of France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of 1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from. The Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The Morane-Saulnier Type L was used by the French, the British Royal Flying Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service and the Imperial Russian Air Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system in 1915. His “interrupter” synchronized the firing of the guns with the plane’s propeller to avoid collisions. Though his most popular plane during WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-engine bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long-range heavy bombers like Germany’s Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917) were used to strike cities like London. Their speed and maneuverability proved to be far deadlier than Germany’s earlier Zeppelin raids.

By the war’s end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft than the Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF, the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the navy or army. 

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne . The Allies successfully pushed back the German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany’s best hope of victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the months that followed.

The Harlem Hellfighters and Other All-Black Regiments

By the time World War I began, there were four all-Black regiments in the U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry. All four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War and American-Indian Wars , and served in the American territories. But they were not deployed for overseas combat in World War I. 

Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first African American troops sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance, removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the military formed two Black combat units in 1917, the 92nd and 93rd Divisions . Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September 1918. The 93rd Division, however, had more success. 

With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and General John Pershing , commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial army. The 93 Division’s 369 regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters , fought so gallantly, with a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than any AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their heroism. More than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in World War I in various capacities.

Toward Armistice

By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts.

Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such a devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I “the War to End All Wars.” But the Treaty of Versailles , signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations , Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having believed any peace would be a “peace without victory,” as put forward by President Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points speech of January 1918.

As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II .

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.

The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the world’s deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of the technologies now associated with military conflict—machine guns, tanks , aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use. The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in warfare and remain in effect today.

Photo Galleries

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

5 Key Causes of World War I

Illustration by Hugo Lin. ThoughtCo.

• M.A., History, University of Florida
• B.A., History, University of Florida

World War I, known as the "war to end all wars," occurred between July 1914 and November 11, 1918. By the end of the war, over 17 million people had been killed, including over 100,000 American troops. While the causes of the war are infinitely more complicated than a simple timeline of events, and are still debated and discussed to this day, the list below provides an overview of the most frequently-cited events that led to war. 

Watch Now: 5 Causes of World War I

Mutual defense alliances.

Countries throughout the world have always made mutual defense agreements with their neighbors, treaties that could pull them into battle. These treaties meant that if one country was attacked, the allied countries were bound to defend them. Before World War 1 began, the following alliances existed:

• Russia and Serbia
• Germany and Austria-Hungary
• France and Russia
• Britain and France and Belgium
• Japan and Britain

When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia got involved to defend Serbia. Germany, seeing that Russia was mobilizing, declared war on Russia. France was then drawn in against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Germany attacked France by marching through Belgium pulling Britain into war. Then Japan entered the war to support its British allies. Later, Italy and the United States would enter on the side of the Allies (Britain, France, Russia, etc.).

Imperialism

Imperialism is when a country increases their power and wealth by bringing additional territories under their control, usually without outright colonizing or resettling them. Before World War I, several European countries had made competing imperialistic claims in Africa and parts of Asia, making them points of contention. Because of the raw materials these areas could provide, tensions around which country had the right to exploit these areas ran high. The increasing competition and desire for greater empires led to an increase in confrontation that helped push the world into World War I.

As the world entered the 20th century, an arms race had begun, primarily over the number of each country's warships, and the increasing size of their armies—countries began training more and more of their young men to be prepared for battle. The warships themselves increased in size, number of guns, speed, method of propulsion, and quality armor, beginning in 1906 with Britain's HMS Dreadnought . Dreadnought   was soon out-classed as the Royal Navy and Kaiserliche Marine quickly expanded their ranks with increasingly modern and powerful warships. 

By 1914, Germany had nearly 100 warships and two million trained soldiers. Great Britain and Germany both greatly increased their navies in this time period. Further, in Germany and Russia particularly, the military establishment began to have a greater influence on public policy. This increase in militarism helped push the countries involved into war.

Nationalism

Much of the origin of the war was based on the desire of the Slavic peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina to no longer be part of Austria-Hungary but instead be part of Serbia. This specific essentially nationalistic and ethnic revolt led directly to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand , which was the event that tipped the scales to war.

But more generally, nationalism in many of the countries throughout Europe contributed not only to the beginning but to the extension of the war across Europe and into Asia. As each country tried to prove their dominance and power, the war became more complicated and prolonged.

Immediate Cause: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

The immediate cause of World War I that made the aforementioned items come into play (alliances, imperialism, militarism, and nationalism) was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand  of Austria-Hungary. In June 1914, a Serbian-nationalist terrorist group called the Black Hand sent groups to assassinate the Archduke. Their first attempt failed when a driver avoided a grenade thrown at their car. However, later that day a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip shot the Archduke and his wife while they were driving through Sarajevo, Bosnia which was part of Austria-Hungary. They died of their wounds.

The assassination was in protest to Austria-Hungary having control of this region: Serbia wanted to take over Bosnia and Herzegovina. The assassination of Ferdinand led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. When Russia began to mobilize to defend its alliance with Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia. Thus began the expansion of the war to include all those involved in the mutual defense alliances.

The War to End All Wars

World War I saw a change in warfare, from the hand-to-hand style of older wars to the inclusion of weapons that used technology and removed the individual from close combat. The war had extremely high casualties over 15 million dead and 20 million injured. The face of warfare would never be the same again.

• Causes of World War I and the Rise of Germany
• The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 1914
• Biography of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria
• The Causes and War Aims of World War One
• World War I Timeline: 1914, The War Begins
• World War 1: A Short Timeline Pre-1914
• The Major Alliances of World War I
• World War I: Opening Campaigns
• The First Battle of the Marne
• The Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson's Plan for Peace
• The Black Hand: Serbian Terrorists Spark WWI
• The Consequences of World War I
• Causes of World War II
• World War I's Mitteleuropa
• The Countries Involved in World War I

• Modern History

The four MAIN causes of World War I explained

The First World War was the first conflict that occurred on a staggering scale. World War I (WWI) was unprecedented in its global impact and the extent of its industrialization.

However, the reason why the war originally began is incredibly complex. To try and explain the causes of the war, historians have tried to simplify it down to four main causes.

They create the acronym: MAIN. 

Imperialism

Nationalism.

This simplified acronym is a useful way to remember the four MAIN causes of the war.

However, we will explain each of these concepts out of order below.

One of the most commonly discussed causes of WWI was the system of alliances that existed by 1914, the year the war started.

An 'alliance' is an agreement made between two countries, where each side promises to help the other if required.

Most of the time, this involves military or financial assistance. When an alliance is created, the countries involved are known as 'allies'.

By the dawn of the First World War, most European countries had entered into one or more alliances with other countries.

What made this an important cause of WWI, was that many of these alliances were military in nature: that if one country attacked or was attacked, all of their allies had promised to get involved as well.

This meant, that if just one country attacked another, most of Europe would immediately be at war, as each country jumped in to help out their friends. 

Imperialism, as a concept, has been around for a very long time in human history. Imperialism is the desire to build an empire for your country.

This usually involves invading and taking land owned by someone else and adding it to your empire. 

By the 19th century, many European countries had been involved in imperialism by conquering less advanced nations in Asia, the Americas or Africa.

By 1900, the British Empire was the largest imperial power in the world. It controlled parts of five different continents and owned about a quarter of all land in the world.

France was also a large empire, with control over parts of south-east Asia and Africa.

By 1910, Germany had been trying to build its own empire to rival that of Britain and France and was interested in expanding its colonial holdings.

This meant that when an opportunity for a war of conquest became available, Germany was very keen to take advantage of it.

Militarism is the belief that a country's army and navy (since air forces didn't exist at the start of WWI) were the primary means that nations resolved disagreement between each other.

As a result, countries like to boast about the power of their armed forces.

Some countries spent money improving their land armies, while others spent money on their navies.

Some countries tried to gain the advantage by having the most number of men in their armies, while others focused more on having the most advanced technology in their forces.

Regardless of how they approached it, countries used militarism as a way of gaining an edge on their opponents.

An example of this competition for a military edge can be seen in the race between Britain and Germany to have the most powerful navy.

Britain had recently developed a special ship known as a 'dreadnought’. The Germans were so impressed by this, that they increased their government spending so that they also had some dreadnoughts.

The final of the four causes is 'nationalism'. Nationalism is the idea that people should have a deep love for their country, even to the extent that they are willing to die for it.

Throughout the 19th century, most countries had developed their own form of nationalism, where they encouraged a love of the nation in their citizens through the process of creating national flags and writing national anthems.

Children at schools were taught that their country was the best in the world and that should it ever be threatened, that they should be willing to take up arms to defend it.

The growing nationalist movements created strong animosity between countries that had a history of armed conflict.

A good example of this is the deep anger that existed between Germany and France.

These two countries had a recent history of war and struggling over a small region between the two, called Alsace-Lorraine.

Germany had seized control of it after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, which the French were deeply upset by.

As a result, France believed that they should be willing to fight and die to take it back.

Conflicts and Crises

In the two decades before WWI started in 1914, there were a number of smaller conflicts and crises that had already threatened to turn into global conflicts.

While these didn't eventually start the global war, it does show the four causes mentioned above and how they interacted in the real world.

The Moroccan Crisis

In 1904, Britain recognized France's sphere of influence over Morocco in North Africa in exchange for France recognizing Britain's sphere of influence in Egypt.

However, the Moroccans had a growing sense of nationalism and wanted their independence.

In 1905, Germany announced that they would support Morocco if they wanted to fight for their freedom.

To avoid war, a conference was held which allowed France to keep Morocco. Then, in 1911, the Germans again argued for Morocco to fight against France.

To again avoid war. Germany received territorial compensation in the French Congo in exchange for recognizing French control over Morocco.

The Bosnian Crisis

In 1908, the nation of Austria-Hungary had been administrating the Turkish regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1878, but they formally annexed it in 1908, which caused the crisis.

The country of Serbia was outraged, because they felt that it should have been given to them. As a result, Serbia threatened to attack Austria-Hungary.

To support them, Russia, who was allied to Serbia, prepared its armed forces. Germany, however, who was allied to Austria-Hungary, also prepared its army and threaten to attack Russia.

Luckily, war was avoided because Russia backed down. However, there was some regional fighting during 1911 and 1912, as Turkey lost control of the region. 

Despite this, Serbia and Austria-Hungary were still angry with each other as they both wanted to expand into these newly liberated countries.

Further reading

What do you need help with, download ready-to-use digital learning resources.

Copyright © History Skills 2014-2024.

Contact  via email

Sign Up Today

Start your 14 day free trial today

The History Hit Miscellany of Facts, Figures and Fascinating Finds

• 20th Century

The 4 M-A-I-N Causes of World War One

Alex Browne

28 sep 2021.

It’s possibly the single most pondered question in history – what caused World War One? It wasn’t, like in World War Two, a case of a single belligerent pushing others to take a military stand. It didn’t have the moral vindication of resisting a tyrant.

Rather, a delicate but toxic balance of structural forces created a dry tinder that was lit by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo . That event precipitated the July Crisis, which saw the major European powers hurtle toward open conflict.

The M-A-I-N acronym – militarism, alliances, imperialism and nationalism – is often used to analyse the war, and each of these reasons are cited to be the 4 main causes of World War One. It’s simplistic but provides a useful framework.

The late nineteenth century was an era of military competition, particularly between the major European powers. The policy of building a stronger military was judged relative to neighbours, creating a culture of paranoia that heightened the search for alliances. It was fed by the cultural belief that war is good for nations.

Germany in particular looked to expand its navy. However, the ‘naval race’ was never a real contest – the British always s maintained naval superiority.  But the British obsession with naval dominance was strong. Government rhetoric exaggerated military expansionism.  A simple naivety in the potential scale and bloodshed of a European war prevented several governments from checking their aggression.

A web of alliances developed in Europe between 1870 and 1914 , effectively creating two camps bound by commitments to maintain sovereignty or intervene militarily – the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance.

• The Triple Alliance of 1882 linked Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
• The Triple Entente of 1907 linked France, Britain and Russia.

A historic point of conflict between Austria Hungary and Russia was over their incompatible Balkan interests, and France had a deep suspicion of Germany rooted in their defeat in the 1870 war.

The alliance system primarily came about because after 1870 Germany, under Bismarck, set a precedent by playing its neighbours’ imperial endeavours off one another, in order to maintain a balance of power within Europe

‘Hark! hark! the dogs do bark!’, satirical map of Europe. 1914

Image Credit: Paul K, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Imperialism

Imperial competition also pushed the countries towards adopting alliances. Colonies were units of exchange that could be bargained without significantly affecting the metro-pole. They also brought nations who would otherwise not interact into conflict and agreement. For example, the Russo-Japanese War (1905) over aspirations in China, helped bring the Triple Entente into being.

It has been suggested that Germany was motivated by imperial ambitions to invade Belgium and France. Certainly the expansion of the British and French empires, fired by the rise of industrialism and the pursuit of new markets, caused some resentment in Germany, and the pursuit of a short, aborted imperial policy in the late nineteenth century.

However the suggestion that Germany wanted to create a European empire in 1914 is not supported by the pre-war rhetoric and strategy.

Nationalism

Nationalism was also a new and powerful source of tension in Europe. It was tied to militarism, and clashed with the interests of the imperial powers in Europe. Nationalism created new areas of interest over which nations could compete.

For example, The Habsburg empire was tottering agglomeration of 11 different nationalities, with large slavic populations in Galicia and the Balkans whose nationalist aspirations ran counter to imperial cohesion. Nationalism in the Balkan’s also piqued Russia’s historic interest in the region.

Indeed, Serbian nationalism created the trigger cause of the conflict – the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The spark: the assassination

Ferdinand and his wife were murdered in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Bosnian Serbian nationalist terrorist organization the ‘Black Hand Gang.’ Ferdinand’s death, which was interpreted as a product of official Serbian policy, created the July Crisis – a month of diplomatic and governmental miscalculations that saw a domino effect of war declarations initiated.

The historical dialogue on this issue is vast and distorted by substantial biases. Vague and undefined schemes of reckless expansion were imputed to the German leadership in the immediate aftermath of the war with the ‘war-guilt’ clause. The notion that Germany was bursting with newfound strength, proud of her abilities and eager to showcase them, was overplayed.

The first page of the edition of the ‘Domenica del Corriere’, an Italian paper, with a drawing by Achille Beltrame depicting Gavrilo Princip killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo

Image Credit: Achille Beltrame, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The almost laughable rationalization of British imperial power as ‘necessary’ or ‘civilizing’ didn’t translate to German imperialism, which was ‘aggressive’ and ‘expansionist.’ There is an on-going historical discussion on who if anyone was most culpable.

Blame has been directed at every single combatant at one point or another, and some have said that all the major governments considered a golden opportunity for increasing popularity at home.

The Schlieffen plan could be blamed for bringing Britain into the war, the scale of the war could be blamed on Russia as the first big country to mobilise, inherent rivalries between imperialism and capitalism could be blamed for polarising the combatants. AJP Taylor’s ‘timetable theory’ emphasises the delicate, highly complex plans involved in mobilization which prompted ostensibly aggressive military preparations.

Every point has some merit, but in the end what proved most devastating was the combination of an alliance network with the widespread, misguided belief that war is good for nations, and that the best way to fight a modern war was to attack. That the war was inevitable is questionable, but certainly the notion of glorious war, of war as a good for nation-building, was strong pre-1914. By the end of the war, it was dead.

You May Also Like

The Peasants’ Revolt: Rise of the Rebels

10 Myths About Winston Churchill

Medusa: What Was a Gorgon?

10 Facts About the Battle of Shrewsbury

5 of Our Top Podcasts About the Norman Conquest of 1066

How Did 3 People Seemingly Escape From Alcatraz?

5 of Our Top Documentaries About the Norman Conquest of 1066

1848: The Year of Revolutions

What Prompted the Boston Tea Party?

15 Quotes by Nelson Mandela

The History of Advent

The Princes in the Tower: Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case

Home — Essay Samples — History — Imperialism — Main Causes of World War 1: Discussion

Main Causes of World War 1: Discussion

• Categories: Imperialism Nationalism

About this sample

Words: 645 |

Updated: 16 November, 2023

Words: 645 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

The essay explores the causes of World War 1, which took place from 1914 to 1918. It begins with a brief overview of the war's timeline and the major countries involved, including the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan, the United States of America, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. The essay then delves into the four main causes of the war: Militarism, Nationalism, Imperialism, and Alliances.

Militarism is discussed as the policy of maintaining a strong military force and a readiness to use it aggressively for defense. The significant arms buildup and military spending by various countries, including Germany, are highlighted as contributing factors to the outbreak of the war.

Nationalism is described as the strong attachment to one's own nation and culture. It is explained how nationalism led to conflicts, including the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which triggered Austria's desire for revenge.

Imperialism, the expansion of a nation's power by dominating other countries, is presented as a factor due to the competition among European powers over control of African resources and territories.

Lastly, the essay discusses the role of Alliances, where countries formed partnerships to defend each other, often resulting in a domino effect of declarations of war.

Table of contents

• Causes of World War 1

Video Version

Causes o f world war 1, nationalism and imperialism.

A Good Hook Examples for WWI Essay

• A Glimpse into the Trenches: Step back in time and experience the chilling reality of life in the trenches of World War I. In this essay, we’ll immerse ourselves in the harrowing tales of soldiers who faced the horrors of the Great War.
• The War to End All Wars: Explore the monumental impact of World War I on global history. In this essay, we’ll dissect the events that led to the war, the key players, and the lasting consequences that continue to shape our world today.
• The Poetry of Conflict: World War I inspired a generation of poets to capture the raw emotions of battle. Join us as we analyze the powerful verses and poignant imagery that emerged from the trenches.
• Lessons from the Great War: As we commemorate the centennial of World War I, it’s crucial to reflect on the lessons learned from this catastrophic conflict. This essay delves into the war’s impact on diplomacy, technology, and the human spirit.
• Unsung Heroes of WWI: Beyond the famous generals and political leaders, there were countless unsung heroes in the Great War. In this essay, we’ll shine a light on the remarkable stories of bravery and sacrifice from the trenches to the home front.
• Strachan, H. (2014). The First World War: To Arms. Oxford University Press.
• MacMillan, M. (2013). The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914. Random House.
• Fay, S. B. (1928). The Origins of the World War (Vol. 1). The Macmillan Company.
• Gildea, R. (2003). Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799-1914. Harvard University Press.
• Kennedy, P. M. (1980). The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914. Allen & Unwin.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

• Expert in: History Government & Politics

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 605 words

4 pages / 1595 words

1 pages / 405 words

2 pages / 1063 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Imperialism

Imperialism is defined as one country’s domination of the political, economic, and social life of another country. In the late 1800s, Europeans colonized countries, traded slaves, gold, and many other various resources. One of [...]

American imperialism, the expansion of the United States' influence and territory beyond its continental borders, has been a defining feature of the nation's history. From the late 19th century to the present day, the United [...]

American imperialism has had a profound impact on global affairs, shaping the course of international politics, economics, and culture. As the United States expanded its influence beyond its borders, it became a central player [...]

American imperialism, a historical phenomenon, has evolved and adapted to the changing dynamics of the modern world. In contemporary times, the United States continues to exert its influence globally, albeit through different [...]

Imperialism in Africa has had a long-lasting and devastating impact on the continent and its people. The negative effects of imperialism in Africa are far-reaching and continue to be felt to this day. From the economic [...]

Colonization in Nigeria and the Congo is one of the greatest atrocities committed by humankind. The system imposed by European powers, at its very own core, fomented all kind of abuses and violations, through policies that were [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

World War I vs. World War II

The First World War (WWI) was fought from 1914 to 1918 and the Second World War (or WWII) was fought from 1939 to 1945. They were the largest military conflicts in human history. Both wars involved military alliances between different groups of countries.

World War I (a.k.a the First World War, the Great War, the War To End All Wars) was centered on Europe. The world warring nations were divided into two groups namely ‘The Central Powers’ and ‘The Allied Powers’. The central powers group consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. The Allied powers group consisted of France, Britain , Russia, Italy, Japan, Canada and (from 1917) the U.S.

World War II (a.k.a the Second World War), the opposing alliances are now referred to as ‘The Axis’ and ‘The Allies’. The Axis group consisted of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The Allies group consisted of France, Britain, the U.S., the Soviet Union, Canada and China. World War II was especially heinous because of the genocide of Jewish people perpetrated by the Nazis .

Comparison chart

Causes of the war, world war i trigger.

• The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was the trigger for the war. He was killed by Serbian nationalists.
• Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia.
• At same time Germany invaded Belgium , Luxembourg and France
• Russia attacked Germany
• Several alliances formed over the past decades were invoked, so within weeks the major powers were at war; as all had colonies, the conflict soon spread around the world.

This video from Yale explains the events that led to World War I:

Causes of World War II

The Versailles Treaty signed at the end of World War I not only lay the moral blame of the conflict on Germany but also forced the Germans to make huge payments to the victors of the war. France and Britain needed these reparations payments in order to pay down their own debts. But they were highly onerous, arguably unjustifiably so, and were deeply unpopular in Germany. Hitler seized on this growing resentment and promised to "undo this injustice and tear up this treaty and restore Germany to its old greatness". In fact, the payments demanded were so large that Germany was able to repay the final installment of interest on this debt only on October 3, 2010. [1] The following causes of World War II are generally acknowledged:

• Treaty violations and acts of aggression on various fronts.
• Political and economic instability in Germany, combined with bitterness over its defeat in World War I and the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles.
• Rise of power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. In the mid-1930s Hitler began secretly to rearm Germany, in violation of the treaty.
• Adolf Hitler signed alliances with Italy and Japan to oppose the Soviet Union
• German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939

The following documentary delves into the causes of World War II:

Sequence of events

World war i.

The sequence of events for World War I began in 1914 with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia on 28 July 1914 in a bid to reassert its authority as a Balkan power. With war breaking out between Austria-Hungary on one side and Serbia on the other, Europe quickly fell back to the alliances nations had formed. Austria-Hungary and Germany were allies. Serbia was allied with Russia; as was France. Russia aided Serbia and attacked Austria. So Austria-Hungary was fighting in two fronts with Serbia and with Russia and consequently lost on both fronts. In a bid to aid Austria-Hungary against Russia, and fearing an attack from France, Germany mobilized its army and attacked France.

• The French, redeploying round Paris, together with the British, checked the now extended German armies on the Marne. In March and April 1915 British sea and land forces attacked the Dardanelles. The Turks countered both threats, causing the British to evacuate the Gallipoli peninsula at the end of 1915.
• A joint Austro-German offensive at Gorlice-Tarnow (2 May 1915) unlocked Russian Poland and the tsar's shattered armies fell back
• In 1915 the Allies agreed that simultaneous attacks on all fronts were the way to drain the reserves of the Central Powers
• On 21 February 1916 Germans attacked the Verdun salient; however this attack was stalled in June. Austrians' independent offensive against the Italians in the Trentino also stalled.
• Germany finally adopted unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917, and in doing so drove America into the war.
• The Germans extended their front while reducing their strength by almost a million men. Simultaneously they continued to advance in the east, competing with their Austrian allies in the Ukraine and the Turks in the Caucasus. * The French counter-attacked in July and the British in August. Together with the Americans, they drove the Germans back in a series of individually limited but collectively interlocking offensives.
• On 15th September the Anglo-French forces at Salonika attacked in Macedonia, forcing the Bulgars to seek an armistice by the end of the month.
• The whole of the Central Powers' Italian front crumbled after the Austrian defeat on the Piave in June.
• The German high command initiated the request for an Armistice on 4 October. After the war Germany claimed that the army was ‘stabbed in the back’ by revolution at home. The people of Germany and Austria-Hungary were battered by food shortages and inflation.
• On 11 November an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne. At 11 a.m. on 11 November 1918 a ceasefire came into effect.

1919 A formal state of war between the two sides persisted for another seven months, until signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on 28 June 1919

World War II

The war that broke out in 1939 was a war for the European balance of power. The immediate cause of the conflict was the German demand for the return of Danzig and part of the Polish ‘corridor’ granted to Poland from German territory in the Versailles Treaty of 1919. Poland refused to agree to German demands, and on 1 September 1939 overwhelming German forces launched the Polish campaign and defeated her in three weeks. Russia also invaded eastern Poland. Poland thus got divided into two parts. In March 1939 Britain and France had guaranteed Polish sovereignty, and in honor of that pledge first demanded that German forces withdraw, and then on 3 September declared war on Germany. America was committed by the Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1937 of non-intervention in overseas conflicts.

This video presents a concise history of the events of World War II:

• German armies invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and northern France and within six weeks defeated western forces.
• Britain was able to resist German air attacks in the battle of Britain in August and September 1940, and survived a German bombing offensive (the ‘Blitz’) in the winter of 1940-1, but it was not possible for Britain to defeat Germany unaided.
• On 10 June 1940 Mussolini's Italy declared war on Britain and France.
• In December 1940 Hitler turned attention away from Britain and approved BARBAROSSA, the large-scale invasion of the USSR.
• America started giving increasing economic assistance to Britain and China following President Roosevelt's pledge to act as the ‘arsenal of democracy’.
• BARBAROSSA was launched on 22 June 1941 when three million German, Finnish, Romanian, and Hungarian soldiers attacked the whole length of the Soviet western frontier. Soviet Union was shattered.
• In North Africa, Commonwealth forces stationed in Egypt drove Italian armies back across Libya by February 1941
• In Abyssinia and Somaliland Italian forces were forced to surrender by May 1941.
• Italy's complete defeat in Africa was avoided only by Hitler's decision to send German reinforcements under Rommel, and the weak logistical position of Commonwealth forces.
• The US navy became closely involved in the battle of the Atlantic in efforts to break the German submarine blockade of shipping destined for Britain. In March 1941 Congress approved the Lend-Lease Bill which allowed almost unlimited material aid, including weapons, for any state fighting aggression. In the autumn of 1941 this came to include the USSR, despite strong American anti- communism . Throughout 1940 and 1941 the USA tightened an economic blockade of Japan which threatened to cut off most Japanese oil supplies.
• American actions provoked both Japanese and German retaliation. On 7 December 1941 Japanese naval aircraft attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, followed by the rapid conquest of western colonies in south-east Asia and the southern Pacific.
• On 11 December Germany declared war on the USA.
• Russia made a remarkable recovery and in November Germany and her allies attacking Stalingrad (now Volgograd) were cut off by a massive Soviet encirclement, URANUS.
• In November 1942 at Alamein a predominantly Italian force was defeated by Montgomery.
• The USA fought a largely naval and air war between 1942 and 1945, using its very great naval power to deploy troops in major amphibious operations, first in the Solomon Islands to halt the Japanese Pacific advance, then in TORCH, a combined American-British landing in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942.

The entry of the USA signaled a change in the political balance of the war of great significance. German forces in Stalingrad surrendered in January 1943and by May 1943 Italian and German forces finally surrendered in Tunisia, enabling the Allies to mount the invasion of Sicily and then Italy. Italy sued for an armistice in September 1943.

American economic might and political interests helped to bind together the different fronts of conflict, while America's worldwide system of supply and logistics provided the sinews of war necessary to complete the defeat of the aggressor states. A major intelligence deception operation and declining air power weakened the German response and by September 1944 German forces had been driven from France.

• German surrendered on 7 May 1945 following Hitler's suicide on 30 April.
• A long-range bombing campaign destroyed the Japanese cities and most of the Japanese navy and merchant marine. America’s newest weapon, the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
• Soviet forces destroyed the Japanese army in Manchuria; Japan finally capitulated on 2 September.

War strategies

Many of the weapons that dominate military operations today were developed during World War I, including the machine gun, the tank and specialized combat aircraft. This is a great video that explains the military strategies and tactics used during World War I.

• After the war, the Paris Peace Conference imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war. Building on Wilson's 14th point, the Treaty of Versailles also brought into being the League of Nations on 28 June 1919. In signing the treaty, Germany acknowledged responsibility for the war, agreeing to pay enormous war reparations and award territory to the victors. It caused a lot of bitterness.
• Austria–Hungary was partitioned into several successor states.
• The Russian Empire lost much of its western frontier as the newly independent nations of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were carved from it.
• The war ended with the total victory of the Allies over Germany and Japan in 1945. The United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts.
• The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers.
• Although the totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy, and Japan were defeated, the war left many unresolved political, social, and economic problems in its wake and brought the Western democracies into direct confrontation with their erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin, thereby initiating a period of nearly half a century of skirmishing and nervous watchfulness as two blocs, each armed with nuclear weapons , faced each other probing for any sign of weakness.
• The European economy had collapsed with 70% of the industrial infrastructure destroyed.
• A rapid period of decolonization also took place within the holdings of the various European colonial powers. These primarily occurred due to shifts in ideology, the economic exhaustion from the war and increased demand by indigenous people for self-determination.
• Wikipedia: World War II
• Wikipedia: World War I
• Wikipedia: World War I casualties
• Wikipedia: World War II casualties
• World War I - Encyclopædia Britannica
• What are some interesting facts about the Second World War? - Quora

Related Comparisons

Share this comparison via:

If you read this far, you should follow us:

"World War I vs World War II." Diffen.com. Diffen LLC, n.d. Web. 5 Apr 2024. < >

Comments: World War I vs World War II

Anonymous comments (5).

September 13, 2012, 2:37pm this is awesome — 152.✗.✗.49

May 13, 2014, 5:05pm This is actually really helpful if you'r learning about the ww1 and ww2- it makes things a lot easier. Thxs — 2.✗.✗.119

April 7, 2014, 1:27pm So helpful good for a nerd like me. — 182.✗.✗.155

April 18, 2013, 4:07pm this helped a lot — 150.✗.✗.200

October 7, 2013, 8:12pm Genocide by Germany, was carried out on more than those listed. — 204.✗.✗.1

• Revolutionary War vs Civil War
• Communism vs Fascism
• Marines vs Navy SEALs
• Green Berets vs Navy SEALs
• Marines vs U.S. Army
• AK-47 vs AK-74
• M16 Rifle vs M4 Carbine
• F-15 Eagle vs F-16 Fighting Falcon

Edit or create new comparisons in your area of expertise.

Stay connected

© All rights reserved.

If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser.

World History Project AP®

Course: world history project ap®   >   unit 7, read: what caused the first world war.

• BEFORE YOU WATCH: How World War I Started – Crash Course World History #209
• WATCH: How World War I Started
• READ: The First World War as a Global War
• BEFORE YOU WATCH: Britain and World War I
• WATCH: Britain and World War I
• BEFORE YOU WATCH: Southeast Asia and World War I
• WATCH: Southeast Asia and World War I
• BEFORE YOU WATCH: The Middle East and World War I
• WATCH: The Middle East and World War I

First read: preview and skimming for gist

Second read: key ideas and understanding content.

• Who killed Franz Ferdinand? Why did they kill him?
• How did the European alliance system help start the war?
• How did imperialism help start the war?
• Why does the author argue that industrialization made the war inevitable once preparations were started?
• How might the First World War have happened on accident?

Third read: evaluating and corroborating

• To what extent does this article explain the causes and consequences of World War I?
• This article gives three broad explanations for the origins of the First World War. Which view, or argument, do you agree with the most, and why? Why not the others?

What Caused the First World War?

World war why, one shot: the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand, deeper trends: help me help you help me, accidental war: missed the memo, hit the target.

• Yes, these terms can get confusing. Nationalism was introduced to you as the idea that a state should govern itself, and not have some empire as its boss. But at some point, that feeling that you should get to govern yourself can turn into the idea that you are better than other nations, and becomes a kind of extreme patriotism. We call that nationalism as well. As we will see, nationalism is a pretty flexible thing, and it can be used for lots of different purposes.
• Top map by Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_German_Empire_-_1914.PNG
• Bottom map by Andrew0921, CC BY-SA 3.0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Empire_in_1914.png

Want to join the conversation?

The Causes and Consequences of World War Two Cause and Effect Essay

Introduction, consequences of world war two, causes of world war two, european war, pacific war, works cited.

World War Two, which started in 1939 and ended in 1945, caused more deaths, several countries got involved and a lot of money was used than any other war in global history. Above 60 million army men participated in the war and about 18,000 soldiers died during the war.

Around 20,000 million soviet people, seven million Jews in European, and 11 million Chinese were killed in World War Two (Nash & Graves 67). This war was actually an international war since around 75 nations participated in the war and this conflict happened on Europe, Asia, and Africa continents.

It also took place on the high seas. The war is believed to have been motivated by Germany and Japan and it came with severe consequences which, to some extent, exist. This paper discusses the causes and consequences of World War Two.

Geopolitical

As shown above, around 50,000 deaths were reported, which represented 3% of the world population. Some studies reported that the war caused around 62 to 80 million deaths, and this made it the deadliest fighting in the global history in terms of reported number of deaths compared with the world population (Foner 947).

World War Two showed a huge fault in the international power structure and when this structure was unsuccessful, the outcomes were severe and disastrous. The inconceivable degrees of devastation in the war made several countries to decline a balance of power system.

Alternatively, the successful nations launched a system of collective security through the League of Nations where assault by any nation would cause other nations to react. However, after World War Two, this process did not work since each nation had different views and ideologies.

The British Empire decolonization was not actually caused by World War Two but relatively due to several continuous practices like increase of anti-colonist movements which upset the way of colonization by British Empire.

Thus, irrespective of the timing of the World War Two, the British Empire could have been caused to undergo decolonization afterward but the fighting aided to accelerate the process. Europe’s supremacy was damaged and new institutions assisted in weakening the colonization of Europeans in Africa.

The Soviet Union and United States became more powerful and both were against colonization of Europeans in Africa. Some of the European powers, such as France and Britain, faced hard time sustaining their domains both economically and physiologically (Hill 56).

The course of European integration which facilitated the creation of European Union (EU) started immediately after World War Two and it was partially motivated by the occurrence of that disastrous war.

Some heads of Europe like Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman decided that any war would not be allowed to demolish the European nations. The best way to protect this promise was to unite all the European nations that they would not fight one another.

The Cold war was established after World War Two and was intended to control global affairs for decades and several major crises happened such as Berlin Wall and Cuban Missile Crisis.

Several people and nations were worried about the developments of mass destruction. Most theories claim that as the USSR and USA was in same position during Second World War (Nash and Graves 65), their association after the fight was predicted to be strong and sociable but this never actually occurred and any emergence that both were allies in the war seems misleading.

Holocausts particularly aimed Jews and most people did not understand or were not bothered with that. Before the war, some nations which allowed fleeing Jews had firm quotas, and in the war several other persons except Jews were killed also.

Actually, several people furtively followed the Nazi strategy and expected that they would be killed like vermin, and this was mostly due to established anti-Semitism in Europe.

Domestically

Huge legacy was left by the depression and New Deal made people to depend on government for assistance instead of Private donations. After the Second World War, every government tried to prevent the reoccurrence of the Great Depression and economic plans was created to be firm and more inflationary.

Having the gold standards vanished, governments had increased liberty to customize their economies with growth of credit and money. The protectionism of 1930s facilitated the post-war attempts to decrease tariffs and other business blockades.

Lastly, the inconsistence of exchange rates which happened after countries left gold standards prompted the formation of the Breton Woods structure of fixed exchange rates in 1945. This system stated that all currencies were to sustain fixed exchange rates relative to U.S. currency, but this arrangement collapsed in 1970s (Hill 68).

After the end of Second World War, the GI Bill facilitated the formation of so-called middle class in United States, permitting people who served an opportunity for schooling. The legacy of GI Bill is exist, but currently the aid, if provides, hardly attain veterans’ costs.

Governmental influence of science at the course of the Second World War shows the government administration on growth of technology which offers several benefits to the communities, economies, and armed forces in their plans during the fighting.

After the United States got involved in the war, taxation became directly linked with national survival and top rate attained 90% (Nash and Graves 121). In 1944, the government enforced a maintenance system on income tax payers, creating process simpler and increasing the country’s income in the same year which was an essential aid in the wartime.

After the war, the income taxes somewhat decreased, simply the increase after the some times. Japanese were put into internment sites and this internment happened although they had been registered citizens of America and even through they did not create any threat.

Before their displacement, they had experienced several issues, for instance Japanese bank accounts in United States had been frozen. Some of the political leaders were relocated or arrested and their relatives were not informed about their whereabouts. Most Japanese lost their homes or sold them with a loss.

The Gathering Storm (1930s), German and Japan Ambitions

In the Gathering Storm, written by Sir Winston Churchill Book, stated that Second World War was motivated by unhealthy ambitions of Adolf Hitler who was reluctantly helped gutless and unreliable French and British leaders who chose conciliation above resistance (Nash and Graves, 121).

In the start of 1950s, roughly all diplomatic history on the causes of Second World War went with Churchill’s aim in reproving French and British leaders for pacification in the 1930s (Foner 948). Hitler’s intentions to expand it boundaries was one main cause of the war.

The German participation on the war did not actually influenced America to get involved in the war, but Japanese made them participate after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Relatively, this attack accelerated the motive for United States to respond and declared total war against Germany since several Americans considered that Germany was either a partner or the director of Japan.

This made Hitler to be guilty just like Japan for the assault on Pearl Harbor. The assault on Pearl Harbor was the crucial point for United States to participate in Second World War (Hill, 2003, p. 2).

US Isolationism

Poland was attacked by Germany, and this caused France and Britain to go for war against Germany. United States was considered to be in a state of Isolationism and did not wish to participate in the war. After America was attacked, they declared war against Japan and Germany.

If Germany could not have declared war, people would have not supported Roosevelt government for the decision to participate in war. Hill (5) stated that there is no more explanations of the intentions for the new United States policy of European attacks are provided and United States revenge to German participation in war is projected to be patently obvious.

Soviet Manpower-Economic Revival

The World War Two was very severe and all the countries which participated were led to the moral and physical survival, where most of them faced huge impact of their economy and labor. Soviet countries were forced to experience very depths of moral and physical survival.

Most countries experienced manpower shortage and no other war had brought these sufferings in the world history. It took sometimes for countries to revive to their usual position. Civilians and fighters participated in this war and both parties were victims or died.

American Economy and Air supremacy

The impacts of war were varied and extensive and it determinedly finished the depression itself. The federal government appeared from the war to act as a possible economic player where there had a capacity to control economic actions and to, in part, manage economy through expenditure and consumption (Nash and Graves 129).

American industry was regenerated by Second World War and several industries were, by 1946, either piercingly willing to protect their assets or fully reliant on them (Atomic energy).

To be effective and stronger, some means have to be enforced and use of air planes act as effective methods to provide a major impact as an air supremacy fighter.

For instance, the Me-262 jet fighter was debatably the preeminent fighter plane of Second World War, especially against United States heavy bombers, but was implemented late in the war and it merely had a smallest influence.

American theater commandants went for the options for planes and they created their plans around the necessity for strategic air superiority. In 1943 in Pacific, the allies won the battleground air superiority (Foner 58). This showed that the Allies would enforce their strike forces anywhere they content and overpower the opponent with a prevalence of weapons.

In mid 1942, Japanese Admiral wanted to take the United States pacific Fleet into a fight where they would overpower and demolish it. They positioned themselves in Midway Island so that they could plan effectively the attack on Hawaii.

Through the application of decrypted Japanese radio intercepts, they were capable of offsetting the insult. After a month, United States aircraft attacked and ruined four Japanese shippers, making Yamamoto to surrender and the battle of Midway reported the defining moment of Second World War in the Pacific.

Firebombing and A-Bombing

Firebombing is a way of bombing intended to destroy a target place by using fire which is produced by inflammable devices, instead of blast effects of huge bombs.

Japanese firebombing caused more death and demolition than the A-bombs and probably powerful firebombing of bordering regions and all plants could perhaps have permitted the United States arm forces ultimately to overpower Japan, but the number of deaths would have been nearly unthinkable. It might have led U.S. not to use A-bombing (Nash and Graves 125).

After the Battle of Midway, it was a clear indication to the American people and soldiers from both sides that Japan would not win the war. Just through strategic standards, Americans had more benefits.

Superior industry and several options to fuel its industry permitted it to extend it naval resources more than Japanese would ever expect to challenge. In order for the war to end, there were orders to attack Japan with a nuclear weapon. It was first dropped in Hiroshima.

Upon bomb explosion, around 80,000 people were killed instantly from the extensive heat produced from the explosion. About 60,000 more civilians died from the radiation-related diseases which accompanied the explosion. Another atomic bomb were dropped in Nagasaki and caused additional deaths (Hill 79).

Second World War cost all countries several casualties and more than 60 million deaths were reported. In United States alone, 400,000 people died and in both international and domestic affairs, its outcomes were extensive and some are still being felt currently (Hill 79).

Depression ended because of Second World War and caused several married women to enter labor force, radically extended existence of Government in United States citizens, and started wide changes in the lives of the country’s minority people.

Foner, Eric. Give me liberty!: an American history. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008. Print.

Hill, Richard. Hitler Attacks. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003. Print.

Nash, Roderick and Gregory Graves. From these beginnings: a biographical approach to American history, Volume 2. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005. Print.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, December 26). The Causes and Consequences of World War Two. https://ivypanda.com/essays/second-world-war-2/

"The Causes and Consequences of World War Two." IvyPanda , 26 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/second-world-war-2/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'The Causes and Consequences of World War Two'. 26 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "The Causes and Consequences of World War Two." December 26, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/second-world-war-2/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Causes and Consequences of World War Two." December 26, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/second-world-war-2/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Causes and Consequences of World War Two." December 26, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/second-world-war-2/.

• “Miracle at the Midway” Book by Gordon Prange
• Arguments Against the Use of Nuclear Weapons in World War II
• Movie Grave of the Fireflies
• The Iraq Crisis and War
• Researching of Turning Points in WWII
• Investigation of War Causes Between the USA and Japan
• The Result Japan’s Fall in World War II
• The San Joaquin Asparagus Festival in California
• Privatization of Major Airports as Separate Entities in Chicago
• The Life of a Freedom Fighter in Post WWII Palestine
• World War II History
• The Use of Atomic Bomb in Japan: Causes and Consequences
• History of U.S. Film
• The Intelligence Failures of Operation Barbarossa
• The invasion of Normandy

Baltimore bridge collapse: What happened and what is the death toll?

What is the death toll in the bridge collapse, when did the baltimore bridge collapse, what factors played a role in the bridge collapse, how much will the baltimore bridge cost to replace, how long will it take to rebuild the baltimore bridge.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE CARGO SHIP DALI AND ITS STRANDED CREW

What do we know about the bridge that collapsed.

HOW WILL THE BRIDGE COLLAPSE IMPACT THE BALTIMORE PORT?

Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here.

Writing by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Steve Gorman, Daniel Wallis and Bill Berkrot

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab

Thomson Reuters

Lisa's journalism career spans two decades, and she currently serves as the Americas Day Editor for the Global News Desk. She played a pivotal role in tracking the COVID pandemic and leading initiatives in speed, headline writing and multimedia. She has worked closely with the finance and company news teams on major stories, such as the departures of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and significant developments at Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Tesla. Her dedication and hard work have been recognized with the 2010 Desk Editor of the Year award and a Journalist of the Year nomination in 2020. Lisa is passionate about visual and long-form storytelling. She holds a degree in both psychology and journalism from Penn State University.

India has allowed limited exports of essential commodities, including sugar, wheat, rice, and onions, to the Maldives, the government said on Friday, even as ties between Male and New Delhi remained tense amid rising Chinese influence.

Advertisement

Israeli troops pull out of a major Gaza hospital after a two-week battle.

The soldiers left widespread devastation after battles with Palestinian militants in and around the Al-Shifa complex. “Now it looks like a wasteland,” a surgeon at the hospital said.

• Share full article

By Aaron Boxerman and Iyad Abuheweila

• April 1, 2024

Israeli soldiers withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after two weeks of fighting in which they killed around 200 Palestinians and arrested hundreds of others, the Israeli military said on Monday. The troops left widespread devastation in their wake after extended gun battles with Palestinian militants in and around the complex.

Taysir al-Tanna, a longtime vascular surgeon at Al-Shifa, said many of the hospital’s main buildings — including the emergency, obstetrics and surgical wards — had been badly damaged in the fighting, and the main gate had been smashed.

“Now it looks like a wasteland,” Dr. al-Tanna said.

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense, said bodies were scattered in and around the complex. The final death toll remained unclear, he said, as some corpses were either under the rubble of destroyed buildings or were believed to have been buried.

“Even outside the complex itself, there are blocks of buildings that were knocked to the ground,” and people were searching for the occupants in the rubble, Mr. Basal said.

The Israeli military said the roughly 200 Palestinians it killed were militants, and that its soldiers had arrested around 900 people it suspected of being militants at the Shifa complex over the past two weeks, including senior commanders in groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It said two Israeli soldiers were killed and eight were wounded in the raid.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, blamed the destruction on the militants, saying they had fortified themselves inside hospital wards, fired on soldiers and refused calls to surrender. “We had to fire on the buildings in order to stop that and to kill the terrorists,” he said.

Israeli forces evacuated displaced civilians sheltering in the compound as well as some patients, and placed other patients in a building away from the fighting, Admiral Hagari said. The World Health Organization said on Sunday that at least 21 patients had died since the Israeli raid began in mid-March, though their causes of death were unclear. By this weekend, just 107 patients remained — 30 of them bedridden — without drinking water and with only minimal medication, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement.

Israeli forces first raided Al-Shifa in November, maintaining that Hamas militants had built a command center in tunnels underneath it. Hamas and the hospital director insisted the facility was solely a refuge for civilians.

The Israeli military later publicized some evidence to support its case, including by showing reporters a fortified tunnel constructed underneath the hospital grounds. An investigation by The New York Times suggested that Hamas had used the site for cover and stored weapons there. Critics argue that Israel failed to substantiate its original claims about Al-Shifa’s military value.

After little more than a week, Israeli troops withdrew in compliance with a brief cease-fire. But as the war ground on, Israeli forces closed in on the hospital again in mid-March in an attempt to root out what they said was a renewed insurgency by Palestinian armed groups in northern Gaza.

“Hamas and Islamic Jihad have started to rebuild themselves in the north,” said Admiral Hagari. “And they re-based themselves inside Shifa.”

Hamas has not commented on the new allegations that it was using the hospital as a base, but in a statement it accused the Israeli military of summarily executing Palestinians inside. The group’s armed wing has repeatedly said that its militants were fighting with the Israeli military around Al-Shifa over the past two weeks.

Hamas called the destruction at the hospital “a horrific crime” that Israel had perpetrated “with full and unlimited support from the administration of U.S. President Biden.”

Before the first Israeli incursion, Israel gave the hospital more than a week’s notice ahead of its forces entering the complex, giving militants hiding there an opportunity to flee, Admiral Hagari said. This time, Israeli soldiers launched a surprise attack, raiding the area in the middle of the night, he added.

In a visit to Al-Shifa on Saturday, Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, declared the raid “extremely successful.” Lt. Gen. Halevi said the operation had let militant groups know that “a hospital is not a safe place” for them.

Asked about the destruction at Al-Shifa, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said the Biden administration was concerned over Hamas’s repeated activity within hospitals, as well as “how Hamas appears, how they appear to have been able to reconstitute in a hospital so quickly.”

“This just points to how challenging Israel’s military operation is, because Hamas has intentionally embedded themselves into civilian infrastructure, into these hospitals,” Ms. Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporting fellow with a focus on international news. More about Aaron Boxerman

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

The deaths of seven World Central Kitchen workers  pushed the number of aid employees killed during the war in Gaza to at least 196, according to the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, who called the death toll “unconscionable.”

President Biden said he was “outraged and heartbroken” about the killing of the World Central Kitchen aid workers. But will the strike lead him to put conditions on the weapons he sends to Israel ?

Democrats in Congress are weighing whether to use their leverage over weapons sales  to register objections to the civilian death toll in Gaza and prod Biden on Israel.

Internal Roil at TikTok: TikTok has been dogged for months by accusations that its app has shown a disproportionate amount of pro-Palestinian and antisemitic content to users. Some of the same tensions  have also played out inside the company.

Palestinian Detainees: Israel has imprisoned more than 9,000 Palestinians suspected of militant activity . Rights groups say that some have been abused or held without charges.

A Hostage’s Account: Amit Soussana, an Israeli lawyer, is the first former hostage to speak publicly about being sexually assaulted  during captivity in Gaza.

A Power Vacuum: Since the start of the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has done little to address the power vacuum that would appear after Israeli forces leave Gaza. The risks of inaction are already apparent in Gaza City .