Module 9 Chapter 20

World War I

What caused World War I? World War I began in 1914 and ended in 1918. During the early 1900 European countries controlled most of the people of the world, and provided the foundation for European’s pride, self-confidence, and sense of superiority (p.882) . Yet, due to modernization and Europe's rise to global ascendancy caused conflict and increased rivalries between European states. During that time, two rival alliances were formed: Triple Alliance consisted of Germany, Austria and Italy, and the triple entente by Russia, France and Britain. A minor incident in the Balkan detonated into World War I. Everything started when a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand heir to the Asutrian throne. This incident occurred on June 28, 1914. The Astrian-Hungary rules took this as a threat to nationalism Serbian. They were determined to crash this movement. Behind their ruling power was their allay, Germany,  and behind Serbia lay Russia - protecting  the Islavic people. Although those allies that had previously formed were intended to keep the peace (p.884), with this attack it did just the opposite: they felt obligated to get into a war that started in early August 1914 (884). Some of the factors that contributed to the outbreak and character of this war was a strong popular nationalism, the industrialized and powerful militarism they had created, and Europe thirst for colonial imperialism. Most people thought World War I would end soon, but it took 4 years before Germany was defeated by november 1918.