What Is The Short-Term Cause Of World War I?
World War 1, also known as the “ Great War ”, was one of the deadliest wars in world history with over 38 million deaths and was also important because it was the first global war. It started on June 28th 1914 and ended in November 11th 1918. The Great War mainly took place in Europe in the Western Front (England,Belgium, France, and west Germany), the Eastern Front (Russia, Austria-Hungary and the east of Germany) and finally the Italian Front (Italy and Austria).The first world war was between two different alliances: The Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. The Triple Entente included Russia, France and Britain while the Triple Alliance included Italy, Germany and Austria-Hungary. The murder of Franz Ferdinand, the soon to be successor
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As previously mentioned, during the early nineteen hundreds there was a lot of tension between European powers. One of the reasons being military competition. For instance, in 1906 Britain started using their new invention called dreadnoughts. These were fast, big and strong battleships with 12 inch guns that were much more efficient than previous ones. Germany started producing dreadnoughts only in 1908 after Britain started increasing its own production. This competition between Britain and Germany, also known as the “Arms Race”, caused a lot of tension and is also considered one of the short term causes of the war. Militarism did not only change the quality of the weapons, but also the quantity. In fact, the military expenditure of European countries increased significantly before the war in particular in Russia, Germany and Britain. Russia went from spending 291.6 million of dollars in 1908 to 435 million of dollars in 1913, Britain went from 286.7 million to 374.2 million and Germany from 286.7 million to 463.3 million of dollars. Militarism did not only involve the creation of new dangerous weapons like dreadnoughts, but also changed people’s perceptions on war by making them glorify their military power and having larger and stronger armies of patriotic people. Just as General Treitschke, the commander of Germany’s army, said : “ War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind. War is the father of all
As previously mentioned, during the early nineteen hundreds there was a lot of tension between European powers. One of the reasons being military competition. For instance, in 1906 Britain started using their new invention called dreadnoughts. These were fast, big and strong battleships with 12 inch guns that were much more efficient than previous ones. Germany started producing dreadnoughts only in 1908 after Britain started increasing its own production. This competition between Britain and Germany, also known as the “Arms Race”, caused a lot of tension and is also considered one of the short term causes of the war. Militarism did not only change the quality of the weapons, but also the quantity. In fact, the military expenditure of European countries increased significantly before the war in particular in Russia, Germany and Britain. Russia went from spending 291.6 million of dollars in 1908 to 435 million of dollars in 1913, Britain went from 286.7 million to 374.2 million and Germany from 286.7 million to 463.3 million of dollars. Militarism did not only involve the creation of new dangerous weapons like dreadnoughts, but also changed people’s perceptions on war by making them glorify their military power and having larger and stronger armies of patriotic people. Just as General Treitschke, the commander of Germany’s army, said : “ War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind. War is the father of all