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What Were The Underlying Causes Of Ww1 Essay

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What Were The Underlying Causes Of Ww1 Essay
Bang! The shot that changed the course of history was fired in June of 1914. The archduke

of Austria-Hungary, along with his wife and heir, lay dead, and the world lay on the brink of

mass death, destruction, and war, the ramifications of which still effect humanity today. However,

WWI wasn't caused solely by this bullet; it was simply the final straw, with many underlying forces

pushing the world into chaos. The three main underlying causes of WWI are nationalism,

alliances, and militarism.

In the years leading up to WWI, nationalism was gaining popularity. However, the group to

stand up for their nation, setting off WWI, were Slavic peoples in Herzegovina and Bosnia. They

wished not be part of Austria-Hungary, instead striving to
…show more content…
To achieve this, a terrorist group called the Black Hand killed the archduke of Austria-
Hungary. It took many attempts, but in the end, they assassinated not only the archduke, but also

his wife, and their heir. Doing so plunged Serbia into a war in an attempt to gain freedom from

Austria-Hungary.

While the assassination of a ruler is terrible, it was nothing new. However, in the newer

ages, major alliances had been formed. As such, when the Serbians killed the archduke of the

Austria-Hungarians, they declared war on Serbia. However, Russia had an alliance with Serbia, pulling it into the fight. When Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary, Germany's alliance with

Austria-Hungary forced them to declare war on Russia, bringing Russia’s ally, France, into the

conflict. Later, Germany attacked France through Belgium, bringing them, as well as Britain, into

the war, creating a worldwide conflict. This only became worse when Japan, America, and Italy

eventually joined the war. No matter how much a country attempted to avoid joining, there's no

dodging a war where the battlefield is the entire planet, as everyone's bound to be attacked

sooner or later.

Finally, we have militarism. Over the years, technology had increased at an

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