Chapter 31 Essay In the destructive nature of World War I where the great powers of the world were locked in an armed struggle for survival. America lay on the sidelines, sticking to her policy of neutrality. But as the war progressed and the rules of war broken, America found herself getting sucked into this new global war. When America finally did declare war it was inspired by German naval policy, Woodrow Wilson's idealism, and America's claim to world power. All motivated the U.S. to declare war on Germany and help the war torn Allies and defeat the Central Powers.
Underlying Causes Of WWI World War I, also known as “The Great War” was an extremely bloody war that immersed Europe with huge losses of life and little ground lost or won. There may have seemed like there was a chain of events that led to the fighting, but the underlying causes of WW1 were Nationalism, Alliances, Militarism, imperialism and the assignation of Arch Duke Ferdinand. America tried there hardest to remain neutral and stay out of the war, but they were dragged in by force. Several incidents built up tension between nations before the outbreak of the First World War. Nationalism was one of the underlying causes of WW1.
The Americans had a great importance in the Second Battle of Marne. They helped began because of Germany’s greed for power. There were also many other causes of World War One. Some causes of the World War one was nationalism, imperialism, and militarism. Nationalism was a unifying force, but it also led to intense competition between nations.
Taylor wrote a book called “The Struggle for Mastery in Europe”, in this book A.J.P. Taylor claimed that German ambitions were the cause of the war. All of these views have merit; however, while imperialism was one of the causes of World War 1, the Alliance system and militarism in the pre-war period were definitely the major causes of the war. The Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawn, came up with a theory, the "zero-sum game" theory. This theory was applicable to World War One because it was an "age of total war", therefore the war was "zero-sum game".
Around 1914 Germany started to have a huge increase in military buildup. Considering that Germany started to build up military forced Britain to build up and this lead to another domino effect of European countries building up militaries. This put great amounts of pressure and influenced the standard set of a military. Since the build up of militaries this also put an egotistical mindset on some of the countries
Because Germany was surrounded by the Triple Entente (the Great Britain, France, Russia). So Germany was land-locked. Germany needed a strong navy so that it would have a place in Europe, and to confront other countries. c. Based on the state of the arms race in 1914, if you were a German citizen, how would you feel? Explain why.
There are various factors that amplified the tensions in Europe from 1900 to 1914. A few of the major factors were International rivalry, the arms race, colonialism and the Crisis’s of Morocco and Bosnia. These factors, alongside numerous others contributed to fuelling the First World War. International rivalry was, debatably, the biggest factor that caused the First World War. As the European powers such as Britain, France and Russia had been competing with each other in might, prominence and colonial expansion.
These can be categorised into long term reasons and short term reasons. The most significant short term reason to why the war broke out was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Austria. This contributed to the war a lot and was the spark that started it off. There were many long term reasons too, but the most important ones were Imperialism, Militarism, nationalism and alliances. These influenced the war majorly and were the main explanation to why large quantities of countries were prepared for it when it took place in 1914.
‘The outbreak of the war in Europe 1914 was due to an aggressive German Foreign Policy which had been waged since c.1900’ How far do you agree with this opinion? Discussions over the causes of the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 have caused much controversy due to the breadth of events in multiple countries which took place over a short period of time, concluding in war. The evidence within source V, W and X refer to some of these events, thus hold different countries and individuals to blame to different extents. Whilst source V suggests that aggressive German Foreign policy did hold a considerable proportion of the blame, it places the Germans in a sympathetic position due to their encirclement leaving them no other option. Source W is very similar due to the fact that it blames Germany’s strengthening of the military and navy to a large extent, however proclaims their ‘peaceful intentions’; whereas source X dwarfs Germany’s contributions as a state, placing more responsibility for the outbreak of war on Austria-Hungary.
By doing this Wilhelm aggravated Britain because they had the largest navy in the world and because Wilhelm was colonizing along the borders of British colonies. Wilhelm’s increase in German navy fleets started an arms race with Britain in 1910; losing hope of an alliance with the country and also losing hope of keeping France isolated, a hope in which Bismarck also had. Because Bismarck (along with Wilhelm) dreaded a two front war with France he strung a web of alliances with countries such as Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy and was hoping to add Britain to his long list of allies. The differences that Bismarck