The second similarity concerns the effect of the spread of ideological disputes and nationalism. In the beginning of the century a lot of anxiety resulted from the spread of Pan-Slavism – a movement calling all Slavic people to join together. It caused instability within the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, which both had Slavs within its populations. Nationalism was even stronger than the family ties among monarchs. Despite Franz Ferdinand was a member of the Czar’s family, and thus Czar could have understood the assassination the same way the William II saw it, the ‘Nicky-Willy’ letters did not have the peace-bringing effect they were expected to give. All this made war very likely to happen. The ideological disputes before the WWII mainly resulted from the ideological determinism to one of the rising ideologies e.g. fascism, communism, etc. This made the communication problematic, to some extent it led to the isolationism of US and USSR, which resulted in the outbreak of war.
The following systemic causes refer only to the WWI. The growing rigidity within alliances, which made the conflict very likely to happen. Britain felt threatened by the rise of Germany, and thus it encouraged formation of the Triple Entente, the partnership between France, Britain and Russia, focussing on the containment of Germany. The relationship between Germany and Austro-Hungary were also tightened within the Triple Alliance (formed in 1882). The beginning of the century was also characterized by the complacency about peace, which resulted in the loss of moderacy within international system and led to the WWI. The majour powers were not involved in war, while there were massive trained arm-forces in Europe, and the militarism was growing along with the spread of Darwin’s ideas that the strong must prevail. The specific systemic cause which refer only to the WWII, but not to the WWI, was the failure of the collective security in the face of the League of nations. It failed to apply Article 16 sanctions to Japan, despite its invasion in China was recognized to be unjustified; in the Ethiopean crisis (1935) the sanctions applied against Italy were too moderate and ineffective. Thus the existing world order became unstable.
There is one main similarity among the domestic causes of the WWI and the WWII. The majour problems were caused by the instabilities within German domestic situation. Many analysts argue that the Germany’s attempt to gain world hegemony at the outbreak of the WWI was a result the desire of the elite (landed aristocrats and very large industrial capitalists) to distract public attention from the poor integration of their society and to avoid the domestic reforms. On the other hand, the German domestic problems before the WWII were the consequence of the Versailles Treaty, which imposed $33 billion reparation bill on the weakened Germany. It wiped out all the middle class saving, caused mass frustration, and let Nazi to overtake government and to put the 4-phases plan in reality. This made war inevitable.
The specific domestic causes of the WWI are concerned with internal instabilities in Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, which resulted from the spread of nationalism. Ottoman government was weak, and thus an easy target for the Balkan nationalists. After the successful Balkan war (1912), the Balkan nationalists in some states, headed by Serbia, started the war against Austria. As it was already said, Austria needed to get into the WWI to destroy the core of nationalism – Serbia.
The specific to the WWII domestic cause refers to the US and USSR isolationism in the inter-war period. The both powers aimed to avoid the war and any bending commitments e.g. they both rejected to join League of Nations. Despite US had the strongest economy at the end of the WWI, it rejected to take responsibility of controlling the balance of power in Europe, and thus let Germany to gain preponderance, which resulted in the outbreak of war.
The majour difference between the origins of the WWI and the WWII lie on the individual level. It concerns the fact that the WWI was an accidental event to a very high extent, while the WWII was almost inevitable. Using the counterfactual test, we can say, they unless there was an assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Saraevo, which was used as a pretext for starting the conflict, the war was very likely to happen later, in 1916, and on different scale. In contrast, the WWII was desired by Hitler, and as soon as he stared to put his 4-phases plan of gaining world hegemony in the end of 1940s, the war became almost inevitable.
In the both the role of decisions made by individuals was important, however those decisions were different and had different effects. In the WWI the outbreak of the war in 1914 and the scale of the war were both put on the leaders of the states e.g. on Count Berchtold, the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, who wanted to crush Serbian independence; on S. Sazonov, Russian minister of foreign affairs; who supported Serbia; on Wilhelm II, the German emperor, who encouraged Austria to take hard line in the crisis, who ensures that he will support Russia in its policy on Balkans. As a result instead of small local war, the world conflict broke out in 1914. Before the WWI the decision of Chamberlain, British premier-minister, to follow the appeasement policy in relation to Germany was the majour mistake, that allowed the invasion in Czechoslovakia on the 2nd stage of the Hitler’s 4-phases plan, and to the continuous successful German expansion according to the Hitler’s plan till the Battle of Britain (1940). This eventually led to the outbreak of the WWII.
