so the treaty of san Stefano caused some tension between the Russia and several of the great powers in Europe. Even though the treaty was revised the congress of Berlin through the Treaty of Berlin there is no doubt that in decreased the trust between the nations of Europe and increased the ever growing instability. Nationalism increased strain on international affairs, and heightened the fear of a world war.
Because of a great pride in ones country the people decided to spread their ideas by colonizing and countries which is known as imperialism
Several historians and scholars have attributed the commencement of world war 1 to imperialism. Imperialism, according to Webster online dictionary is defined as , “domination by one country of the political, economic, or cultural life of another country or region" During the last few years of the nineteenth century, many nations sought out new territories overseas. Which country got which territory depended on the use of brute force. Now Germany and Italy decided they wanted a colonial empire too. They were jealous of the countries that had other places where they could gather raw materials and cheap labour.
There were also several clashes between the great powers seeking to expand their empires on example of this is the fashoda incident. During the late 19th century, Africa was rapidly being occupied by European colonial powers. This period in African history is usually called the Scramble for Africa. The two main powers involved in this scramble were the United Kingdom and France. The Fashoda Incident (18 September 1898) was the climax of a set of disputes over territory in Africa between the French and the British. France was pushing to east from its significant gains in the west of Africa, hoping to extend its territory into the Sudan and the Great Lakes region. Britain, on the other hand, wanted to be able to link up its territory in East Africa to Egypt and then build a grand railway from the Cape to Cairo. Behind it all, Germany was looking to take whatever opportunities came its way.
Kitchener reached Fashoda on 18 September. Mindful of the international implications of any conflict Marchand and Kitchener agreed to sit tight until they received diplomatic instruction, with both of them flying their country's flag above the fort. On the fourth of November 1898 Marchand despite the public outcry received instruction to withdraw. In March 1899 the French and British agreed that the source of the Nile and the Congo rivers should mark the frontier between their spheres of influence.
in order for Germany to create and maintain an overseas empire they began to build up their navies and armies this is called militarism.
Militarism is “the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests”.
To further what militarism is one should be familiar with the situation of the world in the beginning of the century, which was the result of both industrial and democratic revolutions. Britain at that time was the largest empire in the world, and it also had the largest navy. The navy was so big and strong because the British needed to protect their empire and maintain the sea routes between the different colonies. The Kaiser William II of Germany hated and envied Britain for having a stronger navy than his. He increased the German navy and built many warships. Britain responded with building more ships and increasing its navy too. This started a race for building more and better warships and it created tension and competition between those two countries. In 1906 Britain introduced an effective battleship called the Dreadnought, which was armoured by plates 28cm thick, had a more accurate and long-distance fire and could reach speeds of up to 21 knots, Germany felt pressurised and built the Dreadnought as well, this started an naval race between Germany and Brittan. This head-to-head production period was known as the "Arms Race" and created more tension between the two nations
Germany and France had two different plans in case war broke out one of them is the shliefen plan the other is plan 17.
The idea of the shliefen plan was to win the two-front war by first quickly beating France again in the west – the plan scheduled 39 days for the fall of Paris and 42 for the capitulation of France – before the Russians would be able to mobilize and descend upon East Prussia. The plan depended on Germany's ability to quickly mobilize troops and invade France before France could fully mobilize its troops to defend itself, and then to turn on Russia, seen as the slowest of the three to mobilize, before the Russians were ready.
Plan 17 called for an advance by four French Armies into Alsace-Lorraine on either side of the Metz-Thornville fortresses, occupied by the Germans since 1871. The southern wing of the invasion forces would first capture Alsace and Lorraine (in that order), whilst the northern wing would - depending upon German movements - advance into Germany via the southern Ardennes forests, or else move north-east into Luxembourg and Belgium.
Now that several countries where arming themselves heavily the where all terrified from each other so the formed alliances splitting Europe into two dangerous groups.
Within Europe during the early years of the twentieth century, a system of military alliances was formed to provide European powers with a sense of security before the commencement of the war. Two rivalling alliance systems where established.
The Dual Alliance consisted of the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary that had existed since 1879 when Bismarck had befriended the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the agreement, both countries pledged that they would go to the aid of the other if attacked by Russia. This was done to ensure that Germany would always have an allied nation on its border if war were to occur. Italy later joined this alliance in 1882 forming the triple alliance, which remained intact until the beginning of World War I. The conditions of the alliance changed after Italy was added and stated that countries would aid any other that was under attack from two or more countries. The other alliance: The Triple Entente was made up of Great Britain, France and Russia. As a result of Germany’s build-up in naval resources, Great Britain was forced to abandon its isolation policy and adopt allies. France joined Great Britain in 1904. Unlike the Triple alliance, this agreement contained no promises of military support, although the two powers began to talk of joint military plans. The Triple Entente was completed when Russia joined in 1907. As the two key alliances strengthened, a potentially disastrous situation was created whereby if any single country was to provoke or be involved in any conflict, allied nations of both sides would come into the conflict to assist any allied nation and would eventually cause mass war.
Several short-term events that helps to intensify tensions and conflicts one which is the Balkan wars.
The Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912–1913. The First Balkan War broke out on 8 October 1912 when Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia having large parts of their ethnic populations under Ottoman sovereignty, attacked the Ottoman Empire, terminating its five-century rule in the Balkans in a seven-month campaign resulting in the Treaty of London. The Second Balkan War broke out on 16 June 1913 when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its gains, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece. Their armies repulsed the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked penetrating into Bulgaria, while Romania and the Ottomans used the favourable time to intervene against Bulgaria to win territorial gains. In the resulting Treaty of Bucharest, Bulgaria lost most of the territories gained in the First Balkan War.
the assassination of Franz Ferdinand(June 28, 19140) is often known a the spark of world war 1 it is when heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated b a Serbian nationalist protesting for Herzegovina’s independence. Franz Ferdinand sat to the left of his wife on the back seat of the third car in a five-car motorcade proceeding along Appel Quay in .
The motorcade passed the first assassin, . Danilo Ilić the master mind behind the operation and the head of the Black Hand had placed him in front of the garden of the Mostar Cafe and armed him with a bomb Mehmedbašić couldn’t get a clear line of sight in order to take the shot so he did not attempt to throw the bomb in fear of ruining the operation.
Ilić placed Vaso Čubrilović next to Mehmedbašić, arming him with a pistol and a bomb. He too failed to act. saying it was because he felt sorry for the couple Further along the route, Ilić placed on the opposite side of the street near the arming him with a bomb.
At 10:10 am, Franz Ferdinand's car approached and Čabrinović threw his bomb. The bomb bounced off the folded convertible cover into the street. The bomb exploded under the next car, Wounding over 20 people.
After this failed attempt he swallowed a cyanide pill and jumped into the nearby river Miljacka however his attempt to commit suicide was unsuccessful due to the facts that the river Miljacka was 4 inches deep and that the cyanide pill was ineffective. Unharmed the archduke and his wife sped to the city hall to meet with the Austrian commander, the Austrian commander General Potiorek pleads with Ferdinand to leave the city as simmering to erupt. Following the Town Hall reception, Franz Ferdinand decided to visit those in hospital who were wounded by Čabrinović bomb before leaving the city. Sophie abandoned her planned program to separate from her husband. Instead, at 10:45am, she got back into the third car with Franz Ferdinand.
After learning that the assassination attempt was unsuccessful Princip who was the lead assassin went to nearby Schiller's delicatessen for a sandwich. Coming out, he saw Franz Ferdinand's car reversing, after having taken a wrong turn near the Latin Bridge. The driver Leopold Loyka followed the first two cars that turned right on to Franz Joseph Street, they had not been told about the change of route that would have remained along Appel Quay. Gavrilo Princip went to the right of the car pulled out his gun and fires two shots one hits Franz Ferdinand near the heart the other hits his wife in the abdomen who was an expectant mother. She dies instantly.
He uttered only one word, 'Sofia' -- a call to his stricken wife. Then his head fell back and he collapsed. He died almost instantly. At that moment the European empire would never be the same.
The Austrians where furious and sent an ultimatum to Serbia, Serbia agreed with all the points but one , so a month after the assassination Austria declared war on Serbia.
The reason for Germany's part in the causes involves Germany's "blank Check" policy. Before sending its ultimatum to Serbia, Austria needed to be sure of the support of its ally, Germany. Such support was forthcoming in the form of a telegram to the Emperor Franz Joseph on 6 July 1914. The telegram has become known to history as the "Blank Check". In order to balance the power, France and Russia signed an alliance. Russia saw itself as the 'protector of Slavs' in the war, and immediately mobilized. When the war began, the German decision that if they were going to have to fight Russia and France, they would strike at France first according to its Schlieffen Plan, and then turn West to Russia. Germans believed that Russia at the time was unprepared for war, and that it will take a long time for Russia to mobilize its army. On July 28, 1914 Austria declared war against Serbia.
Russia responded by partially mobilizing against Austria as a 'protector of Slavs', and Germany insisted that Russia immediately demobilize. Russia refused to do so, and on August 1 and 3 declared war on Russia and France. When war was declared in August people involved on all sides felt that it would be a short war, and will be over by Christmas. In order for Germany to accomplish its Schlieffen Plan, Germany occupied Belgium. By August most of Belgium was under German occupation and the Schlieffen Plan appeared to be going well, but it brought Britain into the war because they had made a treaty with Belgium before, and Schlieffen Plan involved the invasion of neutral Belgium. One of the problems during the Great War that military staffs and thinking were far behind new weapons and logistics. In other words military commanders like General Haig or Marshall Joffre were not quite ready to the war with its modern weapons and new technologies such as machine guns, bunkers and railroad systems that allowed bringing troops quicker into defensive positions. This was the first war in the human history where the weapons of defence were superior to offensive.
The First World War is also known as a war of attrition. In order to protect themselves from modern weapons, men dug in along the whole of the Western Front. They built networks of trenches that ran 500 miles. The First Battle of the Marne was the war's first major turning point. German army has almost reached its objective Paris in accordance with the Schlieffen Plan, but the Battle of the Marne stopped the movement of Germans in the west. Unfortunately for the Germans, the plan did not work as expected. The result was a partial success, which failed in its ultimate goal of knocking the French army out of the war early. The Battle of the Marne marked the end of the Schlieffen Plan, the end of movement in the war and the start of Trench Warfare. Eventually the trenches were stretching 25,000 miles, from Switzerland to the North Sea. On the other hand, Germans were much successful on the Eastern Front and had a series of quick victories over Russia. Only in a single Battle of Tannenberg 92,000 Russian prisoners were taken. After the failure of the German offensive, both sides made various local attempts at achieving breakthroughs. Most of these attempts failed due to the effects of modern weapons. The First World War was the first war to use poison gas as a military weapon. Germans also had the first submarines and used them to blockade Britain by sinking British ships. The sinking of Lusitania is the famous example of the submarine warfare during the World War I.
The Lusitania had civilians on board, where 100 passengers were American citizens. After sinking Lusitania a letter was sent to the German Government by President Wilson to warn the German government against killing Americans citizens. In October 1915 Ottoman Turkish Empire enters war on German side. Turkish army began invasion of Russia and was very successful until Great Britain attacked Turkey. British, French, Australian and New Zealand were unsuccessful in invading Turkey. The action was confined to the Dardanelles Strait and the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula near Istanbul. The same year, Italy had withdrawn from the Triple Alliances when war started, and on the Eastern Front Russians were losing their lands and over 750,000 soldiers were taken as prisoners. By the end of 1915 the whole society of Europe mobilized for war. This was to be the world's first Total War. Women were taking on the jobs, and most male population was sent to war. The total war started when Germans used their first gas attack: Gassing was the start of total war, because it broke all limits, the social taboos, the gentleman's etiquette of other wars.
In conclusion I think that nationalism was the main long-term cause to world war one as nationalism leads to imperialism imperialism leads to militarism and alliance ad also nationalism is that prompted Gavrilo Princip to assassinate archduke Franz Ferdinand and it is what lead to alliance which turned Europe into a volcano simmering to erupt, unfortunately in that case war was inevitable and was bound to happen so even though the murder a Sarajevo was the spark to that caused the great war to happen there were several things that have been building up over that last 50 years before the war that caused it to get to that point of instability. "The last twenty years of the 19th Century, say 1880 to 1900, those years were characterized by an immense optimism. It was thought that public health, invention, the telegraph, the telephone, ultimately the wireless and the radio, were going to civilize human life in a way that it had never been civilized before. And, then, all of a sudden, what happens is ghastly war breaks out and spoils everything." The inventions that were supposed to improve the standards of living for humanity in fact made the war more tragic. "The age that died in 1914 was a brilliant one - so extravagant in its intellectual and aesthetic endowments that we who have come after can hardly believe in its reality."