To what extent was World War I inevitable?
World War I was inevitable to a great extent. Militarism, nationalism, and the System of Alliances were all huge factors building tension and leading to World War I. A war was necessary to release these tensions.
In the years before the start of the war, in 1914, the Great Powers in Europe were extremely interested in the militarization of their country. One such example is Germany. Bismark wanted to make Germany's military strong and powerful. This was seen as a threat to other Europeans countries who also started building up their weapons and mobilizing their armies. Mobilization of each countries' armies happened like a chain reaction with no country wanting to be left behind. Even in 1870, years before World War I took place, every staff officer in Europe knew "the nation which loses the mobilisation race is likely to lose the war" (Wolfson, 121). This attitude shows that war had been on peoples minds' for a long time before it took place. Once mobilization had taken place the war was inevitable because letting this chain reaction continue would have led to World War I yet trying to stop or reverse it would have caused chaos throughout Europe. The reason this process could not have been reversed was if one country demobilized it would have put that country at the "mercy of its adversaries." In other words, other countries would have seen it as a good chance to attack that country, since it would not be able to defend itself. Another reason, diplomacy could not have worked at reversing this process was due to the attitudes of the leaders at this time. For example, William II of Germany had "an instinctive preference for methods of violence" rather than peaceful methods.
