The Industrialization outside of Britain after 1850 spread very rapidly which created a lot of opportunities for the consumer markets, hence opportunities that businesses could exploit. There was a large competition between the nations in Europe; overwhelming nationalistic feelings were fueled by the increasing amount of public schools, in which it was a custom to preach their nation’s superiority over the other nations. Because of this, European countries started to expand the competition by colonizing overseas. By 1900, most possible places were taken, and this led to a fierce conflict over the remaining locations, leading to the First Moroccan Crisis. The First Moroccan Crisis was an international issue between May 1905 and March 1906 regarding the status of Morocco. France wanted to claim Morocco as its colony but Germany did not approve, and the Kaiser’s senior politicians were much more worried than Wilhelm II about the planned expansion of the French forces to the Mediterranean Sea. Germany intervened by talking to the Sultan and encouraging him to stand up to the French. While on a visit in Tangier where the Kaiser met the Sultan and the French, he announced that he hoped that Morocco would stay an independent state and other such remarks that offended the British and the French. France gained the support of the United States, Italy and Britain, and by signing the Act of Algeciras and the Franco-German Accord of 1909 the First Moroccan crisis ended. Germany’s goal was to create frictions between the United Kingdom and France, as well as to become Morocco’s commercial interest. Germany’s attempt failed as France and Britain ended up allied.
After the retirement of Bismarck and the replacement of Wilhelm I by Wilhelm II, the German navy started changing. With the new ambition to transform Germany into a global power, Admiral Alfred von Tripitz initiated the formation of the Navy League. The tension only increased between Britain and Germany, and the Anglo-German arms race reinforced it. It was definitely one of the biggest causes of World War I, David Stevenson states that it was "a self-reinforcing cycle of heightened military preparedness [...] was an essential element in the conjuncture that led to disaster [...] the armaments race [...] was a necessary precondition for the outbreak of hostilities." The United Kingdom had the biggest and most powerful navy in the world at the time, and the Kaiser was enthusiastic about the expansion of Germany’s naval forces. With the help of Grand Admiral Alfred Von Tirpitz who designed four Fleet Acts from 1898 – 1912, he set the goal to achieve an expansion of their navy that would represent 2/3 of the British navy. Wilhelm II’s desire to expand his navy was mostly sparked by the aftermath of the Kruger Telegram and the British Foreign Office’s threat to kill the German Economy by blockading the German Coast. The British noticed their expansion and quickly joined the race to keep ahead of the Germans. During the arms race between the two nations, Britain came up with a ship that revolutionized naval power; the HMS Dreadnought encouraged Germany to build something that could match the ship. Nonetheless, by the beginning of World War I Britain had 49 ships in comparison to Germany who only had 29 which is approximately 60%.
The Balkan Wars were another cause of World War I. It refers to two conflicts that occurred in 1912 and 1913 in the Balkan Peninsula. The first war broke out when Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece and Serbia who had gotten their independence formed the Balkan League and attacked the Ottoman Empire in hopes of getting back large parts of their ethnic populations who were still in the Ottoman Empire. The territory that Bulgaria had won in the First Balkan War was lost again in the second Balkan war when Bulgaria attacked its former allies Serbia and Greece because of her dissatisfaction over the division of Macedonia. Serbia and Greece not only managed to stop Bulgaria’s attack, but they also launched a counter-offensive, along with the Ottoman Empire taking advantage of Bulgaria’s vulnerability and regaining most of the land it had lost. The Great Powers had a reaction to these wars, Russia was very encouraging of the formation of the Balkan League as it saw it as a great opportunity for a tool against Austria-Hungary in the case of a future war, to which the French responded that it would not take part in a potential war against Austria-Hungary. The British secretly encouraged the Bulgarians to take over Thrace as it preferred a Bulgarian Thrace to a Russian one. Germany had already been very involved in the internal politics of the Ottoman Empire, and it was completely opposed to the war. The second Balkan war was a disaster for Russia as it was the end of the Balkan league which Russia was reliant on to have the upper arm against Austria-Hungary. Serbia was isolated against Austria-Hungary, and then a Serbian backed organization killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir of the Austro-Hungarian throne, which triggered the whole World War. The July crisis followed the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It was a diplomatic crisis between the major European powers and it was also greatly attributed to the tangled webs of alliances in Europe at the time.
Austria-Hugary approached Germany for support against Serbia, but Russia was allied to Serbia which automatically involved Russia in the war. On the 23rd of July Austria-Hungary sent an ultimatum to Serbia with tough demands, stating that a failure of meeting those demands would result in war. The Serbian government replied meeting all of the demands except for one, but Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia anyway. Although Russia did not want the war, it had already let down Serbia once, and so the Tsar Nicholas mobilized his army and got involved in the war. He could not mobilize against Austria-Hungary only, he had to mobilize against Germany as well (he sent a telegram to the Kaiser to reassure him that he was not going against Germany). But Germany had no other choice but to mobilize as well, using the Schlieffen Plan, which would consist in an enormous attack against France first because it was allied with Russia. On august 1st Germany declared war on Russia and on the 3rd of august it declared war on France as well. Britain had proposed to Germany that it would stay neutral if it didn’t attack France, but it did attack France, and Germans troops invaded Belgium which the British had to help Belgium (Treaty of Washington). That is how all the great European joined in.
The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty that ended the war. It required Germany to bear all the responsibility of the war, and it was impossible to meet all the requirements considering that Germany’s economy was devastated by the loss of the war. All the nations wanted something from Germany, from territorial changed to military restrictions. Alsace and Loraine were regained by the French, the Province of Posen was ceded to Poland, Czechoslovakian gained the Hulltschin area of Upper Silesia, etc. The total sum of reparations demanded to Germany would be US $442 billion by today’s standards. The people of Germany were bathing in poverty and everything had to be taken away from them, giving conditions of desperation that rose to World War II.
Every war has more than one cause, but militarism is always at the heart of the problem. Though Germany had indeed a sense of militarism much too strong, it wasn’t correct to impose such large demands in the Treaty of Versailles, as it was not the only nation whose militarism had contributed to the source of conflict. World War I was probably preventable if each nation had eased down the emphasis on military forces, and if their webs of alliances had been less complex, not leading to a domino effect in the end.
by
nonode1997yahoofr (student)
