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Michael Larsen
Jessica Feveryear
History 1700
8 December 2014
World War 1 Causes and Effects
World war one was supposedly the war to end all wars, this was thought because of
scale of world involvement. What is interesting to note on this war, is although it took place
between 1914-1918 its effects impact us even today. All of our problems in the Middle East can
to some degree be traced back to World War 1.

US Civil War
Honestly I wasnt able to find much information on the US Civil War being part of the cause for
WW1. However I think something can be linked to its start. The end of slavery meant the end
of cheap labor. So southern plantations then had to hire workers to work the cotton fields.
However with new technology being developed this wasnt a terrible thing. Because manual
labors werent needed as much and it was being more and more commercialized by big
businesses. This freed up many manual labors in the field to move into the city to begin working
in factories.

Industrialization
With industrialization starting to sweep across the world it also affected Europe.
Neighboring countries began to be rivals in a race to become more industrious than the others.
Germany at the time was leading the way. Their automobile, textile and pharmaceuticals were
by far superior to any others in the world. Around the world other countries marveled at
Germanys superiority in these fields.

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With Industrialization there followed a movement of socialists. These people took great
pride in their field of labor. Pride in their work also led to pride in their communities. this helped
start Nationalism.

Growing Nationalism
Since more and more people were moving away from the farm country to work in
factories. The population in cities became more and more dense. Before industrialization
people took pride in their smaller communities. However once the population density started to
increase in cities, there became a movement of taking more pride in their work and their larger
communities. Their race to be superior at production than other countries bonded these people
together more. Because populations were becoming more dense schools started becoming
more prevalent. Each country then began to stream line what was being taught in the schools.
This started a consistent teaching platform to even more unify the people. History began to be
taught according to their countries history and started to increase the nationalist spirit.

Militarism
In the rivalry to become more industrious than their neighboring country it began a new
movement. Aided by the growing nationalist spirit, Militarism began to grow. The increase of
production started to produce more weapons of war. Militaries began to grow bigger, other
countries seeing their neighbors military growing began to increase theirs as well. Seeing that
their neighbor was also increasing their military strength it caused a fear in them, that their
neighbor was becoming more of a threat. So began the arms race, seeing their country growing
stronger in military strength only added to the nationalism spirit. This also started the Idea of
becoming a world power.

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Most countries at the time had colonies all over the world. Each country wanted to
expand their influence all over the world, which then would help expand their trade. Their focus
wasnt just abroad in other continents they wanted to expand their dominance in Europe as well.

Alliances
The Growing arms race and militarism that began to spread fear through Europe began
making Alliances a necessity. Neighboring countries were building up their armies it was hard
to say if they could defeat the other country. So they began to reach out to other countries,
because if they cant defeat this one country than hopefully two countries could. Seeing this,
the other country knew it couldnt take on 2 different countries so it would find other countries to
ally with them. This resulted in France Servia and Russia being allied and later the British and
the US would join them. The opposing force was Germany Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and
Austria Hungary. These alliances along with the over confidence of Germany created allot of
tension.

The spark
The Tension built between all the alliances and was finally ignited in the Blakins in
Servia, on the 28th of june 1914 When arch duke Frans Ferdinan was assassinated. The people
that commited the act were not Servian military. They belonged to a servian nationalist group
called the Black Hand. How this happened is actually interesting there were 5 assassins that
were set up along the route that Frans Ferdinan was going to be taking. One of them threw a
bomb at his car and didnt kill Ferdinan. The driver sped off but then got lost and stopped to ask
for directions. Thats when one of the assassin Gavrilo Princip saw him and shot both Frans
and his wife Sophie.

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This act was seen by Austria as an act of defiance and rebellion to them. Austrian
leaders then wanted to put down this rebellion. Austria knew that Russia was committed to
protecting their fellow Slavic people. Unsure of their strength and capability to take on Russia
they then appealed to Germany. On the 6th of July Germany pledged its unquestionable resolve
to assist Austria in putting down the Servia rebellion. This is partly why people think that
Germany deserves most of the blame. Because they were committed to no end to help Austria
and gave them what people now refer to as the Berlin Blank Check.
The 28th of July Austria declared war on Servia and 2 days later the Russian Czar
ordered his armies to mobilize. Germany then began making plans for war and how to deal with
Russia and its ally France. They planned to crush France by going through Belgium before
turning on Russia.
The German Campaign in France was only supposed to take 40 Days before turning on
Russia. Since the Germans went into Belgium, Belgium appealed to the British to help them.
The British sent a petition to Germany to withdrawal from Belgium and when it was refused the
British declared war on Germany August 4th. Part of what of what angered the British people
was the German brutality to European civilians in Belgium and France. Supposedly over 6 and
a half thousand civilians were brutally executed some systematically in groups of hundreds.
How this ended up playing into Europes alliances was France could tell they werent
strong enough to overcome Germany. So they negotiated with the British, The British could see
that If Germany Defeated France, It would only be a matter of time before they turned to fight
the British. So Great Britain allied its self with the French.

The US Becomes involved

Woodrow Wilson kept the US out of the war during his first term as president. He even
ran for a second term with the presidential slogan "He kept us out of war." In January 1917, The
British intercepted a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann. The message

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was intended for von Eckhardt, the German Minister to Mexico, it offered US territory to Mexico
If they joined the German fight. There had been many offenses given to the US by the
Germans like sinking US ships carrying supplies to aid the British. The Germans unrestricted
U-boat warfare began to create allot of tension with the US. The Zimmerman telegram is what
finally pushed America into the war on April 6, 1917. This was definitely long overdue for the
US to become involved and I think Wilson made the right decision. At that point the British and
French were becoming war weary and morale was becoming low and the addition of US troops
helped boost that. Maybe they would have won anyways but I think that the addition of US
support demoralized the Germans more and helped pressure the end of the war sooner.

Battlefield Changes
When the Germans saw that the British were going to join the war they focused their
attention on trying to seize French ports to stop British troops from landing. It was around this
time that that they realized that fighting on an open battlefield wasnt going to work. Calvary
began to be phased out and soldiers began digging trenches. Because the lines were so long
and there were so many battle fronts the leaders stopped leading from the front and stayed
behind to communicate with their soldiers. Troops hid out in trench lines until they would go
over the trench walls and fight on open ground trying to seize the enemys trenches. This lasted
for a few years until the British invented the tank.

Treaty of Versailles
The war finally ended on November 11th 1918 and has now been turned into Veterans
Day in the US. The treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919 and was to be the peace
settlement. Unfortunately many historians see that this was not a well put together document
and contributed to WW2. As part of the agreement it would make Germany accept all
responsibility for the war and have to pay for the damages caused by the war. It also aimed to

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limit Germanys military strength. However these were poorly implemented and never strictly
enforced.

Hitler and Germanys Vendetta

Because the Treaty of Versailles was so harsh towards the Germans it led to a strong
resentment to the allied powers. Their national pride had been hurt after World War 1 and so
when a strong leader like Hitler came along they accepted him gladly. With Adolf Hitler came a
promise of reclaiming their former glory.

Effects of it today
The effects of the 1st world war can still be seen today. For one if Germany would have
successfully defeated France and Russia they would have also defeated the British. This would
have led to a less democratic government in Europe. The Ottoman Empire after World war one
was broken apart into smaller countries. Iraq at one point was actually a part of the Ottoman
Empire. The country borders that were drawn then were then redrawn after WW2. To this day
these borders have caused constant fighting between different religious groups. Isis for
example fights for an all Islamic state trying to join all of the Middle Eastern countries under one
country under the law of their god Ala.