American History

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the cause of the First World War. While the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand was regarded the immediate cause for the war, one must take into consideration the underlying circumstances that led to this fateful event.  If there was one major underlying cause of the war, it was nationalism (Duffy, 2009).

Nationalism is often defined as professing love for ones country.  But on careful observation, majority of the nations involved were the great powers of the time (Germany, Russia, Britain, France, and later the United States).  Their definition of nationalism was different from other countries as this put emphasis on pride of their achievements which in turn was manifested by their economic and political achievements being industrialized and possessing territories overseas.  Furthermore, peoples attitude towards war was different then as they saw it as an opportunity for glory, another achievement to be attained by their nation and to bring personal honor to the individual.  War was something welcomed as it gave citizens a chance to prove their devotion to their nation and add to its glory by distinguishing themselves in battle.

Friction began when the nationalism of these countries would clash with one another as they vied for supremacy over the other (Bloch, 1935, p. 26).  This led a competition to acquire more territories and a massive buildup of their military forces as a deterrent against one another.  The more colonies they acquire would give the impression they were the most powerful and their armed forces were the means to an end in making this happen.  But since they all saw each other as potential adversaries sometime in the future despite the civility they display in the realm of diplomacy or had cooperated before in the past.

Others took a different approach and sought alliances as a way to make potential enemies an ally giving them more leverage against other rivals (Bloch, 1935, pp. 24-25).  This saw Austria-Hungary aligning itself with Germany while Britain, Russia and Italy and even France forming another, as well as forming alliances with several other countries as well.  Through the alliance, the parties involved were confident that their allies would come to their aid should they be attacked and the latter was obliged to honor the terms of the alliance (Duffy, 2009).

Going back to nationalism, this had a tremendous impact in other states, particularly the restive Balkan region which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  The Serbs, in particular began to develop a feeling of national awareness and were beginning to resent being under a foreign ruler.  Some resorted to terrorism such as the Black Hand which was responsible for the assassination of the Archduke as a way of making a statement.  The assassination was an affront to the national pride of Austria-Hungary yet they were not content with the punishment meted to the assassin.  The former demanded more from Serbia, threatening war if it did not comply. Russia, an ally of Serbia had to intervene and when the war started, Germany was obliged to come to the aid of its ally which started the war (and they got blamed for it in the end).  Russias other allies then had to come to its aid and that was how the war began.

In summary, it could be inferred that the clash of nationalism was the root cause of the war.  It had spawned related causes such as competition among the great powers as evidenced by acquiring more colonies, having an arms race and entering into tactical alliances but these proved to have made the war possible than prevent it all because of national agitation in a small country called Serbia that brought everything full circle as one assassination sent the rest of the world at war.