Germany And Austria Hungary example essay topic

The first world war had many causes, the historians probably have not yet discovered and discussed all of them so there might be more causes than what we know now. Int his essay I would discuss the main causes of the war-the ones that were discussed in the textbook. In the time before the war's outbreak (before 1914-in the beginning of the century) the world was separated into big empires that had colonies around the world (European countries ruled most of Africa). There were fights and disagreements between the major empires. Usually, when there are many arguments between countries, people start fear of war and prepare for it (for example, today in Israel, after Benjamin Netanyahu winning the elections, Israel's policy towards the Arabs and the Palestinians have changed. There is fear from war with Syria, because of threats from both sides, so both countries arm themselves and ready for war, just in case it would break).

In the beginning of the century Britain was the largest empire in the world, it also had the largest navy. The navy was so big and strong because the Britons 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. Germany and France were rivals for centuries and at the beginning of the century and at the end of the 19th century the rivalry increased. This happened because of the war between those two countries in 1870-71 when Germany defeated France.

Germany took over the areas of Alsace and Lorraine and the French people wanted to revenge Germany and retrieve those lands. France could not start a war against Germany since Germany had more resources and a stronger army than France. France needed allies to help it fight (the subject of alliances would be discussed later). There was another quarrel between France and Germany-about controlling Morocco. In 1905 France thought that it should have more influence in the western Mediterranean Sea area as it already controlled Tunisia and Algeria, it wanted Morocco too. The Kaiser of Germany visited Tangier (a big city in Morocco) and said that Germany would protect Morocco in case of a French attack.

In 1911 France increased its control over Morocco and Germany sent a warship. The Germans withdrew at last but the French gave them a part of Western Africa in exchange. These two incidents increased the tension between France and Germany. Austria-Hungary was a big empire in southern-eastern Europe, it included eleven main nationalities. In the ninetieth and twentieth nationalism was becoming a powerful force in Europe so people that had the same culture, language (usually), etc wanted their own country. This was a problem for the government of Austria-Hungary that did not want to lose their power and control.

The Slavs in the southern part of the empire were their main concern since they wanted to join up to Serbia. This, they thought, would lead to a break-up of the empire (this eventually happened after the war). In 1908 Austria-Hungary have taken over Bosnia. The Serbs wanted it too, and Russia was on their side, but Germany declared that they would attack Russia if it would attack Austria-Hungary.

This was because of the agreements between Austria-Hungary and Germany and it also made them stronger (the alliances would be discussed later). This also led to the Sarajevo murder that would, too, be discussed later. In 1912 and 1913 the Balkan countries had fights among themselves and against the Ottoman Empire. First, in 1912, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece attacked the Ottoman Empire and took large parts of land from it. After the war was over these countries fought one against each other about the way they would share the conquered land. After the fights Serbia became a stronger country than it was before.

This increased the fears in the Austro-Hungarian government. There were alliances between different countries in Europe -- when a country feels a threat it looks for friends to help it. The alliances between the strong countries were what divided Europe into two armed camps where the smaller countries were connected to the alliances, but not official members. This thing created the danger of huge armies colliding into each other and causing huge destruction. This can happen even because of a small incident that can make all the allies that are committed to help their other allies join the war (this was the case in this war). There were two main alliances in Europe: the 'TripleAlliance' or the 'Central Powers' (included Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) and 'Entente Powers' or the " Allies' (included France, Russia and Britain).

The 'TripleAlliance' or the 'Central Powers' were first formed as Germany and Austria-Hungary became allies in 1879 and three years later Italy joined them. The 'Entente Powers' or the 'Allies' were formed as France became and ally of Russia in 1892 and in 1904 and 1907 Britain entered into ententes with France and then Russia. The assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 was the spark that ignited the First World War. On June 28 the archduke and his wife were driving in the streets of Sarajevo. As the car suddenly stopped and reversed a Serbian student named Gavril o Princi p shot them. He was supported by a Serbian secret society called the 'BlackHand'.

In my opinion one cannot make a statement of one single most significant cause since a person cannot say that one cause is more important than another. This is because if one thing would not have happened, as small and unimportant as it might seem, the action would not have been the same. Since I was asked to put the most important cause in my opinion I would put it, but it is a bit general. The nationalism and imperialism were the most important causes, in my opinion, since empires do not let the national groups in their countries have their own countries, as they should have. Also, empires always want to expand and conquer other countries so they would become stronger and more powerful. Austria-Hungary was an empire-and it collapsed into smaller countries after the first world war, like the Ottoman empire, which was divided between France and Britain.

In the two decades after the Second World War Britain and France separated from their colonies. The USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia separated into smaller countries in and after 1989. In this century nationalism and the end of imperialism was happening all around the world, it was a main cause for many wars (including the First World War). To conclude I can say that there were many reasons for the outbreak of the First World War and not all of them were discussed here. Only the main and most clear causes were discussed, and not as they should be presented (the right way to present them in a good research in my opinion is to put some evidence too, not just write everything down as facts)..