what is the reason for the 1 st world war
Answers
European diplomatic alignments shortly before the war. The Ottomans joined with Germany shortly after the war started. Italy became neutral in 1914 and joined the Entente in 1915.
Map of the world with the participants in World War I in 1917. Allies are in green, the Central Powers are in orange and neutral countries are in grey.
The causes of World War I remain controversial. World War I began in the Balkans in late July 1914 and ended in November 1918, leaving 17 million dead and 20 million wounded.
Scholars looking at the long term seek to explain why two rival sets of powers – German Empire and Austria-Hungary on the one hand, against Russian Empire, French Republic, and Great Britain joined by the United States – came into conflict by 1914. They look at such factors as political, territorial and economic competition, militarism, a complex web of alliances and alignments, imperialism, the growth of nationalism, and the power vacuum created by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Other important long-term or structural factors that are often studied include unresolved territorial disputes, the perceived breakdown of the European balance of power,[1][2] convoluted and fragmented governance, the arms races of the previous decades, and military planning.[3]
Scholars doing short-term analysis focused on the summer of 1914 ask if the conflict could have been stopped, or whether deeper causes made it inevitable. The immediate causes lay in decisions made by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis of 1914. This crisis was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by the Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip who had been supported by a nationalist organization in Serbia.[4] The crisis escalated as the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia was joined by their allies Russia, Germany, France, and ultimately Belgium and Great Britain. Other factors that came into play during the diplomatic crisis leading up to the war included misperceptions of intent (e.g., the German belief that Britain would remain neutral), fatalism that war was inevitable, and the speed of the crisis, which was exacerbated by delays and misunderstandings in diplomatic communications.
The crisis followed a series of diplomatic clashes among the Great Powers (Italy, France, Germany, Britain, Austria-Hungary and Russia) over European and colonial issues in the decades before 1914 that had left tensions high. In turn, these public clashes can be traced to changes in the balance of power in Europe since 1867.[5]
Consensus on the origins of the war remains elusive since historians disagree on key factors, and place differing emphasis on a variety of factors. This is compounded by historical arguments changing over time, particularly as classified historical archives become available. The deepest division among historians is between those who see Germany and Austria-Hungary driving events, and those who focus on power dynamics among a wider group of actors. Secondary fault lines exist between those who believe that Germany deliberately planned a European war, those who believe that the war was largely unplanned but still caused principally by Germany and Austria-Hungary taking risks, and those who believe that some or all of the other powers (Russia, France, Serbia, Great Britain) played a more significant role in causing the war than has been traditionally suggested.