How Did Alliances Cause Ww1

The June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by the Serbian Black Hand Group, caused Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia. As their allies got involved this conflict grew into World War I (WWI). This event wasn’t the real cause of the war, it was just the spark that started it. Most people would say the causes were imperialism, nationalism, alliances and militarism.

According to alphahistory.com “Imperialism is a system where a powerful nation controls and exploits one or more colonies”.Toward the end of the 1800s, several imperial powers existed. The British empire was the largest. Both France and Britain had many colonies in Africa and Asia. Germany, Italy and others, including the United States wanted to expand their empires

Alliances are formed for different reasons such as the need for financial or military support, trade agreements, investments or loans. Alliances became strong in the early 1800s when european nations either wanted to support French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte or they wanted to defeat him. Alliances weakened in the mid 1800s, but strengthened again in the late 1800s. The Triple Alliance of 1882 was an alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, fueled by anti- French and anti-Russian feelings.The Triple Entente of 1907 was a three way agreement between Britain, France, and Russia. Most alliances were signed in private and not all details were told to the public. The secretive nature caused other countries to be suspicious. As the large nations banded together in many different alliances for different reasons, they built relationships and gained resources needed to go to war. Alliances were a major reason the war became bigger. If there hadn’t been alliances, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand would have only cause a war between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. Because of alliances, Russia came to aid Serbia and that led Germany to declare war on Russia. Eventually the other countries with alliances joined

The growth in the armies and navies of all the large empires gave them the resources to go to war.According to alphahistory.com “ Militarism is a philoshophy or system that places great importance on military power”. From 1908-1930 Germany led military spending with $1.994 billion. Great Britain was second with $1.9925 billion. Russia spent $1.7255 billion and France $1.6499 billion. Britain had a large and powerful navy. Germany wanted to have the same thing too, or even bigger and better. All the countries felt like they had to build up their militaries to keep up with everyone else.

Not just one of the four causes takes the blame for starting WWI. All of these things: imperialism, nationalism, alliances, and militarism combined to make a large war, involving many countries, which took several years to