The First World War
Senior 3 · History and Citizenship
The First World War
Lesson 1 of 4
25 min
In December 1912, less than two years before the war began, an American newspaper printed the cartoon below. Read the speech bubbles from left to right before you read on.
Analysing the source. Each figure threatens the next: "If you touch me, I'll—", "If you hit that little feller, I'll—", "If you strike my friend, I'll—". The cartoonist's point is that a quarrel between a great empire and a small Balkan state would not stay small, because every great power had promised to defend someone. He drew it in 1912; in 1914 almost exactly this chain pulled Europe into war. Historians sum up the long-term causes with the word MAIN: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism and Nationalism.
Definition
Alliance: an agreement between states to support each other, especially in war.
Militarism: the belief that a country should build strong armed forces and be ready to use them; an arms race is a contest between states to build more and better weapons.
Imperialism: the policy of building an empire by taking control of other lands and peoples, as in the Scramble for Africa.
Nationalism: strong loyalty to one's nation, including the wish of a people to have its own state.
| Cause and what happened | Why it made war likely |
|---|---|
| Militarism. Britain launched HMS Dreadnought, a new kind of battleship, in 1906, and Germany raced to build its own. Every great power except Britain had a huge conscript army and detailed war plans, such as Germany's Schlieffen Plan to defeat France quickly through Belgium before turning on Russia. | Fear grew on all sides, and war plans had to be started early and fast, leaving little time for talks. |
| Alliances. The Triple Alliance (1882): Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. The Triple Entente: France and Russia (1894), Britain and France (1904), Britain and Russia (1907). | Europe split into two armed camps, so a war between two powers could pull in the rest. |
| Imperialism. The powers competed for colonies, as in the Scramble for Africa you studied in Senior 2. Germany, late to empire, clashed with France and Britain over Morocco in 1905 and 1911. | Colonial crises bred distrust between Germany and the Entente powers. |
| Nationalism. France wanted back Alsace-Lorraine, lost to Germany in 1871. In the Balkans, Serbia wanted to unite the South Slavs, including those in Bosnia, which Austria-Hungary annexed in 1908. Russia backed its fellow Slavs. | Austria-Hungary saw Serbian nationalism as a threat to its survival as an empire of many peoples. |
On 28 June 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie visited Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb nationalist linked to a secret Serbian society called the Black Hand, shot them both. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and, sure of German support, decided to crush it. Figure 1 shows how the alliances then turned one murder into a European war in 37 days.
Figure 1. The July Crisis. Blue boxes are threats and promises; orange boxes are declarations of war and mobilisation.
Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance, stayed neutral in 1914 and joined the other side in 1915. Britain went to war when Germany invaded Belgium, whose neutrality Britain had promised to protect in a treaty of 1839. On 3 August the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, told the House of Commons:
… there is the more serious consideration—becoming more serious every hour—there is the question of the neutrality of Belgium. […] The governing factor is the Treaty of 1839 …
Source B. Sir Edward Grey, speech in the House of Commons, 3 August 1914, from Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738–1914 (1914).
Worked example: linking causes
Question: Explain how the alliance system turned a quarrel between Austria-Hungary and Serbia into a European war. (6 marks)
Step 1. The local quarrel. After the Sarajevo murder, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914.
Step 2. The first link. Russia, protector of the Slavs and of Serbia, mobilised on 30 July.
Step 3. The second link. Germany, Austria-Hungary's ally, declared war on Russia on 1 August and, because its Schlieffen Plan required it, on Russia's ally France on 3 August.
Step 4. The third link. German troops crossed Belgium, so Britain, bound by the Treaty of 1839 and friendly with France and Russia in the Entente, declared war on 4 August.
Conclusion. Because each power was tied to others, a Balkan war became a European war within a week.
Tip
MAIN plus a spark. Learn the long-term causes as MAIN (Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism) and the immediate cause as "the spark at Sarajevo, 28 June 1914". The best answers show how the spark lit the fuel.
Warning
Don't say the assassination "caused" the war on its own. Heirs to thrones had been murdered before without a world war. It became a world war because of the alliances, war plans and rivalries behind it. Also remember that the alliances did not work automatically: Italy stayed out in 1914.
Imperial War Museums, "How did WW1 Start? | Causes of the First World War". Watch for the steps of the July Crisis and compare them with Figure 1.
After the war, the Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany and its allies for the war. Using the MAIN causes and the July Crisis, was one country to blame, or were many responsible? Give evidence for your view.
Practice
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
