Militarism's Role In World War I

World War I began with the assassination of, Austria-Hungary Archduke, Franz Ferdinand and his wife in 1914. Even though this did not start the war single handedly it “lit the fuse to the fire” known as The Great War. Militarism, imperialism, nationalism, and alliances played a huge role in the war from beginning to end. Nationalism is a sense of belonging in a country. It involves putting ones country’s needs before any other country. Nationalism was a significant cause to World War I. Prior to the war, the arrogance and overconfidence of Europeans firm belief in the cultural, military supremacy, and economics attracted the jingoistic press of other countries. This caused tension with the Europeans and other countries because they did not like how imperious they were being. Another example is Austria- Hungary contained a large portion of Slavic people. Other groups of Slavic people formed their own countries such as Serbia and Russia. The Slavic citizens of Austria-Hungary wanted their freedom as well. Austria-Hungary was not willing to negotiate with its large Slavic minority.
One of the many ways to do this is by using military force. Interactions between countries, both bad and good, were become much more common. Rising tensions in the 1900s, led many Europeans nations to increase their military force. A country’s military increase affected other countries because they did not want to have a smaller or weaker army than another country. For example, when Ferdinand was killed, Austria-Hungary declared war with Serbia to show they were a force to be reckoned with. Another example, once Italy built up their military, Russia then built up theirs, which cause Germany to build theirs and so on. This created a never-ending cycle of military