The Three Main Causes Of World War I

World War I, also called the “war to end all wars” and “The Great War,” was fought between Germany, Russia, France, Great Britain, the United States, and many other countries. It resulted in the death of about 17 million people, it was the bloodiest conflict in history. It was mainly fought with trench warfare, which is where one fights from trenches (that protect the soldiers from most of the bullets). The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand is the official start of World War I, but there were three main causes. The three main causes of World War I were militarism, imperialism, and alliances. One of the main causes of World War I was militarism. Militarism is the belief that a country and its people should maintain and support a strong military. This lead to Britain and Germany increasing their armies because the more one country built up the their army, the others felt they had to do the same. This contributed to the start of the war because instead of looking at diplomatic ways to solve a solution, they started looking at ways they could use their military (since it was so big and powerful). An example of militarism is Germany. Germany was so proud and confident in their military, they wanted to
Imperialism is the conquering and ruling of other lands. The British conquered over 5 countries (looking for resources), and ruled about ¼ of the world in land and ⅓ of the world in people. Also, France conquered large areas of Africa. Since only these two countries own most of the world, this left other countries wanting to expand at a loss. This created competition and conflict between many of the countries throughout the world. For example, Germany wanted to expand and create a huge empire, but could not because there was no land left. So Germany conquered other countries (or tried to in some cases). The countries Germany tried to conquer wanted revenge on Germany, so it was easy for them to start a