What Were The Causes Of World War I By George Kennan

World War I is known as the most deadliest conflict in history and was declared by, George Kennan. During the war, their was a total number of forty-one million military and civilian casualties; there were eighteen million deaths and twenty-three million people wounded. This war effected many innocent lives and people. During the war, a total of twelve million letters were delivered to the frontline every week. The families sent those letters to the soldiers to try and stay in touch with them. Families not being able to reach out to their loved one that is in the war impacted them greatly. Back then it was very hard to keep in touch with your family member because you never knew if they got your letter or not and if they were safe. Many reporters
were extremely close to losing their lives trying to document the war. The reporters were trying their best to document the war for the families and possibly for future reference so this decade would know how bad and how impacting the war was.
Without those reporters trying their best to keep all the families in tact, who knows how lonely and worried those families would have been during the entire war. World War I is a war that will never be forgotten due to how many lives were lost and how much it impacted people. There are many causes of why World War I happened but, the main ones were militarism, alliances, and imperialism. Militarism is a system that places great importance on military power. It determines who has more power over whom. This is very important in a way because if we did not have militarism the wars could have been even worse. Militarism helps smooth things out in a way, but it could also be considered a negative power. This caused a lot of conflict between countries because they all wanted to be better than each other. The only way the conflict was resolved was to fight one another. This was not a very good way to handle disagreements because it affected many innocent people; such as children, families, and innocent civilians. Militarism was influenced by many leaders such as Alfred Vagts, a German historian who served in World War I. Vagts was one of the leaders who really stressed militarism and said that it is
“domination of the military man over the civilian” (Vagts). This means that the military took over everything during the war and civilians could not do anything about it. Militarism also had a huge impact on defense mechanisms and spendings which lead to new technologies. The airplane was one of the new technologies that was developed during the war. It was developed with only canvas, wood, and wire. At first, the purpose of the airplane during the war was to observe enemy troops, but then later was used to shoot down other enemy’s planes. Airplanes were also very useful in certain ways because the soldiers could transport their goods and weapons easier such as, bombs, guns, and ammunition. Since militarism says who has more power than who, this could have affected who got what kind of weapons and shielding. Such as, one country could have got more shielding so not all their soldiers would die as quick or another country could have got better guns or more ammunition. Another technology that was invented during WWI was plastic surgery. It was invented to help wounded soldiers that got badly injured during the war. Plastic surgery could have been very difficult back then because they did not have near as much resources as we do now. This effected the war in another way because whoever had more power would have got more special treatment when it came to helping their wounded soldiers. If one country was the highest country then they would definitely have more treatment when it comes to helping their soldiers. For example, if a country barely had any power the people who helped the soldiers could have chose not to help them which would result to more deaths and more victories for other countries. Which also could have affected the turn out of World War I and the victors. An alliance is a political agreement between two nations, it is when two countries agree to help each other and not go against each other in a war.
Between the time of 1879 to 1914 a number of alliances had been signed by multiple countries, which lead to no option but to declare war. This meant that even if a country did not want to go to war, they had no choice. This caused more conflict between countries because it is more than likely that the ones who did not want to go to war got even more furious. Which lead to an extreme amount of conflict between multiple countries. France and England were one of the biggest antagonist whose rivalry went up hill between the 14th and 19th century. This may have been a good thing though for some countries because they would be very interested to go to war and defeat their worst nemesis’s. For example, if a country allies with another country, they promise to help each other and be on each others side and not betray them. They agree to not turn on each other and to always have each others back. Another example why an alliance is a good thing is because this could have ended the wars faster due to countries teaming up to defeat their enemies. Also, alliances were a good thing because this could have brought them together. For example, if Britain and France hated each other at first, and they decided to team up and be alliances with each other that could have brought them closer and made it to where they liked each other. Alliances also
teaches countries how each other fight during war. This could have been beneficial because they would learn new fighting techniques, and what to do and what not to do while fighting. On the other hand, the idea of alliances could have been a bad thing because it could have caused major conflict between many countries. This could have caused more conflict because it was possible that they would argue over who was alliances with whom. Also, more fighting would happen because alliances would think their better than each other causing a lot of differences with one another. Fighting should never be the answer, but back then that’s all they knew of. Alliances also lead towards trade agreements and economic elements. They would trade all kinds of weapons and ammo. This benefited some countries economics because the more they traded the more money they would get as a country. This caused rivalries too because countries would get jealous of each other and how much money they are making. Imperialism is a system where a powerful nation controls and exploits other nations.