of Austria-Hungary, along with his wife and heir, lay dead, and the world lay on the brink of
mass death, destruction, and war, the ramifications of which still effect humanity today. However,
WWI wasn't caused solely by this bullet; it was simply the final straw, with many underlying forces
pushing the world into chaos. The three main underlying causes of WWI are nationalism,
alliances, and militarism.
In the years leading up to WWI, nationalism was gaining popularity. However, the group to
stand up for their nation, setting off WWI, were Slavic peoples in Herzegovina and Bosnia. They
wished not be part of Austria-Hungary, instead striving to …show more content…
To achieve this, a terrorist group called the Black Hand killed the archduke of Austria-
Hungary. It took many attempts, but in the end, they assassinated not only the archduke, but also
his wife, and their heir. Doing so plunged Serbia into a war in an attempt to gain freedom from
Austria-Hungary.
While the assassination of a ruler is terrible, it was nothing new. However, in the newer
ages, major alliances had been formed. As such, when the Serbians killed the archduke of the
Austria-Hungarians, they declared war on Serbia. However, Russia had an alliance with Serbia, pulling it into the fight. When Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary, Germany's alliance with
Austria-Hungary forced them to declare war on Russia, bringing Russia’s ally, France, into the
conflict. Later, Germany attacked France through Belgium, bringing them, as well as Britain, into
the war, creating a worldwide conflict. This only became worse when Japan, America, and Italy
eventually joined the war. No matter how much a country attempted to avoid joining, there's no
dodging a war where the battlefield is the entire planet, as everyone's bound to be attacked
sooner or later.
Finally, we have militarism. Over the years, technology had increased at an