Germany's Role in Wwi Essay Example

World War one took place between 1914 and 1918 in Europe. World War one resulted in the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Russian empire, and the German Government. The German government was overthrown and lost territory. At the end of the war maps of Europe and the Middle East were re-drawn. It is important to establish blame of who started the war to prevent war in the future. However, it is not ethical nor accurate to blame one county entirely, which is what happened to Germany. It is often assumed that Germany was entirely to blame for WWI, but Serbia, Russia, Austria Hungary, France, Great Britain, and Germany all contributed to the cause of WWI. Sidney Bradshaw Fay has studied WWI and tried to determine why it began, and who is to blame. She concluded that not only was Germany to blame for the war, but that all European countries who played a part in the war were somewhat at fault. Fay states, "In each country political and military leaders did certain things, which led to mobilizations and declarations of war, or failed to do certain things which might have prevented them" (Fay). I agree with Fay because although some countries played a bigger role than others, they all contributed in some way. Even countries that tried to stay passive contributed to the war by not taking enough action to prevent the war. Serbia, Russia, and Austria Hungary played their part in starting WWI. Serbia looked to Russia for allegiance in the act to liberate Serbians under the Hapsburg rule in which Russia had led on they would help; this is also how Russia was partly responsible as well. Since Russia had recently horribly lost a war with the Japanese, Russia was unprepared to fight another war, making it difficult to follow through and back up Serbia. Austria Hungary demanded the cooperation of Serbian officials, but the Serbian government dismissed it and ordered an initiation of war because of the lack of communication between alliances from all countries.