World War One was an extremely brutal war that destroyed European confidence. This war contained many deadly battles such as the battle of Somme which alone killed 68,000 soldiers. The many new developments that took place before or during WWI added to the brutality, these new developments included flamethrowers, machine guns, poison gas, tanks, and artillery. While Europe was making these new weapons, the Black Hand was making plans to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. This set off the spark to WWI. However this still leaves us with the question, “what underlying causes led to WWI?” The underlying causes of WWI were militarism, loose alliances, and nationalism.
For starters, one of the biggest causes of WWI was…show more content… Europe was in a constant struggle of maintaining peace. To achieve a balance of power they formed loose alliance. These alliances were the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. According to the European Alliance, 1914 the Triple Alliance consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy; whereas the Triple Entente was made up of the United Kingdom, France, and Russia (Doc 3). The formation of these alliance made Europe a powder keg. To cause war in Europe all it would take is a spark. The spark to set off the beginning of WWI was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Austria-Hungary blamed this on the Serbian government, however, it was a nationalistic group that committed the assassination. Four days later Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This led to Russia declaring war on Austria-Hungary, Germany declaring war on Russia, France declaring war on Germany, and Austria-Hungary and Britain joining France and Russia. Thus Europe was at war. Without these alliances the war likely would have stayed between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. Hence loose alliance was a major factor in the underlying causes of WWI which brought most of Europe into the
