What Caused World War 1?

What caused World War 1?

World War 1 was ranked the most deadly conflict in human history. The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was over 37 million. The tension in Europe was very very high, a little spark could explode the whole thing into a bigger thing, and that spark was the death of the arch-duke of Austria-Hungary by a Serbian assassin. The assassin wanted Serbia to have freedom, but his act lead to something completely different, it lead to the war that lasted 4 years (1914-1918).

During this time period (1900's) the European nations were in a current state of imperialism, all the nations of Europe wanted to increase their empire, by this they wanted to gain more land. This lead to some bitter tension between some nations. As shown in Document F nations colonial Empires populations started to increase, by 1913 Britain had about 400,000,000 Colonies with Germany at 12,0000,000. With that much population it would be difficult to fit everyone into the empire if they did not try to increase there lands.

At first this conflict was between Serbia and Austria-Hungary but it soon escalated when allies came into the picture. Allies and treaties was a major part of what caused World War 1. Germany became involved because they promised Austria-Hungary if they were even threatened or attack them would step in a help. Which they did by attacking Serbia, now when Germany made that move, Russia became involved. She moved into the war because they had promised Serbia if they were ever attacked, they would have their back. Now since Russia moved in to defend Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia. This just leading to chain reactions, with Germany declaring war on Russia it led to France and the U.K entering the war. France and the U.K had an ally with Russia to support them if they were ever at war. Germany saw this and also declared war on France and the U.K. As you can