today we're looking at the causes of world war one
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you'll find more resources that go with many of the bellringer videos world war one the great war
or the war to end all wars raged across europe from july of 1914 to november of 1918 with the
treaty of versailles officially ending the war not being signed until june of 1919. the united
states was not part of the war until april 6th of 1917 when congress officially declared war on
germany but what caused this war that claimed the lives of an estimated 20 million people including
over 115 000 american servicemen the causes of world war one are a rather complicated mix of
politics imperialism military growth and national pride to see how all these factors came together
we have to focus on what was happening in europe throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s in which
a strong sense of nationalism was sweeping across the continent nationalism is an intense devotion
or pride to one's country or ethnic group which is a group of people that share a common background
tradition and language this strong sense of loyalty led to the formation of new nations
in the 1860s and 70s as both italy and germany formed some of the older nations of europe such
as france and england viewed these new nations as threats tensions grew as more ethnic groups across
europe began to want to break away from their ruling nations and form new countries of their own
add to this fact that these newly formed nations wanted to increase their influence and power
which is imperialism france and britain already had large empires with many colonial holdings
and these new nations felt that in order to maintain their own independent power
they needed to have equally large empires this was not only viewed as a political issue but also
as an issue of pride for these nations throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s european countries
came into conflict with each other as they pushed to expand their influence into other
parts of europe and the world coupled directly with this idea of imperialism was the idea that
one of the most effective ways to increase your country's power and influence was by building up
a stronger military the growth of military forces during the early 1900s became a competition among
these european nations between the years of to 1913 russia increased their military spending by
50 percent germany increased by 61 percent italy by 63 percent in france by close to 70 percent
britain for many years had always maintained the world's largest navy but in the early 1900s
germany began to massively expand their navy in an effort to exceed britain's dominance at
sea the two nations became bitter rivals as both frantically built more and more naval vessels to
keep up with the other in this arms race this increased focus on building up military forces
also led to a massive increase in the technology of war as nations developed new weapons that
would have a devastating impact during world war one lastly in an effort to protect their
interests european nations began to enter into a complicated web of alliances or an agreement
to protect a fellow nation if that nation were attacked in may of 1882 the triple alliance was
formed between germany austria-hungary and italy other european nations felt threatened by these
alliances especially france and russia in 1894 they established the franco-russian alliance
then in 1907 france russia and britain formed the triple on taunt and formally agreeing to support
each other if attacked this mixture of elements created a situation in which it would only take a
small spark to set off a war between all of these nations that spark came when on june 28th of 1914
archduke franz ferdinand who was next in line to the throne of austria-hungary and his wife
sophie duchess of hohenberg were assassinated by a member of a serbian nationalist group while in
sarajevo bosnia austria-hungary declared war on serbia a month later on july 28 of 1914 which
then largely due to this alliance system set off a chain reaction of declarations of war russia had
agreed to protect serbia and germany had agreed to aid austria-hungary so on august 1st a germany
declared war on russia then since france and russia were allies germany then declared war on
france shortly thereafter germany invaded belgium which had already declared a state of neutrality
and did not want to get involved but britain had agreed to protect belgium so then on august 4th
of 1914 britain declared war on germany as the war got underway two sides aligned the allied powers
included great britain france and russia against the central powers of germany austria-hungary
and the ottoman or turkish empire interestingly italy who had been in the triple alliance secretly
formed an alliance with britain france and russia and entered the war on their side in 1915. across
the atlantic the united states looked on deeply concerned about what was happening but remained
out of the conflict president woodrow wilson declared that the united states would remain
neutral however as time wore on the u.s faced more and more pressure to enter the war but that is
for another bell ringer so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching