Causes for World War 1 - Term Paper Example

Accordingly, the increased tensions led to the formation of alliances such as the Triple alliance (1882) that was formed among Austria-Hungary, Italy and Germany for the sole purposes of defending each other in case of attacks. In response, Britain, Russia and France formed the Triple Entente alliance (1907) thus encircling Germany and Austria-Hungary. In addition, Germany started competing with Britain in building modern battleships and with Russia and France in terms of expansion of the armies (Duiker and Spielvogel 666).

One of the long range immediate causes of WWI was imperialism since European countries had divided Asia and African countries in to territories with the aim of strengthening their economic and political influence in European continent. Such countries believe that they could be superior by conquering the others. Britain conquered Africa from north in Cairo while France tried to conquer Africa from the Western Atlantic Sea. The two countries almost went in to War after meeting at Fashoda in Sudan thus prompting Germany to demand a share of colonies too.

Austria desired to dominate Balkans in order to control Serbia propaganda and German supported Austria in exploiting rich resources of Asia Minor through Balkans policy (Duiker and Spielvogel 667). . Nationalism led races ruled by Turkey such as Bulgarians and races ruled by Austria-Hungary such as Serbs to demand their won freedom. Nationalism led to disintegration of Austria-Hungary but subsequently resulted to unification of Germany and Italy. Nationalism weakened the existing empires such as Ottoman Empire and Slavic people in Balkan region started demanding for freedom from the authoritarian Ottoman control.

Serbia finally declared its independence and allied itself with Russia thus increasing the tensions with Austria-Hungary (Duiker and Spielvogel 661). Another long range immediate cause of the War was increased militarism by the main powers. The countries perceived war as a means of entrenching foreign policy and started building large armies and battleships. For instance, Germany had 2,200,000 soldiers and about 100 warships in 1914 while Great Britain had about 711,000 soldiers and about 200 warships.

Other countries like Austria-Hungary, France, Italy and Russia started strengthening their military in preparedness of any eventuality (Duiker and Spielvogel 668). Another factor that can be attributed to the War was alliances that were formed between nations in order to protect the territories and ensure economic stability of the alliance members. Germany kept close ties with Russia in 1894 while Britain entered in to a friendly relationship with France in 1904. In 1907, Britain entered in to Triple Entente alliance that comprised Russia, Great Britain and France.

In addition, Britain had a naval alliance with Japan that had been formed in 1902. The Triple Entente threatened the superiority of Germany thus leading to aggressive military posturing against the neighboring countries (Duiker and Spielvogel 665). The assassination of