World War One carries the harsh reputation of being one of the bloodiest wars to ever be fought. The four years of non-stop battling took heavy tolls on countries all across Europe. There was no limit to what they were willing to accomplish in order to cement themselves in a certain area. The desire, greed, and rivalry amongst nations to gain territory to ultimately achieve economical and political stability were heightened during this period of time. Not to mention the fact that countries were eager to demonstrate their new technologically advanced weapons and sophisticated battle plans as means of expressing their dominance. Amongst the countries involved, the most powerful were Germany, Russia, France, Britain, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. …show more content…
Germany had an industrialized nation, as well as powerful army and navy. They spent millions of dollars improving their military to prepare for war. According to the chart on Document 1, Germany spent the third most on their armaments up and was only outdone by Great Britain and France. With all of this new technology, countries were eager to go to war and test out their years of hard work and innovation. As a result of their eagerness, “political and military leaders did certain things which lead to the mobilization of their armies for war and to the declarations of war (Document 6)” and those certain things were none other than new weapons and battle plans. According to A.J.P. Taylor, “the outbreak of World War One was caused almost entirely by rival plans and all Euro powers had developed military plans in the case of war.” Majority of these plans involved swift mobilization and lightning attacks. You can see these characteristics with both the French, German, and Russian plans. Germany’s war plan, the Von Schlieffen Plan, consisted of a quick attack on France through the North and France’s plan was identical but with Germany being the target. Russia’s plan was also to attack Germany and also Austria. Although these counties all had similar strategies, none were as confident as Germany. They believed they could win the war with this new army that as soon as war was declared, they didn’t hesitate to make the first strike. …show more content…
According to historian Konne Zilliacus, “Europe went to war to defend imperialist interests which consisted of the private interests of finance and monopoly capital.” One example of imperialism would be Germany and their desire for Africa. They stir up controversy by interrupting the French attempts of building good relationships with the people there. They want a piece of Africa so that they can slowly expand their empire and Morocco seemed to be the perfect place in their opinion. It was also a test to determine Britain’s loyalty to France and in this case, it seemed as if their loyalty was poor but British diplomats supported France and their possessions in Morocco a year later at the Algeciras Conference. Another five years later, some Moroccans attempt to revolt against the French and their revolts catch the attention of Germany. Wilhelm sends gunboats and ammunition to the rebels so that they can successfully drive France out of Morocco and possibly give Germany an opportunity to take it over. Unfortunately for the Germans, the British see this and immediately threaten military action and set themselves on a more anti-German path. In an attempt to create peace and give Germany what they would like, they are gifted with the Congo so that they no longer interfere with Morocco. Another significant example of imperialism would be the Bosnian Crisis. In 1908, Austria-Hungary randomly annexed Bosnia