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World War I

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World War I
Bill Johnson
DeVry University
Professor Kevin Muir

DeVry University

June 22nd, 2014

World War I
1914-1918 will be dates forever ingrained into the history of the world. These dates bring about and highlight the human thirst for expansion, oppression, and war. These four years of time depict a flaw in human nature that goes against all common sense in the belief in peace. This is proven in the fact that humans have given identity to the event that took place as “The Great War”, a global conflict that saw the death of millions of combatants and still one of the deadliest conflicts in history. Nationalism, Imperialism, and Militarism are the forces that drove nations to this conflict, coupled with depression, oppression, and expansionism. The great economic powers of the world were assembled into two opposing alliances, one dubbed the Allies and one called the Central Powers none of which included the United States initially. World War I saw a resurgence of imperialism and this was the underlying cause and what eventually saw the United States, Japan side with its economic partners and the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria join the Central Powers.
The immediate spark that lit the flames of World War I was the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by the Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo (Mitrovic, 2007). Ferdinand was the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary and his death set off a diplomatic crisis as an ultimatum was delivered to the Kingdom of Serbia which eventually saw the invocation of international alliances formed in the decades before. Shortly after Ferdinand’s death war broke out and because of the mutual defense alliances Austria-Hungary had the full backing of the Central Powers (Mitrovic, 2007). As the Serbian Kingdom prepared the Austro-Hungarian forces fired the first shots prior to invasion. These

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