What really was the cause for WWI?

Question

I know the story is that a serbian nationalist who was involved in a pan-slav party shot the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but what is so confusing to me is that Wilhelm II was cousins i believe with both the Tsar Nicholus as well as related to the king of Britain. George something?
Is it not strange that these royal families would marry off like this and then declare war on each other? I thought when they married it was a way of consolidating power in other countries and empires?
So the pan slav movement they say was drummed up by Britain and the western powers to undermine the ottoman empire , are the major theories out there, and Austria and Germany were fighting to prevent them from taking over the trade route from Istanbul, but what is your explanation??
And as the bonus question: why were these monarchs who were related fighting each other?

Answer 1

The assassination was simply the trigger to begin a war waiting to happen.Tsar Nicholas,George the Fifth and Kaiser Willhelm were all cousins.More importantly than the trade routes to the dying 'Ottoman Empire',was the prospect of Germany having a train route to 'Persia'(modern day 'Iran').Britain would not tolerate this.Relatively,'Istanbul' was simply not important.The Turks joined with the side that their government thought would prevail.
As for family infighting,business was worth more than millions of lives to these monarchs.Britain also refused sanctuary to the Tsar and his wife,Alexis,as well as their children.

Answer 2

Although most modern historians allocate some or most of the blame to Germany, further studies have revealed that there was just as much 'will to war' in other countries. In 1991, the British historian Samuel Williamson, in his book, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War, argued that Austria-Hungary was equally to blame for the war, marrying a German expansionism with an Austrian desire to expand into the Balkans. Other historians cited militaristic/bellicose attitudes in France and Britain. This led some historians after the 1970s to return to Winston Churchill's suggestion that war came in 1914 because of a general restlessness throughout Europe, in which everybody was turning to violence as a way of sorting out their dissatisfactions (for instance, the suffragettes, the trade unions, and both Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, started to use force in the years before 1914).

Most recently, some historians have been drawing attention also to the feeling in Austria-Hungary and Russia that, somehow, a war might be the solution for their own internal troubles. The ruling classes of Russia and Austria-Hungary hoped that a war would help them to get back control of their people, and forge a new unity.

The historian Ruth Henig summarises modern thinking on the war when she writes:

What really marked out the decade before 1914 was a failure of statesmanship and hope. By 1912, most European governments had come to believe that a general European war was inevitable and that the problems which plagued them at home and abroad could no longer be settled by negotiation and diplomacy… In these circumstances, war seemed to offer an attractive way out ... The balance sheet in 1918 proved how wrong they had been.

R. Henig, The Origins of the First World War (1989)

Answer 3

Historians typcially offer four "causes" for WWI. They are:

1. Nationalism - the rapid "nation-building" of the late 19th century and the belief that your own nation is superior to all others.

2. The Alliance System - European nations had built up a large network of "secret" alliances that meant that any small conflict would quickly escalate into a continent-wide war.

3. Militarism - A tremendous arms race occurred throughout the continent from 1880 through 1914.

4. Imperialism - Britain and France had gobbled up the good colonies while Germany was still forming a unified nation.

The stuff about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand? Just a catalyst... not really a cause. It could have been just about anything that might have set off the powderkeg that Europe had become by 1914.

Answer 4

Germany easily wasn't (thoroughly) to blame for WWI. that is actual that Germany have been stockpiling weaponry and not without postpone competing with Britain by ability of establishing up their military and military. regardless of the undeniable fact that, conflict does no longer have broken out if no longer for a device of ecu alliances. Germany and Austria-Hungary had a treaty wherein one would help the different. while Austrian Archduke Ferdinand became into assassinated by ability of a Serbian business enterprise, Austria retaliated against Serbia. Russia, on the inspiration of yet another treaty, got here to the help of Serbia, for this reason frightening Germany to look after Austria. one by ability of one, France, Britain, Italy, and finally the U. S. fell into the conflict. Germany is blamed heavily because of the fact it became into the main effective and probably maximum desperate on that component of the conflict, regardless of the undeniable fact that that's only incorrect to declare that Germany led to the conflict. That dishonor would bypass to Serbia, Austria, or alternately many countries of Europe (which contain Germany) for engaging in an palms race.

Answer 5

The two main causes were the Greed of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor who didn't like his nephew Archduke Ferdinand, but used the attack on him as an excuse to try and gain territory.
And the rather ludicrous concept of European alliances which were designed to guarantee peace, but inevitably guaranteed war. It was like seeing domino's fall down one after another as they all declared war on each other.

Answer 6

Try reading the book "The Guns of August", which lays out many of the complex political issues that contributed to the war.

Answer 7

The Soviets their portion of Poland. captured approximately 10,000 Polish officers and brutally murdered them, most of them meeting their death in Katyn Forest near the Russian town of Smolensk. The traditional story about their deaths was that the officers had been killed by the German army, but now the evidence is clear that the Russians committed this crime. The other victims were taken aboard a barge which was towed out to sea and then sunk.

Even with all of these efforts of the American businessman to construct the German war machine with the full knowledge and approval of President Roosevelt, he kept repeating that the nation would continue its "neutral" position: it would remain out of the war. On September 1, 1939, when the war started, he was asked by a reporter whether America would stay out of the war and Roosevelt replied: "... I believe we can, and every effort will be made by the Administration to do so."

Answer 8

Amanda M I don't want to burst your bubble but that was WW11. As regards the question, it will never be answered, just 'guessed upon'.(See above)

Answer 9

Golf.

Answer 10

i know there are connections to zionism and germany was trying to control the movement but that's about it, sorry X