why did World War One so quickly escalate from a local conflict to a crisis?

Answer 1

The alliance system certainly was a significant factor exacerbated by the rigid military mobilization structure of the major powers. Worse yet the experience of recent European wars indicated that the next war would be short, decisive and glorious. This was not to be the case, years of mass casualties in the trenches would be the result of the failure of the leaders of the major powers to think through the crisis in the Balkans. More tragic was everyone's inability to look at the very recent Russo-Japanese War and draw some sobering conclusions on the future of war.

Answer 2

The different treaties signed by the various governments lead to the escalation. When the Arch Duke was assinated the Austro Hungarian empire went to war with serbia, which dragged russia in which in turn dragged Germany in,which dragged france and the uk in and everyone else to.

Answer 3

Because of the system in interlocking self defense treaties of the European nations. These treaties were negotiated with a pacifist intention, to make war impossible, since an attack on one nation would be an attack on an entire union of nations. Didn't work.... Neither did the disarmament and isolationism of the 1930's. The European nations today would like us to repeat the mistake a third time...

Answer 4

because of defense pacts, one country pissed off another, then that country had friends and brought them in and the enemies had some friends come in and more and more people got into it, except for the U.S. who was dragged into it because the sinking of a ship the U.S.S. luistana or something i can't remember

Answer 5

Read "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman. She takes several hundred pages to explain, but does it brilliantly.
http://www.amazon.com/Guns-August-Barbara-W-Tuchman/dp/0345476093/

Answer 6

owing to a system of alliances between the various empires of the time.

Answer 7

I believe that it is because so many countries were allied, that once one got involved, they all did.

Answer 8

parrotjohn2001 is right to recomend The Guns of August. Great book.

I'll give you the quick and dirty version in a few hundred less pages.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was killed by Gavrilo Princip, who belonged to a terrorist group called "The Black Hand." The Black Hand was made up of Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims who wanted to break up the Austo-Hungarian Empire, and was supported by members of the Serbian military.

Members of the Austrian military decided that the time had come to deal with Serbia once and for all. They sent Serbia an ultimatum that was designed so that Serbia could not accept it. Serbia accepted what she could, but it was not good enough, and Austria declared war.

Russia felt obliged to protect Serbia, so she mobilized her Army, as a threat to Austria, to make Austria back down.

Austira feared invasion from Russia. She had an alliance with Germany, so she called on Germany and Italy. Italy got smart and said "Lets not and say we did.. we're sitting this one out."

Germany however mobilized her Army in order to make Russia back off her threat to Austria.

Now you have to understand two things here. First Mobilization of an Army (calling up the reserves, pulling weapons out of storage, buying more ammuniton, deploying troops, etc.) is a pretty automatic process. It is planned years in advance and works on it's own time table. Also once an Army is mobilized, the other nations don't KNOW what it is going to be used for. The Country A may say they are just mobilizing for defence, but there is no way that Country B can KNOW that. After all, if Country A is mobilizing for defense, they would say they were mobilizing for defence, but if they were mobilizing to stage a suprise attack on Country B...they would say they were just mobilizing for defense! So be safe, if you neighbor mobilzes his Army, the only safe thing to do is mobilize yours too.

So the Germans mobilzed. This scared the heck out of the French, (well it scared the smart ones... the stupid ones thought it was their chance to get back the land they lost to Germany in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870). So the French Mobilized.

Now it gets worse. The German Battle Plan was based on something called "interior lines of communications". Basicly the Germans knew that Russia being big had a HUGE honking Army and it was all going to be coming across their eastern border... but they also knew that Russia, being technologically behind Germany and France, would take a long time to mobilized. This meant that IF the Germans got it just right, they could mobilze their Army, invade France, grab Paris, knock France out of the war, and then get the troops back onto trains and run them across Germany in time to stop the Russian Army before it grabbed anything important inside Germany.

So...once France mobilized the German clock was ticking. They had to knock France out of the war before the Russians could ramp up this huge army and crush them. (Well that's what they though... in reality the Russian Army was pretty pitiful, google The Battle of Tanneburg for details.) In any case the Germans attacked France. (It was called The Schlieffen Plan.) Problem is, their plan required them to go across Belgum to get into France. Belgum had a treaty with England which required England to protect them in the event of invasion. England had other reasons to go to war, (she was afraid of how powerful Germany would be if she won the war for one thing), but the protection of Belgum was a big part of it. The Germans didn't help any by being particularly brutial in their occupation of Belgum. (The Brits called it "The Rape of Belgum". Google that too while you are at it.)

So England told Germany to get out of Belgum. The Germans refused. The Germans really didn't care if England got into the war... England's power lay in her Navy, her Army was very very good, but also very very small. When he was asked what he would do if the British Army landed in Belgum one German General replied "call the police". Their plan called for a short war that would be fought primarily on land.
Then again nothing ever works out as planned....

So the Germans refused the English ultimatum and the English declared war and started sending troops to France. (The BEF or British Expeditionary Force).

The French meanwhile attacked into Germay in a bit of stupidity called "Plan 17". The French Army was still wearing bright blue coats and bright red pants because it supposedly helped with "morale". When men wearing bright red pants run across an open field to attack guys wearing grey uniforms who have machine guns and are hiding in trenches...well the results tend to depress the morale of the guys stuck wearing the bright red pants, at least the few who survive. Lots of guys got killed an no real ground was gained.

In the north however the Germans ALMOST pulled it off... emphais on ALMOST. The French Army and the British Expeditionary Force manged to hold Paris, at the First Battle of the Marne. Then everyone started digging trenches and it all goes downhill from there.

So it was England, France, Russia and what little was left of Serbia was at war with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Turks joined up with the Germans (aka "The Central Powers") soon after. The Turks thought they could beat the Russians and grab some turf, as the Russians were proving to be pretty pitiful and most of the Russians were busy fighting Austrians and Germans...ironicly the Turks proved to be even more pitiful than the Russians. (The only thing they got right in the whole war was holding off the Galipoli landings.) They were also angry that the English had expropriated some battleships they had paid to have built in English shipyards. The Germans managed to give them a cruser (The Goben) and talk them into joining the war. The Germans though the Turks could put pressure on the Brits in India, but that didn't work out either.

The Japanese joined up with England so they could grab the German colonies in China and the Pacific. Then they sort of got to busy to do anything more.

Later on Italy joined up with the Allies and fights the Austrians in the Alps in a campaign that was pointless and bloody even by WW I standards.

It is a bit off topic but just to stay complete.... the U.S. didn't get into the war until three years later. The Germans sent a stunningly stupid telegram to what was currently passing for the Government of Mexico.

Mexico was having a revolution at the time. One of the rebles (Panco Villa) had attacked an American town and the U.S. sent troops into Mexico to hunt him down. Mexico was so weak they couldn't do anything about it.

The Germans figured this had annoyed the Mexicans (they were right about that) but they vastly over estimated the Mexican military ability (and they also thought the Mexicans were pretty dumb). They offered an alliance, Mexico would attack the U.S., the Germans would somehow help (how exactly wasn't specified, what with their fleet being blockaded by the British Navy and unable to leave port). The Germans promised the Mexicans that after the war the Mexicans could have California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas back! The Mexicans were NOT stupid and ignored the note. (Called "The Zimmerman Telegram"). However the British Intelligence Agents intercepted the telegram, decoded it, and sent it to President Wislon. What with Germany promising to give away several states, he had to go to war.