Militarism: The belief that a government or people of a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it to defend or promote national interests; Great Britain and Germany were in a Naval rivalry to have a better Navy because of the belief that war was coming.
The Alliance System: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy all joined an alliance that if they got in a war at least two of them would pair up and fight as allies, Russia and France also had a similar alliance and Britain,Russia and France had an understanding that they were not enemy's. Since so many alliances had been made with so many different countries the result of all of them going to war would be really bad and it was.
Imperialism:before WW1 many countries controlled smaller countries and used them for their own benefit, France and Britain had many colonies in Africa and Asia. Now Germany and Italy decided they wanted a colonial empire too. They were jealous of the countries that had other places where they could gather raw materials and cheap labor.
Nationalism:Feeling of intense pride of ones homeland; Nationalism was a popular idea in Europe before WW1 and many people were willing to go to war with other countries to expand their own nation which they had so much pride for. This pushed the people in their own countries against other countries creating tension between the people.
What was the spark of war? The spark of WW1 was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne. He was assassinated on June 28th, 1914 by Gavrilo Princip who was a member of a group of six assassins, The assassination was ordered to break off Austria-Hungary's south-slav provinces so they could be combined into a greater Serbia or a Yugoslavia.
Lusitania: 1907 the RMS Lusitania, a British ocean-liner and briefly the worlds largest ship was launched. However in 1915 the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by German u-boats causing a death toll of 1'198, This made Americans and obviously Britains very mad and had a great influence on the US's decision to go to war in 1917.
Sussex pledge: 1916, Germany had an unrestricted submarine warfare policy allowing ships to shoot torpedo's without warning and one day a French ship(Sussex) was shot and 50 lives were lost so President Wilson was irritated and told Germany that if they kept doing that, the US would break diplomatic relations with them. Germany didn't want the US to enter the war so they made the Sussex pledge; changing their naval rules a little bit.
Unrestricted Sub Warfare: 1917 Germany re-instated this policy because the war was not going well for them so they thought that if the powerful results of the policy was scaring the US, the US might not go into the war.
Unrestricted Sub Warfare: 1917 Germany re-instated this policy because the war was not going well for them so they thought that if the powerful results of the policy was scaring the US, the US might not go into the war.
Zimmerman note: 1917 The German Empire sent a telegram proposing that Mexico should join the Central powers in the event that the US entered the war on the side of the entente powers. However the British intercepted and decoded it and this made everybody mad at Germany.
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