Essay On The Causes Of World War 1

World War 1 also known as the Great war, was a global war that took place in Europe from 1914-1918. The war was expected to be short by many people, but ended up lasting more than four long terrible years, that caused disputes with many countries that took many lives such as soldiers and civilians. There were four underlying causes of the war that goes under the acronym M.A.I.N. This stands for Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism. Militarism was one of the four major causes of war, it was when countries would build their army and prepare for war. In the summer of 1914 there were two alliances, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente.These 2 alliances helped if countries needed assistance during the war. Imperialism and Nationalism was a big part of the picture. Imperialism is when a country try to take over another smaller or weaker country for national wealth and growth. Nationalism was a big cause of war also, because people believed that their nation was superior to all others, which caused conflict. …show more content…
“As countries continued to compete for overseas empires, their sense of rivalry and mistrust of one another began to deepened (Chapter 13, section 1)”. Nationalism led many European nations to compete with other nations to build better armies and buy more artillery to prepare for the war. This is when nations started getting into Militarism. Militarism is when a nation prepares their army for war. Building an army was necessary to protect a nation's interest and support its policies. According to Document C, Germany spent the most money (90 million) on their army so nobody would try to go into war with them. Strong armies were needed to protect threat and rivals, to protect their homeland. However, war was avoided as much as