Reasons To Blame For World War I

The Fault Goes to… Before 1914, the world had many wars, from the Hundred Years War to the Franco-Prussian War, but those wars were usually between two major powers. World War I became the first major conflict to involve multiple world powers, which devastated Europe. This was the war to end all wars and many called it the Great War. Many scholars lay blame on one power, one incident, or one individual for causing World War I, but to no real avail. The answer is there is no one person, country, or event to blame for the outbreak of World War I because there are many factors. However, if there is one country to place a majority of the blame on it is the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The leadership of this great empire displayed stubbornness and a misplaced sense of arrogance. The Austria-Hungarian Empire was a dying bull that, before 1914, became tired with the international order. Historian Hew Strachan writes, “By 1914 Austria-Hungary had lost faith in the international order established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, whose robustness had prevented major war on the continent for a century.” They instead focused on the rising nationalism from different ethnic groups within their empire. There were a total of eleven different nationalities within its empire. This frightened the leadership of the Empire especially when ethnic Serbians and the Russians were involved. The Austrians despised the Serbians, especially Franz Conrad von Hӧtzendorff, …show more content…
The leaders of Austria-Hungarian Empire, as well as the loss of Franz Ferdinand, sparked the onset of World War I. Franz Ferdinand was the last person that championed restraint and with him dead, Franz Conrad von Hӧtzendorff took power. He displayed arrogance and stubbornness with Serbia, not taking into account the possible consequences such as Russia coming into the war as well as the other