What Caused World War One?

World War One truly was an incredible war. In a matter of four years, there were huge advancements in technology, borders of countries changed, economies changed, and thousands of lives were sacrificed. The event that sparked the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but behind that, there were other reasons. One of them was that many of the nations had treaties with one another, so once one country went to war with another, multiple other countries were dragged into the affair in a domino effect. Another reason was hubris. Nationalism stemmed from this hubris, and consisted of people being overly prideful of their country, and overconfident in their country. This nationalism not only helped start the war, but it fueled the …show more content…
They had been warned by the Germans, but still went on the ship, which would eventually lead to the death of more than half of the people on the ship. The chapter called “Lost” mentions another example of over-confidence from the British. Larson says, “It looked easy. The planners even imagined they might be able to complete the drive to the Black Sea with ships alone. An old saying applied: Man plans, God laughs. The result was a disaster--lost ships, thousands of men dead, and another immobile front.” The British were obviously much too confident in their ability of their army and navy, or underestimated that of the opposing forces. Another example of the hubris of those on the Lusitania is from the chapter called “Under Way”. It says that as the boat passed through the New York harbor, signs of the war became evident. One would think that at the sight of these large ships and such, they would have turned back, recognizing that danger was probable. But, Captain Turner’s over-confidence allowed him to keep going. That led to the sinking of their ship, and the death of more than half of the people on it. Another example of hubris would be the sinking of the U-3. In the chapter