05/24/11

One of Many WW1 – Nationalism

 

At the settlement of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the principle of nationalism was ignored in favor of preserving the peace. Germany and Italy were left as divided states, but strong nationalist movements and revolutions led to the unification of Italy in 1861 and that of Germany in 1871. Another result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 was that France was left seething over the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany, and Revanche was a major goal of the French. Nationalism posed a problem for Austria-Hungary and the Balkans, areas comprised of many conflicting national groups. The ardent Panslavism of Serbia and Russia’s willingness to support its Slavic brother conflicted with Austria-Hungary’s Pan-Germanism.

05/1/11

Re-divide the world

The root caused of World War 1 is because of  the  uneven development  of capital during imperialism period, resulting in the emerging imperialist countries urged to re-divide the world. In the late 19th and early 20th century,  from the stage of free competition of capitalism developed to a stage characterized by monopoly. Every country wants to maximum their profit,  actively promote the expansion and aggression of foreign policy, using force to fight for the colonial around the round.  Older colonial powers Britain, Russia, France and occupied most of the colonial world. Then the rapid economic development and expansion of national powers such as Germany,Japan, the United States and other emerging imperialist colonial countries have relatively little. This economic development and the uneven distribution of colonies led to sharp contradictions between the imperialist countries.

03/30/11

Arranged Marraige: Africa

A cause of World War I not often discussed is the intense competition to rape Africa. A simple google search of “Scramble for Africa” would return you with plenty results citing the time period of the scramble as 1881-1914. There is no coincidence that World War I started in 1914. It is easily proving that tensions at during that time period were high among the European nations that wanted to colonize Africa for themselves. The Berlin conference was an effort put forth by several of these countries in order to try and ward off a war over Africa. So Action was taking similiar to when a prince chooses a princess to bring to countries together. The princess has no choice in the matter and neither did Africa. At the Berlin Conference the countries drew lines on a map of Africa and thus determined who was allowed to satomize which seection of Africa. France got most of West Africa, Belgum the Congo, Britian East and South Africa, Portugal 2 Colonies in South Africa, and Germany a small colony in each region. I Dont think it is a coincidence that Germany lost all four of its colonies after it lost WWI.

Scramble for Africa

03/10/11

Limiting My Inventory

The Washington Naval Conference was held in Washington D.C. for four months discussing and making treaties following the World War I. One of the most important treaties made was the Five-Power Naval Limitation Treaty. This treaty limited the arms of five countries: United States, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy. This treaty is to prevent mass production of arms following the World War I. The limitations reflected on the tonnage of ships and aircraft carriers each country can have. This treaty was made in hopes of preventing a second world war.

03/7/11

Expansion and Power

Prior to WWI many new alliances and nations were competing to be the new world power. Power came with additional influence on territories outside of your own. The European influence and stream of expansion began in Asia and Africa long before the war, but this is probably one of the many other ways in which the countries competed for and maintained their status on a world platform. An additional cause may also be militarism. Power is also symbolized through the means of weapons and military strength a nation has. The arms race was one which was long and spread wide influenced competition between countries like Russia and Germany.

Lastly, nationalism always fuels wars. Each nation is fighting for the prestige and individual interest of their nation. The same holds true for WWI. Dominance and power can only be won through maintaining standards that boost of a nation’s capability, Europe fell victim to this epidemic as well.

03/7/11

Arms race in WWI

The picture on the left indicates variety causes of WWI. Arms Force plays a important role in WWI. Since the alliances was formed after 1871, it led to an armaments race among the powers. The tension was being serious between when Germany passed Navy Laws in 1900.

03/6/11

Stop Sunking pur ships!

Most of us know that The sinking of the Lusitania was one of the factors to the United States entering the Great War, The sinking was due to  the German U-boat campaign, where Germany declared that all Allied and neutral ship were to be sunk on sight.  They wanted to cut off Britain supplies from America.  By March 1917, Germany U-boat seven American vessels.Woodrow Wilson realized that staying neutral and out of the war could not be avoided, and Declared war on Germany.  I honestly believe that staying out of the war so long is what helped the United stated win.  They entered a war that opposing side and the allies were both decreasing in the number of soldier.  The United states lost over 100,000 soldiers, which sad as it may be was only 1 % of the soldiers that were lost in this Great War!

03/6/11

Causes of World War I

The causes of World War I, which began in central Europe in July 1914, included many intertwined factors, such as the conflicts and hostility of the four decades leading up to the war. Militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism played major roles in the conflict as well. However, the immediate origins of the war lay in the decisions taken by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis of 1914, causes belli for which was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife by Gavrilo Princip, an irredentist Serb.

03/6/11

Tightening the Tension

Imperialism played a major role for the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente to go to war against each other among many other factors. Imperialism is a way to show a country’s strength by dominating and acquiring lands in different parts of the world and make its subject follow the mother country’s rules. It is a race to gain territories to show its superiority.  Great Britain had controlled over many lands in five major continents and France took control of majority of the land in Africa. This evoked competition with Germany who started to fight for land in Africa with Great Britain and France which resulted their acquisition of small portion of the land in Africa.

Imperialism not only increased competition among rival countries but it also builds up tension among them. The point of imperialism is to show power and the less land you get can mean the weaker you are. Germany definitly do not want to be in such position and their aggression towards the Triple Entene grew stronger when imperialism continues.

03/5/11

Franco-Prussian War


The other reason that causes World War I is Franco-Prussian War. The war was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia wanted to unify Germany Empire and started to expend its power in Europe. On the other hand, the Second French Empire restored its power in Europe and Prussia became a barrier of France. However, the north German and south German joined together and defeated the Second French Empire. As a result, French lost land on the north of French and paid for German 5 billion francs. This increased the conflict between European countries and lead to the War World I.

03/5/11

Wikileaks of 1916

In January 1916, Arthur Zimmermann, foreign secretary of Germany, send a coded telegram to German’s ambassador to Mexico. This telegraph was intercepted by British agents and decoded, exposing its contents. Within the telegraph Zimmermann wrote to their ambassador to Mexico, that if America looked to join the war, they (Germany) should approach the Mexican government and offer support and reward their support in return for Mexico’s allegiance in the war. This telegraph was exposed to the American public in March, leading to widespread anger, and thus contributed to the declaration of war in April.

Had the telegraph not been intercepted, or had the attempts to decode it failed, there was plenty of other causes that justified America’s entrance into the war. Furthermore, Mexico had analyzed Germany’s proposition and concluded that war with America wouldn’t achieve their goals of recapturing lost territories, nor would it be beneficial.

03/5/11

The Crises before 1914

In 1904 Morocco had been given to France by Britain, but the Moroccans wanted their independence. In 1905, Germany announced her support for Moroccan independence. War was narrowly avoided by a conference which allowed France to retain possession of Morocco. However, in 1911, the Germans were again protesting against French possession of Morocco. Britain supported France and Germany was persuaded to back down for part of French Congo.

In 1908, Austria-Hungary took over the former Turkish province of Bosnia. This angered Serbians who felt the province should be theirs. Serbia threatened Austria-Hungary with war, Russia, allied to Serbia, mobilised its forces. Germany, allied to Austria-Hungary mobilised its forces and prepared to threaten Russia. War was avoided when Russia backed down. There was, however, war in the Balkans between 1911 and 1912 when the Balkan states drove Turkey out of the area. The states then fought each other over which area should belong to which state. Austria-Hungary then intervened and forced Serbia to give up some of its acquisitions. Tension between Serbia and Austria-Hungary was high.

The effects of these crises had been a hardening of attitudes and an increase in distrust between the different European powers. It led to a strengthening of the different alliances: Britain and France during the Moroccan Crises and Austria and Germany during the Bosnian crisis.

03/4/11

Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand

One cause of WWI is the assassination of Archduke, Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife on June 28, 1914 by a Serbian nationalist from the Black Hand organization. Immediately this event is the trigger that set off declarations of the war. In response to the assassination of Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Austria blamed Serbia for the assassination since Serbia supported the Black Hand’s in order to be free of Austria’s rule. Due to Austria’s alliance with Germany, Serbia tried to get help from Russia. When Russia began to mobilize in result of its alliance with Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914. Two days later Germany declared war on France. Germany swept through Belgium on its way to France, the invasion of Belgium caused Britain to declare war on Germany.

03/4/11

Militarism

As the world entered the 20th century, an arms race had begun. By 1914, Germany had the greatest increase in military buildup. Great Britain and Germany both greatly increased their army size in this time period as well. Further, in Germany and Russia particularly, the military establishment began to have a greater influence on public policy.  Thus the increase in militarism helped push the countries involved into WWI.

03/3/11

Volation of freedom of the seas

The main reason for the American entry into World War I was the German use of submarine warfare (1917), violating the United State right to freedom of the seas. German was suffering from near- starvation due to a lack of supplies and food. German military leaders feared they would lose the war unless they could defeat Britain and France quickly. They therefore took a risk by announcing they would they would sink any ship in the blockaded areas. This was a clear violation of the American principle of freedom of the seas that neutral parties have the right to ship non-war goods to nations at war. When German followed up its threat by ordering its submarines to sink three unarmed American merchant vessels, Wilson asked congress for a declaration of war against German.

03/3/11

Nationalism

Nationalism is one of the causes of World War I.  Nationalism is what made people become proud of their country. It also makes them support and fight for their country. Including imperialism and militarism, countries started to increase their armies power. Countries like Italy, Germany, Russia, and France became great powers. Nationalism encourage countries to be independent. Other countries that weren’t a great power like Serbia wanted to be independent because of Nationalism. They wanted to form their own country and be separate.

03/3/11

Imperialism

Imperialism was one of the long-term causes that increased the rivalry in Europe, which influence the start of World War I. European countries started taking over colonies through the world since the fifteenth century. By 1900 the British Empire extended over five continents and France had control of large areas of Africa. With the rise of industrialism, countries (Great Britain, Germany and France) needed new markets. The amount of lands ‘owned’ by Britain and France increased the rivalry with Germany who only had small areas of Africa entering the scramble to acquire colonies. As a consequences, it caused Germany to ally with Austria-Hungary, and Britain to ally with France.

03/2/11

WW I Begins

       The Ferdinand Family

          The straw that broke the camels back that causing WWI was the assasination of  Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, at the hand of Gavrilo Princip.  On June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, Bosnia the couple was gunned down by the Serb in the hopes of increasing the Serbian teritory.  The ploy worked and spiraled the majority of the world into a war.  A month later Austria-Hungry invaded Serbia.  This was followed by the German invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg and France leading to the Russians attacking Germany.  Although this tragedy is actually what directly can be seen as what ignited the war, there were also a slew of underlying conflicts and problems including political turmoil, international relations, imperialism, also technical and militarty factors.  Considering all of these issues, the war was utterly inevitable, such as a volcano primed for an eruption.

03/2/11

The Cause of a World War- the Alliance System

Map of World with Participants in World War I :

Allies- in green

Central Powers- in orange

Neutral- in grey

The triggering event cause of World War I was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in 1914. The fact that the assassination did not lead to a war of two nations, but a war among many nations around the whole world, has to do with the alliance system in the era. Although the actual causes of the war are complicated, the escalation of the size of the war can be partly attributed to the alliance treaties.

For the readers’ convenience,  some of the entrances of the participants will be listed below:

1. Austria-Hungary- declared war on Serbia due to the assassination.

2. Serbia- became a participant by Austria-Hungary’s war declaration.

3. Russia- allied to Serbia by their treaty

4. Germany- allied to Austria-Hungary by their treaty

5. France- allied to Russia

6. Britain- allied to France. Since Britain has entered the war, her many colonies have became participants, whether with direct military support or financial support.

7. Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa- entered the war because of their ties with Britain

8. Japan- entered the war due to its treaty with Britain.

As we can see, over 10 additional nations were involved because of their alliance treaties with other nations. Although some nations have entered the war with reasons of their own, it is undeniable that the alliance treaties were strong factors for the escalation of the war to a world-wide scale.

03/2/11

Assignment due 3/7

Based on your reading of Foner or outside sources, identify one cause of World War I.  This can be a direct, short-term cause, or a more indirect, longer-term change that caused the war.  Do your best to identify a cause that has not yet been covered on the blog.  In 1-2 paragraphs, describe the importance of the cause and explain how things may have played out differently regarding that cause. Assuming you are the first to describe a particular cause, put your text in a post.  I encourage you to include an image representing the cause.  If you cannot find a new cause, write a 2 paragraph comment in response to another post further discussing the importance of that cause.