Journal #1

 

1.  What were the underlying causes of WWI?

               There were four causes of WWI: militarism, the alliance system, imperialism, and nationalism.  Because Britain had a great navy but Germany wanted a great navy too.  Germany and France competed for larger armies.  Because these two countries kept building up their armies and navies, the other countries felt that they had to do the same.  For twenty years, the nations of Europe had been making alliances which were supposed to promote peace.  But a conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia led to World War I.  There were two alliances: The Triple Alliance composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy; and The Triple Entente composed of Britain, France, and Russia.  Also, both France and Britain had a lot of colonies in Africa and Asia.  This made Germany and Italy want a colonial empire as well.  Also, Nationalism led European nations to compete for the largest army and navy, or the greatest industrial development.  It also gave groups of subject peoples the idea of forming independent nations of their own.

 

2.  What was the specific cause of WWI?

               The specific cause of WWI was countries competing against each other for the best army or navy.  Also, the European countries had formed too many alliances, so when Austria-Hungary and Serbia had a conflict, many other countries were pushed into a war with them.

 

3.  How did the soldiers react as they went off to war? Why?

               This soldier wrote a letter to his wife and kept it in his pocket at all times because he thought that if anything would happen his wife would know how he felt.  I think on the fighting field that men thought that they were going to die any second know so they wrote letters to there love ones so that their family would know how they feel.  They younger men in training were very excited in the beginning because they wanted to become heroes.