World War I was, essentially, the settling of nationalistic feuds that had

simmered for years between the old guard European establishment. European
relations during the three decades preceding the war were characterized by extreme
nationalism, economic rivalry, and suspicion. France had experienced a humiliating
defeat at the hands of the newly united Germans, and Great Britain's maritime and
economic interests were clashing with the growing threat of German imperialism.
The Germans, on the other hand, were resentful that the European scramble for
colonies in Africa and elsewhere had passed them by.

The war was also an accident waiting to happen. At the beginning of World War I
the major nations of Europe were aligned into two potentially hostile alliances,
with Germany and Austria in one and France, Great Britain, and Russia in the
other. America, who would eventually tip the balance in favor of the latter
countries, temporarily remained neutral.

If World War I was Europe on fire, its tinder box was the Balkans.Against a
backdrop of an earlier war in 1912, Austria-Hungary was fed up with Bosnian-Serb
nationalism and agitation. Austria-Hungary's rulers found an excuse to suppress
Serbia and shore up its southern Balkan territories when its crown prince Archduke
Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in the summer of 1914. Declaring
war on Serbia, Austria-Hungary set in motion a series of what could be
characterized as stupid, but inevitable, events.

A web of treaties and alliances resulted in German support of Austria-Hungary.

Russia declared that Austria-Hungary must not be allowed to crush Serbia. Russia's
ally France had a historical fear and alarm over Germany(Austria-Hungary's ally),
who issued an ultimatum to France requiring a promise of neutrality. In August of
1914 Germany declared war against Russia and France and invaded Belgium (Great
Britain's Ally). This invasion brought Great Britain into the war. So, in an out-
of-control chain reaction, where everyone declared war on everyone else, many in
the United States shook their heads in wonder watching Europeans kill each other
over nothing more than the assassination of portly Austrian Archduke by a fanatic
Serb.

In America, Woodrow Wilson tried to maintain U.S. neutrality during the first
years of the war. Wilson even won reelection on the slogan "He kept us out of
war." He correctly perceived that there was no great support on the part of the
American public for involvement in a foreign war. Even the loss of American lives
on the high seas as a result of German submarine warfare wasn't sufficient to tip
the balance in favor of war.

Everything changed with the publication of the infamous Zimmerman Telegram to the
Mexican government. The German Foreign Minister sent a coded telegram to his
ambassador in Mexico. The Germans told the Mexicans that, if the United States
should enter the war against Germany, Mexico should become Germany's ally.
Mexico's reward, in the event of Allied defeat, would be the recovery of Texas,
New Mexico, and Arizona from the United States. The British Admiralty Intelligence
intercepted this message and gave it to the U.S. press. This revelation
immediately set off a nationwide demand for war against Germany. This incident and
the German announcement of the resumption of open submarine warfare led Wilson to
ask Congress to declare war on the Germans.

World War I started when a Serbian national approached and shot an Austrian
Archduke. The results were the deaths of millions and the beginning of an age of
violence and breakdown of society in Europe. The war's outcome was as
unsatisfactory as its beginning, as the victorious allies imposed a harsh peace on
the defeated Germans and set the stage for World War II. It could be argued that
there were not two world wars in the 20th century. We really experienced only one
war the war that began in 1914, annihilated one full generation of young men,
experienced a pause to allow us to temporarily forget the carnage and horror, and
then recommenced in 1939 only to end with the dawning of the nuclear age.