WWI was the defining event of the twentieth century.

It devastated
the prewar economic, social and political order of Europe, and its
outcome served to prepare the way for an even more destructive
war. Overwhelmed by the size of its battles, the number of its
casualties, and the extent of its impact on all facets of European life,
contemporaries referred to it simply as the Great War.
Long Term Structural Causes of WW1
1. Imperial rivalries over land
a. Ottoman Empire in the process of collapse, led to
Balkans, who were ruled by ottomans, starting to rebel
and wanting to create their own nation-states
i. Serbia and Montenegro are the first to rebel
b. For Russia, control of the Balkans would provided direct
access to Constantinople and the Mediterranean
c. For Austria, control of the Balkans meant that it could
expand its sphere of influence
i. Internal stability
d. Russia enjoyed some success after the creation of
Bulgaria, a Russian satellite state, in 1878. However,
this success for Russia threatened other European
powers, who at the 1878 Congress of Berlin agree to
create other Balkan states to balance Russian influence
in the region
i. Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania are created as
independent states
ii. Bosnia and Herzegovina were placed under
Austrian protection (Austria does not annex them)
iii. The size of Bulgaria was also reduced, which
Russia considered humiliating
2. Rivalries fuel a system of increasingly polarized alliances
a. Triple Alliance Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy
(AGI)
b. Triple Entente Britain, Russia and France (BRF)
c. William II of Germany voids his countrys Reinsurance
Treaty (1887) with Russia, which facilitated this
polarization of alliances
d. This system of polarized alliances became more and
more inflexible and unwilling to compromise
3. Nationalism
a. Nationalism was a key force in 19th C European politics
i. This fueled competition not cooperation
between nation-states, as each nation-state
sought to act in its own self-interest
ii. This competition meant nation-states werent
looking to compromise

b. Nationalism a sense of pride in shared identity based

on ethnicity and language also drove Slavic peoples in
the Balkans to:
i. Fight for self rule against the Ottomans
ii. Fight against the Austrians when they annexed
Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 (the Austrians did
this to keep the Serbs from uniting fellow Slavs
across the region in a fight against Austrian
control)
c. When Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina which
went against its agreement Not to do that at the 1878
Berlin conference, Germany came to its defense and
demanded that Russia accepts Austrias policy
i. Russia has been humiliated multiple times
d. Rise of Brinkmanship
i. Increasingly, European rules who relied on military
might to project national power engaged in
brinkmanship. And they often won
ii. Brinkmanship: the art or practice of pursuing a
dangerous policy to the limits of safety before
stopping, especially in politics
1. Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in
1908, in violation of its own 1878 agreement
2. Austria pushes for the creation of the state
of Albania after the 2nd Balkan War in 1913,
rather than allow a victor, Serbia, to that
land (Austria did not want Serbs to gain
more power)
NATIONALISM/INTERNAL DISSENT/MILITARISM
Immediate Cause The Spark
Assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand (heir to the Austrian
throne) on June 28, 2014