Year 8 Learn Sheet The causes of the First World War can best be summed up with the acronym: Exam Week 4 The Causes of the First World War Remember, you could be assessed on any topic you MANIA have studied this year! Militarism Alliances Nationalism Imperialism Assassination

Causes that were around a Causes that were around a few ‘Trigger’ causes that exploded long time before war started years before war started into war

Nationalism Militarism Assassination

 At the time of the industrial revolution people had  As tensions grew between countries, governments felt  The stage was set for a massive war in the attitude that their country had to be the best; very defensive; Europe, but it needed a something to ‘pull  Britain had the biggest navy and empire in the  Britain was afraid that Germany would build a navy the trigger’; world, and was the richest; that was bigger than theirs – so they designed a new  Someone really did pull a trigger when a  Germany had only been a country since 1871 so battleship called the Dreadnought. By 1914 Britain had Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, shot wanted to prove itself to the world; 38 Dreadnoughts, but Germany was catching up with dead Archduke Franz Ferdinand on the th  France traditionally had the best army; 24! This competition was called an ‘arms race’; 28 June 1914;  Russia had the biggest population;  In case of a war with France and Russia, Germany came  The Archduke was visiting Sarajevo, the  And countries like Serbia and Belgium didn’t want up with the ‘Schlieffen Plan’ = invade France through capital city of Bosnia, the area that to be bossed around by bigger ones! Belgium, win quickly, and then turn attention to Russia. Austrians thought was theirs but Serbians thought was theirs! Imperialism Alliances  Even then, people in Europe didn’t expect war. The leader of Germany even went on  Nationalism led to the building of an empire  Countries began to feel safer if they teamed up. holiday! (called imperialism) which then fed back to people Befriending another country is called an alliance;  But soon Austria was demanding that its feeling prouder about their country;  There were 2 main alliance groups: police be allowed into Serbia to investigate  The British Empire covered around a quarter of  The Triple Entente was an alliance between Britain, the murder. The proud Serbians refused the world’s land surface; France and Russia; and as soon as Austria attacked Serbia,  A lot of European countries had taken land in  The Triple Alliance was between Germany, Austria- Russia attacked Austria. Germany attacked Africa, but Germany arrived too late and was Hungary and Italy (but don’t worry about Italy!); Russia but also used it as an opportunity to finding it tough to find lands to conquer (take  Germany felt threatened by the Triple Entente because invade France through Belgium. Britain over); it surrounded them; stuck up for Belgium.   Austria-Hungary wanted to push its empire  Russia, a huge country, was friends with little Serbia, The First World War had begun. All 5 further towards Turkey, including Bosnia. and would stand up for it at all costs. causes led to a devastating 4 year conflict. .