Causes of WWI

Started by Fire4 pages

that won't help here

I reckon that this is a good starting page with elements you have to mention:

http://www.pvhs.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/projects/great_war/causes.htm

this site expands on it some more:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm

and here you can find some dates:

http://www.kimcox.org/causesww1.htm

Originally posted by misha
what...bout no war?? y?? i mean...we ave fights at skool an all...an i fully support em! wooh, FIGHT FIGHT FIHGT! but wars are boring! then they like have all this sh*t ova tha news like "asama husan has been catched!" an they have like an hr reporting ova it an ur just like NOONE CARES!

ok, firstly, fights at school are silly and totally un-needed 🙄
but, what do you MEAN, no-one cares if terrorists and important (dangerous) leaders have been captured? 🤨 you'll find out there are people who do care, cause this would affect their whole life... Some people should really start watching politics ✅

and wars are boring? I'd call them many things, but certainly not boring!

*checks*
oh look, you still have to be 13 to be here 😱 *takes out broomstick*

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Aso, be sure to talk about the arm race between the countries at the time ✅ they were all builing an army, and thus tention between each other. 😄

Errr, not really. Germany was building a mass army like mad but the UK was doing no such thing- we were very ill-prepared for a 20th century war. The UK WAS building ships but that was only an obscure cause of the war, that was really more down to Germany, who were fleet building with the specific intent of overthrowing our balance of power in a way we were specifically not doing with land forces in the same manner.

The Germans actually did attack US boats in European waters, that was the point of unrestricted sub warfare. But as said, it is the Zimmerman telegraph that brought them into the war, as intercepted and decoded by the UK.

Most people seem to ignore the role of the Balkans in causing the war, as if the Archduke being shot in an obscure country was all there was to it. Not so- the Balkans, then as now, were Europe's greatest trouble spot, and 10 years before the war German strategists were saying that the next big war would start because of Serbia and something should be done about it- sadly, nothing was. "We should crush this viper Serbia," was a famed quote of the time.

Austria's unstoppable decline as an Empire was another major cause.

To be honest, it is very difficult to hammer down such an amazingly complicated subject as this in a few posts.

good point ush

Originally posted by KidRock
and Germany first invented submarines during WWI and they were called U boats

Second time I have seen confusion over submarine invention around here lately- last time it was with Jules Verne...

As already mentioned again, the first military use of a submarine was in the American Civil War.

Did anyone mention fear as a cause? Fear of domination, fear of the future, fear of social change? All major factors.

😱 hey ush!!!
ok...evy o: u said that terrorists effect ppls lifes or wateva...thats y they care...yeah i agree, but if there were no wars thered b no need for terrorists would there???
yerss: wtf??

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Errr, not really. Germany was building a mass army like mad but the UK was doing no such thing- we were very ill-prepared for a 20th century war. The UK WAS building ships but that was only an obscure cause of the war, that was really more down to Germany, who were fleet building with the specific intent of overthrowing our balance of power in a way we were specifically not doing with land forces in the same manner.

The Germans actually did attack US boats in European waters, that was the point of unrestricted sub warfare. But as said, it is the Zimmerman telegraph that brought them into the war, as intercepted and decoded by the UK.

Most people seem to ignore the role of the Balkans in causing the war, as if the Archduke being shot in an obscure country was all there was to it. Not so- the Balkans, then as now, were Europe's greatest trouble spot, and 10 years before the war German strategists were saying that the next big war would start because of Serbia and something should be done about it- sadly, nothing was. "We should crush this viper Serbia," was a famed quote of the time.

Austria's unstoppable decline as an Empire was another major cause.

To be honest, it is very difficult to hammer down such an amazingly complicated subject as this in a few posts.

Erm Ush...the arm race was one of the causes of WWI, and just because UK wasnt involved in the arm race, doesnt make it insagnificant.

Lil I think ush just ment to make clear that the arms race was not a global phenomenon not all countries did it

WW1: 1900's weapons, 1700's tactics. Not a good combo. What idiot came up with the idea to charge into a machine gun line?

Dunno but in a trench war, when there is no (or almost no) airforce, almost no tanks there is very little other choice. I agree it is a weird way of fighting, but at the time I think it was almost the only way. they could have used horses but horses and trenches dont mix I reckon.

Originally posted by misha
ok...evy o: u said that terrorists effect ppls lifes or wateva...thats y they care...yeah i agree, but if there were no wars thered b no need for terrorists would there???

To be exact, I said that these "news that interest nobody" actually affect people's lifes.
Well, see, this is no perfect world we're living in, wars are never gonna stop (or at least not any time soon), so, I think your point about this doesn't really stand.

However, I fail to see the link between your last post and this one 😖

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Erm Ush...the arm race was one of the causes of WWI, and just because UK wasnt involved in the arm race, doesnt make it insagnificant.

Lil, you clearly said 'they were ALL building an army'. In fact, very few of the belligerants involved were expanding their land forces at any rate before the war- really only France and Germany... and mostly only Germany. 'All' was therefore inaccurate, the UK being the main example. In fact, of the major players of WWI, the one who most directly started it- Austria-Hungary- had an army that was, if anything, falling to pieces. It couldn't have raced under any circumstances.

In fact, arms race is only a cause of WWI in some specific circumstances, and even then only as a subset of other matters. The main race was in fact industrial power, the main place this spilled into tension was the UK being worried about the growth of a German fleet.

Incidentally, nothing approaching 18th century tactics were used in WWI.

WWI was fought almost entirely over....

...CHEESE!

Originally posted by Ushgarak

Incidentally, nothing approaching 18th century tactics were used in WWI.

well, they did charge at forified positions. It's not exactly like what happened in the 1700's, but it's clear tactics changed too slowly with the new weapons

That's somewhat of a cliche. Never did Generals actually deliberately try and slowly advance their men into enemy fields of fire.

Originally posted by yerssot
I reckon that this is a good starting page with elements you have to mention:

http://www.pvhs.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/projects/great_war/causes.htm

this site expands on it some more:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm

and here you can find some dates:

http://www.kimcox.org/causesww1.htm

thank you yerss 🙂

When you have to take a position and you only have infantry, what do you think you do? send your men in slowly or send them in running like hell, so atleast some make it

Kind of both actually.

If you have them run the whole way. then the faster soldiers would get seperated from the slower soldiers. Sending them like this makes it easier for marksmen to shoot the closer threat and work their way back.

If they walk, they'll just keep getting mowed down until they are all gone.

Troops need to be able to run, but still stay in some sort of formation in order to be quick enough to be effective, but not so quick that you break formation.