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The '''causes of [[World War I]]''' remain hotly contested a century after the war itself concluded. Some authors emphasize the accidental character of the war as an unplanned response to the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in June 1914. Others argue that the German government planned the war in advance and used the assassination as a pretext.

The '''causes of [[World War I]]''' remain hotly contested a century after the war itself concluded. Some authors emphasize the accidental character of the war as an unplanned response to the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in June 1914. Others argue that the German government planned the war in advance and used the assassination as a pretext.

The classic case the World War I was an accidental war was made by Barbara Tuchman in ''Guns of August'' (1962). For an updated version of this view, see ''The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914'' (2014).

The classic work on the origin of World War I is ''Guns of August'' (1962) by Barbara Tuchman. Tuchman argued that the war was accidental. For an updated version of this view, see Christopher Clark's ''The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914'' (2014).

That Germany planned to go the war is the thesis of Fritz Fischer's ''Germany's Aims in the First World War'' (1968). Fischer's view were updated by David Fromkin in ''Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?'' (2004).

That Germany planned to go the war is the thesis of Fritz Fischer's ''Germany's Aims in the First World War'' (1968), which is based on the German diplomatic archive. Fischer's views were updated by David Fromkin in ''Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?'' (2004). At the end of the Cold War, historians gained access to significant new material from the German military archive in Potsdam. Annika Mombauer deals with this material in ''Helmuth von Moltke and the Origin of the First World War'' (2005).

== Four "MAIN" causes==

== Four "MAIN" causes==