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Causes of World War I (view source)
Revision as of 03:14, December 14, 2020
, 03:14, December 14, 2020add
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.
During the war, the German government blamed Russia for the outbreak of hostilities. This view was undermined when telegrams between Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were published in ''The Willy-Nicky Correspondance'' (1918). These show Nicholas making various peace proposals and Wilhelm brushing them aside.
Early on, the debate was on the war's causes was inspired by the "war guilt" clause of the Treaty of Versailles, which was used to justify reparations.
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).
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).