World War I
...gest army andnavy or the greatest industrial development. (Geocities.com, 2000) Militarism wasanother big influence of the war. At the time, Britain was the largest empire in the World with the largest navy. (Geocites.com, 2000) As one nation built up its’ army or navy,other nations followed. The other major cause of World War I was imperialism; the European nation’s ruling of smaller countries were colonies. All the nations competed with each other for the gain of more colonies. As France and Britain already possessed African and Asian colonies, Germany and Italy decided they wanted a colonial empire as well. On July 28, Austria declared war against Serbia either because it felt Russia would not actually fight for Serbia, or because it was prepared to risk a general European conflict in order to put an end to the Greater Serbia movement. (Microsoft Encarta, 1996)Russia responded by partially mobilizing against Austria. Russia was warned byGermany that continued mobilization would cause war with Germany, and it made Austria agree to a discussion with Russia on the subject of a possible ultimatum to Serbia. Germany demanded that Russia demobilize; Russia refused to do so, and on August 1, Germany declared war on Russia. (Microsoft Encarta, 1996) On the same day, the French began to mobilize. On August 2, Luxembourg was invaded by Germans, and on August 3, war was declared on France by Germany. On August 2, the Belgium government was warned by the government of Germany, that 2,000,000 troops had an intention of marching through Belgium to prevent an attack of the French on Germany. The German troops were not given permission to march through Belgium. Great Britain, France, and Germany demanded, under the Treaty of 1839, that Germany respect the Justice of Belgium. Great Britain sent an ultimatum to Germany demanding their respect for Belgium’s justice, and consequential to their refusal, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Until Italy tried to satisfy its’ claims against Austria-Hungry, Italy remained...