Causes and consequences of World War I

The First World War It's one of the most relevant conflicts in the history of humanity, being key to understanding the transformation that Europe underwent in the early years of the 20th century. To get to know this conflict in depth, we must talk about the reasons it started, and about the consequences it had for the world. For all these reasons, in this lesson from a Teacher we must talk about the Causes and consequences of the First World War.

The First World War, also known as the Big war, was a warlike conflict that took place between the July 28, 1914 and November 11, 1918, being the first war in which nations from all known continents participated. Even with this, the world term is not entirely correct, since the reality is that most of the conflict took place in Europe, not existing battles outside these borders, and having the majority of nations of the rest of the continents little relevance.

World War I is one of the most relevant conflicts in history for many reasons, being especially important for a Europe that suffered a before and after due to the war. The conflict was the bloodiest to date, taking many casualties, and causing a series of economic and demographic problems that would keep Europe in trouble for years. Its consequences were such that they even caused the Second World War over time, this being the consequence of the problems generated by the First World War.

During the conflict there were two great sides, being the Central Powers and the Triple Entente. The Central Powers consisted of Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, while the Triple Entente consisted of France, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Empire. The war faced only these nations, but it consisted of a great confrontation between two ideologies, the one that sought to maintain order, and the one that wanted a great change in Europe.

The First World War took place as a result of a series of antecedents that for a long time were causing tensions in the European powers, causing a malaise that exploded at a certain moment, bringing with it the origin of the conflict. To delve deeper into this topic we must enumerate the main Causes of World War I, delving into them to understand with them the reasons that generated the conflict.

The Causes of World War I were the following:

• The rivalry that had arisen due to imperialism. For centuries the great European powers had battled to be the greatest nation in the world, but the The arrival of imperialism increased this rivalry, since all the regions wanted to control the largest number of land. Imperialism in Asia and Africa was for the most part in the hands of the English and French, causing Other regions such as Germany consider that this distribution was not equitable, causing conflicts between these nations. An example of this was the division of Africa, in which the English and French took most of the African nations, and other countries like Germany barely got any colonies.
• For centuries nationalism had been spreading in Europe, being the main cause of the creation of states like Germany or Italy. These beliefs create a vision of being a culture of its own, and therefore that nations they considered that they had to protect their own interests, attacking any other region that will face. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, nationalisms began to have an influence in Eastern Europe, causing revolutions and confrontations in this area and being considered as a powder keg in which at any moment a war. In this area the interests of the Bosnians and Serbs collided, and other nations such as the Ottomans or the Russians also sought to seize power in the region, causing a conflict that would start the war.
• The importance of the industry, which had become the economic element of the world, causing a confrontation between nations for having the most powerful industry. The emergence of emerging industries such as the United States or Japan caused fear in Europeans, who saw how these new states were progressing rapidly. No European nation wanted to be left behind, so a strong rivalry arose between the Europeans to maintain a more powerful industry than the new emerging nations.
• Europe had been without fighting for a long time, but the European states knew that at any moment this could change, so many regions began to carry out huge investments in the arms industry, trying to achieve superior weapons to the rest to be able to take what they would like
• European nations began to form alliances, which sought to have support in case of conflict. Some treaties had been in force for some time, while others were generated at this time by the fear that a strong military conflict could arise. Alliances were especially created between nations with similar government systems, since they sought to maintain their influence and lifestyle, colliding with the alliances of different countries.
• The main cause of the start of the war, considered as the reason for the war, was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. The Serbian nationalist terrorist organization the Black Hand sent an assassin to kill the Archduke, causing many European nations to enter the war. At first, only a couple of nations entered the conflict, but the enormous network of alliances and agreements caused numerous nations to enter the war, until doing so totally global.

To continue this lesson on the causes and consequences of the First World War, we must list all the consequences that this conflict brought, serving to better understand its importance.

The great importance of the First World War lies in the big consequences that he brought to the world, and especially to Europe. The changes that Europe suffered due to what happened during the conflict brought a new world, in which nothing was like before the war. For all these reasons we must list the main consequences of the First World War, in order to understand all the changes that Europe suffered.

The main consequences of World War I were the following:

• The big losers of the war were the monarchiess, which were considered the big losers, since their primitive system in Turkey and the Austro-Hungarian empire was surpassed. Many of the European royal houses lost their form of government, being changed by the republic, and ending up with royal houses that had been relevant for years.
• People in Europe suffered a lot from the war, due to the number of casualties and the great economic losses they had suffered from the war. This widespread discontent brought many revolutions and civil wars, where citizens sought to change systems that they considered should no longer exist. Among all these revolutions we must highlight the one in Russia, since it ended with the tsars and brought a new communist system that would have a very relevant role in the history of humanity, being the main opposition system to the imperialist capitalism that ruled in Europe.
• The map of Europe had many changes after the war, this was due to the fact that many treaties and agreements were signed after the conflict, in which there was talk of possible changes to the map, being beneficial for the winners and tragic for the defeated. All this caused the European map to change a lot between how it was before and after the war, and bringing a series of territorial difficulties that for years would bring problems to many of the nations European.
• The participants in the war suffered enormous economic losses, partly because of the destruction of the industry and partly because of the loss of soldiers. This meant that nations with less participation in the war could increase their wealth. A clear example was the United States, which managed to become the greatest power in the world, replacing a United Kingdom greatly weakened by the war.
• LThe Germans signed many treaties and agreements to end the war, which made them have to pay a large amount of money for the defeat in the war. These payments made the Germans very unhappy with the German government, but also with the rest of Europe, since they began to consider the rest of the Europeans as enemies who were envious of Germany. German discontent caused the rise of fascism, which helped itself to these people to emerge, and being, therefore, World War II one of the consequences of the First World War.
• Participating nations suffered a great loss of infrastructure, so the industry entered a huge crisis, in which governments had to use large sums of money for years to try to recover the production systems. At the same time, deaths in the war brought demographic problems, and the workforce was much less than before the conflict.
• The First World War is considered to be one of the causes of the spread of the Spanish flu, being a respiratory disease that brought many deaths all over the world. The movements of large masses of people, due to the transfer of soldiers, are considered the cause of this disease spreading. transmitted so quickly, since in this era most people did not travel between countries, and the transmission should have been slower.