Origins of World War 1: Compare and Contrast

September 5, 2011

Origins of World War 1: Compare and Contrast

During the twentieth century Europe seemed to enjoy a period of peace and progress. But below the surface several forces were at the work and would lead Europe into the Great War. World War 1 was the mayor conflict that made its appearance in the beginning of the twentieth century. As we read in "The origins of the first World War" by Ruth Heing and in "The Iron Dice: World War 1" by John G. Stoessinger, World War 1 began in 1914 it had many countries involved but not all of them entered at the same time. At the beginning of this war there were two sides to choose from. The triple entente that was unified by Great Britain, France and Russia; Later called the Allied Powers and also they included Italy. The other Alliance was the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungry, and Italy; later on called the Central Powers whom instead of Italy who had join the Allied Powers, Turkey join this alliance. Although both chapters attempt to explain the origins of World War 1 they differ in various aspects.

In the Reading "The origins of the first World War" by Ruth Henig, it is stated that cause of the war was the system. The system that was managed before the war was conformed by MAIN; which stands for, Militarism: Every country in Europe except for Great Britain had conscription, which means that every men over 18 years old should register for the army; The conscription plan resulted because as the time was going by all of the countries in Europe had a great growth in their military power; Also they were working on arms race, which means that they were developing new arms, the country that was the most benefit was Germany. MAIN also stands for Alliances: Alliances were a key concept because the alliances began the conflict in Sarajevo, if it weren't because they had a close relationship with Germany this conflict would have been local, therefore Russia and Germany and later on France and Great Britain would had not participate. There would not have been a world war. The third letter in MAIN stands for Imperialism early twentieth century saw a great deal of colonization of Asia and Africa by European powers, each trying to colonize this lands. These colonies funded a great part of the ruling countries' economies and expansion became necessary and desirable to advance the glory and the wealth of each European power. The last concept N stands for Nationalism, which means the identity that the government or the rulers created towards their population so they were proud of their country and wanted to fight for them.

Through out the reading of "The Iron Dice: World War 1" by John G. Stoessinger, we are able to appreciate that it perfectly explains that the causes of world war 1 were attributed to the people in control. It perfectly examples that the lack of self-confidence in the leaders, the wrong perception on their adversary and specially the lack of empathy that was based on personal decisions, not based