World War I

World War I (1914—1918) was a global armed conflict that fundamentally reshaped the political order of Europe and the entire world. Contrary to the widespread simplification that the war was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the causes of the conflict ran far deeper and concerned the struggle to redivide the colonial world.

Causes of the war

By the end of the 19th century, the world had already been divided among the old colonial empires — the British, the French, and the Russian. Yet the newer nation-states, in particular Italy and Germany, unified only in the second half of the 19th century, needed resources and markets. They sought their own share of colonies, but redistribution was possible only by force.

In essence, there was no just side in this conflict — all the participants were aggressors, each pursuing its own imperialist interests. The war was the inevitable result of escalating contradictions among the great powers.

A separate factor was the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, after which France lost Alsace and Lorraine and sought revenge. This desire for retribution became one of the drivers that pushed France toward a hardline stance at the peace negotiations.

When the war began

Even the start date of the war is a question on which “experts on history” regularly stumble. Two approaches coexist in historiography: counting from 28 July 1914, when Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia, or from 1 August 1914, when the German Empire declared war on the Russian Empire.

The composition of the alliances is likewise often confused. The Triple Alliance comprised Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy — but in 1915 Italy declared neutrality and later switched to the side of the Entente. The Entente, whose core was Great Britain, France, and the Russian Empire, was joined over the course of the war by a number of states, from Greece to Romania.

Consequences for the defeated

The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 placed all the blame on Germany, although objectively responsibility lay with all sides. The consequences for the defeated were catastrophic:

• Austria-Hungary — disintegrated entirely into separate nation-states
• The Ottoman Empire — ceased to exist; out of its fragments emerged Turkey and a number of new states in the Middle East
• Bulgaria — lost a significant part of its territories
• Germany — its army was capped at 100,000 men, its colonies were taken away, and enormous reparations were imposed

These humiliating terms, especially for Germany, did not lead to a lasting peace but, on the contrary, created fertile ground for revanchism and the Nazis’ rise to power, which ultimately brought about World War II.