by Juan Leer

Created on: January 30, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

There were many causes of World War I, but here were some of the main ones:

- Alliances - With all sorts of alliances in Europe during the time, it was a pretty good bet that any small conflict would erupt into something major. For example, it one country made another country angry, it wouldn't just end with those two countries, each country's alliances had to get involved to prove their loyalty. That ended up making things very volatile.

- Colonial Expansion - Creating more tension between the European powers was the scramble to inhabit African colonies. Again, this wasn't anything that would cause war by itself but just added tension.

- Arms Race - this was mostly a race to see who could build up the bigger Navy. And of course, once you've got all of these Naval ships, you can't just let them sit there.

- Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austrian throne and was murdered by Serbian nationalists. This was the proverbial last straw, and was the immediate cause for war being declared.

So, any of these happening independently of each other probably was not enough to start a war, but working all together Europe was a ticking time bomb, set off by the assassination of the Archduke. After that, World War I was inevitable.

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