In our Humanities class, we are working on a World War I chapter. We have been given an assortment of assignments that allowed us to show our understanding of the topic. The most recent assignment was to create a thesis statement to show our thoughts of why we think that World War I started. My thesis statement is more about the fight over power and better technology than the aspect of nationalism, imperialism, or politician leaders. I understand that when Gavrilo Princip murdered the Austrian Duke, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife in 1914, it brought out some of the hatred that these European nations had for each other, but I believe that the competitive want for supreme power trumps that theory. The killing of Franz Ferdinand caused countries to pick sides on who they thought was doing the right thing. Unfortunately, this got out of control and started an extremely complicated war full of alliances, betrayals, and a fight for but power.

 

 

My thesis statement: I believe that World War I started because every European nation wanted to be the most powerful with the strongest war technology and military support. Those nations were so focused on competing with each other to prove their worth, that they ended up starting such an aggressive war that it was impossible to stop.

 

I believe that my thesis statement is a valid reason for the origin of World War I. There were two main alliances that contributed to the war. There was France, Russia, and Britain who fought Italy, Austria, and Germany. In the end, the overall greed for power created these alliances who all wanted to be the best. For those reasons, and the fact that war technology was very important to people in that time period, I believe that World War I started because all the nations who got involved wanted the most power. Technology was a big leverage that would bring one nation to victory, whether it was by machinery, navel support, or other varieties of technology. An example of this is when the British and Germans were competing for the best naval ships which ended up causing bad blood between the two nations.

 

 

It was known by everyone in Europe that Britain had the best navel support. No one challenged or tried to compete with the high level of war technology that Britain entailed, that is until Germany entered the scenario. Germany was jealous of how Britain was so prepared for battle with their strong navy ships, and thought that they could make bigger, stronger, and more dangerous ships than Britain ever did. This caused some uncertainty between the two countries, which soon morphed into hatred. Britain had always held the title of having the best navy ships, but suddenly there was competition with another strong country who had an opportunity to win. In the end, this fighting caused for the two countries to hate each other and join opposite alliances when World War I began. This is why I believe that World War I started because of a fight over having the best war technology. Without that fight between Germany and Britain, for example, there might have never been such strong alliances between France, Russia, and Britain who hated Italy, Austria, and Germany.

 

 

I joined a group to create one visual element between my two group members and I that relates to all of our thesis statements. The visual is a video made on iMovie that shows an interview with one representative of Germany and one from Britain who have strong opinions of why the fight over stronger navy ships helped start World War I. The German representative talks about the advances in technology that Germany strived for, just to compete against Britain. The Britain representative on the other hand, tells her thoughts of how the British responded to this kind of intense competition. The interviewer asks questions about why Germany competed against a powerful country when the probability of them winning was so small. We also find out why this insignificant fight caused such a huge impact towards the start of World War I. This video has true facts from events occurring before and during World War I. It also explains our beliefs of how World War I started based on the information that we have found while reasurching this subject.