The Origins of World War I

A chance was given to Germany to localize the conflict but it was denied and this choice resulted in 37 million casualties. Evidence shows that years of work in formulating, amending, and improving ones plans creates a psychological obligation to it. While Kaiser Wilhelm never wanted a Great War, the structural factors of his inflexible military prevented him from attaining his one-front battle with Russia. However, Germany pushed Austria to set an unreasonable ultimatum on Serbia, giving the country only 48 hour to respond. On July 27, as the escalation was at a fervor pitch, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Sazonov telegrammed Berlin asking “looking for a way out” to avoid world war and called up Germany to act as mediator. Doyle explains that states have a strong preference for power as a means to security and only the rational and power-seeking will survive the competition to survive. Lastly, the essay will outline the certain structural factors that guaranteed war in 1914 by illustrating how inflexible mobilization in an anarchic Europe created the most destructive crisis the world had ever seen. Without hegemony in Europe, nervous alliances were created to maintain a balance of power and as structural realists explain, any anarchical situation among states creates a strong drive and search for power in order to be in the advantageous position.

World War I could have been avoided. ” German leaders recognized that with their power at its peak, preventative war was the only option to stop Russia’s rapid military augmentation. However, with Germany’s increased dominance, the Austrian’s now had the confidence to punish Serbia. ” This quote exemplifies how the mobilization of armies was almost synonymous for war in 1914, and this was what Germany wanted. Germany knew that even partial mobilization of Russian soldiers would allow them to escalate the conflict. An illustration of this would be Germany’s increased spending on its navy due to its increase in industrialization.