How Did Britain Cause Ww1

The shattered hearts of waiting families, not knowing their last embrace would be their final touch, that so roughly the lives of their loved ones would be ripped from them, even for the men that escaped the terror of the first world war their minds were trapped. In 1914 European countries destroyed the peace between nations. With blame and accusations surrounding this atrocity in human history. Causes surrounding the true monster that would lead to the death and forever damaging affects of WWI were blamed, but events such as imperialistic dominance, rise of militarism, and alliances were the true root of the dammage to come from WWI. Of the emphasised events that lead up to WWI, alliances were the biggest factor to the slaughter of 38 million lives.
The growing British empire docked fear into countries around the world. The British empire was feared that their intense growth would be unstoppable. The fear of Britain's success can be seen in propaganda. This is seen in the headlines of German propaganda, “ England, the blood sucker of the world” (Poster collection, Hoover Institution Archives). The growth of the British empire lead to a paranoia of english power. The anxiety of nations around the world is justified when looking at the area that Britain had control of, as seen in

Colin Nicolson's data that shows britain's , “ 12,740,000 square miles”(Nicolson). The amount of total English colonial land was 5,530,000 square miles miles than all of the major empires combined. Although imperialism caused fear and talk of war, it did not cause any action to be take. The fear and propaganda was very effective to most nations, but was not an act of war which would call all nations to the battlefield.
All countries were ready for war, before they knew there would be one. Patterns in the growth of military spending can be seen as it increases through the years leading up to World War I. Data from the London Times shows that the amount of money used in the military made a dramatic increase from 1910 to 1914. The lingering fear of powerful military forces was seen through the anxious eyes of other nations. In Bernhard von Bulow’s speech he addresses the apprehension of attacks against Germany, “...we’ll only be able to keep ourselves at the fore if we realize that there is no welfare for us without power, without a strong army”( Bernhard von Bulow, The Hammer and The Anvil). In Bulow’s speech he stresses the importance of militarism, and how to flourish a army is needed. Militarism come from fear but did not put into play any actions that would start war, but simply prepared them for it.
The alliances made between countries were the spark to a wildfire. Because of ties between empires, countries that would never get involved had to take action to the issues that surrounded their allied neighbors. From the European Alliances, 1914, map the different alliances made. The Triple Alliance was the root to the war. If alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, the spiral down fall of peace in Europe because of the involvement of many countries, all them became apart of any problem their allies had. Unlike the militarism and imperialism, allies were forced to become involved and take action.
Although it may be argued that militarism made war a reasonable action to be taken because of a surplus of funds for the military, but the deployment of men or weapons was not taken till the one small event became the world’s problem because of alliances.

Some may also argue that imperialism created fear which fueled the war, but it remains that the fear did not spark the actions to fuel a world war, but was simply propaganda, without action. The alliances made in World War I made it so action would have to be taken. The alliances forced great empires of the early 19th century to either turn on stand with one another, making this the most significant event that would start World War

I.