what was world war 1 about again?

[RobbyL]

you here so much about world war 2 that you forget about world war 1

 

[Michael N]

nationalism
secret pacts
imperialism

 

[Lomax]

It was caused by a sandwich, a wrong turn, and a bungled gear-change.

Bizarrely, that's absolutely true.

 

[Akiva]

OPen a book.

 

[Jenelle]

go type it in a search engine try doing some of your own research on it and youll be amazed and shock at the terrible things that all the countries (including US) did

 

[Rubym]

Austria-Hungary ruled much of Eastern Europe, including Serbia, later part of Yugoslavia. The heir to the Austrian throne and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo,(later the place where the 1984 winter Olympics were held). Russia was backing Serbian independence. There is no reason to think Russia's Czar was being nice, they wanted to get influence so they could get a port open to the Mediterranean.

Europe, except France, was ruled by monarchs, all related, some who were close( King George of Britain and Czar Nickolaus of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and the Emperor of Austria) and some who could not stand each other (George of UK and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany).

There were groups of alliances, which the US had stayed out of and most Americans wanted no part of. The English, French and Russians were in one and the Germans and Austrians were in another, there may have been other countries in each alliance, too. If one of the allies went to war, they all did. So when the war started, the Austrians and Germans were on one side and the Russians, France and Britain were on the other.