The War and the Peace Settlement

2.) The War and The Peace Settlement

A.) In my opinion, I personally believe that Austria-Hungary AND Germany are most responsible for causing the war. I believe this to be true because it was Germany who promised to back the Austria-Hungary army and being the enormous and powerful army the German army was, Austria-Hungary felt comfortable and declared war on Serbia. This sparked several events which included the general mobilization of Russia, France and Germany. Few days later, the Russian government ordered the Austria-Hungary army to back down and this triggered France to mobilize as promised to back up Russia. The next event is where I put some responsibility on Germany for the start of the war. This is when German troops entered Belgium and Britain ordered them out, however, when Germany refused, Britain declared war on Germany.

B.) The war was not a quick war as most expected because during the years of 1914 through 1917 there was a stalemate in which troops from both sides were ordered to dig trenches in preparation for the opposition attacks. Generals on each side of Germany and France attacked the opposition in hopes of the other side running out of men before they did. Casualties came by the 100,000's as each side launched soldiers into machine guns and trench warfare.

The battles at sea were pretty much the same thing. The British cut the German overseas telegraph cables and blockaded the coasts of Germany and Austria-Hungary. In retaliation, Germany launched a blockade of their own and set out to demolish every British vessel they could via the submarine. However, all of these attempts were just prolonging the war in which either side coming out victorious any time soon.