World War I Begins

1. What are the four main causes of World War I? Give an example for each as to why it was a cause.
-Military growth: European countries were expanding their militaries to match the size of their rival nations.
-Ally system: Many European nations formed alliances with other countries in order to protect themselves from countries they saw as threatening. This is the reason the war escalated to a world war so rapidly. Once a nation had declared war on an other nation its allies were obligated to not only support its desition but to also declare war against their ally's enemy.
-Imperialism lead to emense competition between the European countries for more land and resources.
-Nationalism was taken to the extreme durin the time before WWI each nation and each ethnic group wanted their own indipendent nation and each of them were eager to join the war when it came because they saw it as an opportunity to win their freedom.

2. How did the June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand become the spark for WWI?
-Franz Ferdinand was the archduke of Austria and when he was killed be a serbian it was a perfect excuse to declare war against serbia and ultimately against Russia, France and Britain. Because many of the powerful European nations had formed alliances with each other they had no choice but to join the war.

3. What happened within the first few months of fighting?
Well Germany had what it believed to be a brilliant plan to capture both France and Russia all with in a few months. It involved crossing over the western border into Belgium then on to France where they were to seize Paris gain supplies and solders then swiftly move east across Germany and invade Russia. Unfortunately for Germany this plan relied to heavily on precise timing on the soldiers' part and had over looked or underestimated the power and speed at which the British army would come to the aid of Belgium. At any rate the Germans never even got as far as France as they were crossing Belgium the British met them and for four years neither side was able to advance much more than a few yards. All in all the plan epically failed for the Germans.

4. Generally, why did the United States want to stay out of the war?
THey didn't want to get involved in a war of that magnitude they would much rather stay out of the batle line and subtly help the side that they liked best.

5. Specifically, Why did the following groups of Americans tend to oppose U.S. participation in the war? Naturalized citizens; socialists; pacifists.
Neutralized citizens wanted nothing to do with the war they had no or mixed feeling on who they believed should win the war and therefore didn't want to get involved. The thought that if the US got invovled it would only make a biger mess in Europe and with in America.
Socialists believed that the war had been brought about by imperialistic competition between the vaarious powers of Europe they believed that America should stay neutral throughout the war.
Pacifists didn't want the US fighting in the war because they oppose to all violence and didn't want people to die.

6. How did Germany respond to the British naval blockade of Germany’s ports? What was the U.S. response?
They used their U -boats which were like submarines and could sneak up and attack a ship with out it ever being able to see it. The Germans inflicted much more damage to the British ships but Britain maintained its control of the water.

7. What forced the United States into the war?
Germany was attacking U.S. civilian ships.