The Start

World War 1, once called ‘War to End All Wars’ or the ‘Great War’, started 28th July, 1914 and ended November 11th, 1918. It all started when Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in June 28th, 1914, however there were a four main other reasons. The four reason can be made into an acronym; MAIN. MAIN stands for militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism. Militarism is when nations strengthen their armies, even during times of peace. Alliances are when nations form teams with one another (At the start of the war, the Triple Entente was an alliance between Britain, France and Russia and the Triple Alliance was Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Italy later left the Triple Alliance for the Triple Entente). Imperialism is the act of conquering smaller or weaker nations and nationalism is taking pride in your nation, which can have negative side effects such as assassination or the conquering of other nations.