Causes of the War

Historians have given a large number of reasons for the outbreak of war in 1914. Some of the reasons can be described as economic, dealing with matters of trade and business. Others are political and concern relations between the great powers of the time.

Some of the causes discussed were long-term - that is, they ensured that a war would take place eventually but not when it would take place. Short-term causes, on the other hand, decide when an event will take place. For example, competition between the big European powers to build their empires was likely to bring them to war sooner or later, but this rivalry had been going on for the last 20 years of the nineteenth century. War could have broken out at any time. So this rivalry is a long-term cause because, on its own, it did not ensure that there would be a war in 1914, as opposed to some other date.

Neil Demarco: Britain and the Great War; Oxford University Press, 1992/2000, page 9