| You mean the war triggered by the Yugoslav nationalist who assassinated the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, with the goal of having Austria-Hungary cede the South Slav provinces to Yugoslavia? Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary : > Austria-Hungary was a great power but it contained a large number of ethnic groups that sought their own nation. It was ruled by a coalition of two powerful minorities, the Germans and the Hungarians. Stresses regarding nationalism were building up, and the severe shock of a poorly handled war caused the system to collapse. There is no clear single cause of WWI. Quoting now from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_I : > [Historians] look at such factors as political, territorial and economic conflicts, militarism, a complex web of alliances and alignments, imperialism, the growth of nationalism, and the power vacuum created by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire, as a reminder, carried out genocide against several ethnic groups during WWI. That Wikipedia page also points out: > Senior German generals such as Helmuth von Moltke talked in apocalyptic terms about the need for Germans to fight for their existence as a people and culture. MacMillan states: "Reflecting the Social Darwinist theories of the era, many Germans saw Slavs, as especially Russia as the natural opponent of the Teutonic races". and further says: > Bénézet's book The World War and What was Behind It (1918) blamed on German aggression combined with perceived threats to the traditional social order from radicals and ethnic nationalists. |