Causes of the First Word War

After the First World War, Germany was blamed for the start of the war due to the War Guilt clause in the Treaty of Versailles. However it is still disputed to this day as to what the main cause of the war was. Can it be narrowed down to the Balkan conflicts or the Alliance systems.

Germany were the country that received the official blame to the outbreak of World War One, and in some ways, this is true. The German Weltpolitik or World Policy showed that Germany, who had only been around since 1871, wanted to be seen as one of the worlds dominant powers. To achieve this, Germany had to become and economic superpower and expand across the world, which supports the statement that the First World War was caused by Germany, as this would have upset Britain, who were the economic superpower, and also would have caused tension between many other countries such as Russia or Turk…(short extract)