Causes of World War I Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Causes of World War I - Research Paper ExampleThe second industrial revolution also resulted in extraordinary horrors of warfare just because this was an industrial war that saw for the first time weapons like machine gun, barbed wire, flagitious artillery, tanks, airplanes and zeppelins, bombs and grenades, poisonous gas, submarines and gunboats (Junger, 1920). The steam engine and development of rail lines meant that more artillery could be deployed to the armies, and the armies could be kept clothed, fed, and armed indefinitely (Junger, 1920 Best et al., 2004). The result was unprecedented volume of casualties. For example, in 1916 alone, the Germans lost 850,000 men, French lost 700,000 and the British lost 400,000 men (Merriman, ---year, 907).Q2 The nature of the The Great War.The nature of WWI was grim and not sluice closer to what was anticipated by the countries when they decided to stage it. Two of the elements that made it really grim were that it was a total war and als o an industrial war. A total war in this context means that it was a global war involving nations across the world, secondly, it was a war in which the nations were totally equipped in terms of weapons and technology to wage an unprecedented war, and thirdly, it actually brought into the battle field, all the social, political and economical resources available for all nations involved. It could be called a global war just because the European states collected the resources needed for war from its Asian and African colonies, and troupes and laborers were imported into Britain and France from these colonies. The Middle East, Japan and the USA were also participants in the war in one way or other. The role of industrialization in deciding the nature of the war was also manifold. As mechanized production replaced the primacy of agriculture, transnational trade grew resulting in the emergence of a more influential public (Best et al., 2004).5 Another consequence of this was that the pu blic