Do you think WWI was avoidable?

1 Answer
Jan 15, 2016

I would think not...Europe at that time was a crucible of tensions:

Explanation:

WWI came from various directions (among others):

1) Super-Powers growing (economically, politically, technologically) and colliding one against the other;
2) Great but old empires disintegrating and presenting an opportunity for extremists or national minorities to get even;
3) Imperialism and nationalism fuelling the idea of ''we can have more'' or ''we can have something that we think is rightfully our''.
4) Technology and new weapons;
5) An absurd and incredibly convoluted system of alliances that, like a house of cards, can create a chain reaction of interventions in a war that probably nobody really want.

During the period just before WWI in Europe you have two great empires; Russia and Austria-Hungary, ideally mighty and strong but in reality corroded from the inside by great problems and difficulties: they contain populations that want to be free or join another nation (as for the north-east of Italy under Austrian domain but basically composed by Italians or the great cauldron of the Balkans fractioned into many separate national realities seeking for independence or autonomy) and have old style kind of governments and rulers (the Tsar and the Emperor) too ancient minded and unable to adapt themselves to the modern realities and the growing needs of the people (the social and political unrest and the terrible toll of the war will lead to the revolution in Russia).

England and Germany are continuously antagonizing one another on acquiring new colonies, on the seas and, basically, on the global market like two bullies in the playground flexing their muscles and circling one another and waiting for the right moment to strike to the other.

The armies and strategies are not in resonance with technology and science anymore. Old style generals and military structures are presented with new and terribly destructive weapons that ''need'' to be tested in a way or another even if the persons that should use them are not completely sure how to use them or which consequences their use will have.

Basically I think that WWI was the inevitable consequence of a European social and political structure that needed a confrontation.