Legacies of WWI: Causes of WWI

I have received a scholarship from NHD to participate in their Legacies of WWI course, which I'm super excited about! I'm one of 114 teachers to be chosen for the program this year. Here is the press release.

So far it has been a valuable experience and I have been able to discuss content and pedagogy with the other teachers in the class.

The first module was titled "The 'Why' of WWI: The Causes of WWI."

The readings were particularly interesting to me, as I have always been taught (and I have always taught my students) that there were four MAIN causes of WWI:

• Militarism
• Alliances
• Imperialism
• Nationalism

During the webinar, which was the culminating activity in the module, I learned that these main causes are anything but actual causes.

Dr. Neiberg, the webinar presenter, discusses how Europe was, in fact, demilitarizing in the early 1900s. Alliances had existed for centuries and never led to a world-wide war before, especially considering the fact that these alliances were defensive. This means that if one nation attacked another, the attacker would not be supported by its allies. The allies would only help out in the case of a defensive war, meaning if their ally was attacked by someone else. Imperialism had been occurring but was declining. And lastly, nationalism can't be considered a reason to go to war. A person might believe that their nation is the best nation in the world, but they won't go killing other people over it for no reason.

I won't be using MAIN to teach the causes of WWI anymore! I'm not sure how I'm going to approach it yet, but Dr. Neiberg gives some great insight in this NHD webinar. It turns out that the causes of WWI were WAY more complicated than I thought...https://t.co/QMM3cQKm2v#sschat

— Carlene Baurichter (@MrsBaurichter) September 13, 2018

In general, I was very surprised. I have been teaching it in a way that is not actually widely accepted by scholars, but instead because teachers have decided that MAIN is a helpful acronym!

The biggest realization that I came to was that the spark, the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, was actually not the spark that led to the Balkan powderkeg exploding at all... more like a spark that fizzled out and dissipated quickly.

No one in Europe cared much about the assassination and certainly were not prepared or motivated to go to war over it. They viewed it as just another violent episode in the history of the Balkan region. It didn't hold much significance, as this sort of thing happened more often during that time period and in that region than most modern people realize. The Archduke and his wife weren't even particularly popular or liked by their own people. I was floored when I read this, but it makes so much sense that the assassination would not actually lead to a much larger, worldwide fight.

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to approach the causes of WWI this school year and into the future, but I know that teaching the MAIN causes is not beneficial or accurate. Even Dr. Neiberg said that most teachers resort to the acronym because they don't have enough time to fully discuss the causes of WWI, so it's understandable. Fortunately for me, I have more time to devote to WWI than I have in the past so I can attempt to help students fully understand the intricate and complicated causes of WWI in a way that is more historically accurate than the MAIN explanation. I just have to do some more research before I reach that part of the school year, as I want to be fully prepared to teach my students correctly. I'll have to refer back to the webinar to get some ideas!