The Assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinad of Austria was a major trigger for WWI also known as The Great War. Archduke Ferdinad was killed by a serbian, after his death Austria declared war on Serbia. There were two powers in the Great War. The Entente powers that included France, Britain, Serbia, Romania, Italy, United Kingdom, and the Russian Empire. The other side was called the central powers that were led by the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and German empires. The main reason that the United states entered the war was because the Germans attacked an American ship, and United states was neutral. The U.S. entered the war however they maintained their distance for the remainder of the war. The Central powers lost, the empires has split up and there were many new countries. That was one of the few positive outcomes of the war. As a result of the war Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, and Czechoslovakia, all gained independence from the German empire.
Militarism also played a part in the war. As the countries gained more weapons, the surrounding countries also tried to get more advanced weapons to stay ahead of the game. For example, the Austro-Hungarian empire was east of France, if France bought 20 tanks from a allied country. Then the Austro-Hungarian empire would get 25 tanks in order to prevent defeat in war with the France. However, With this situation occurring war was inevitable. The competition would continue till one country would declare war on the other, then the bloodbath begins.
Nationalism is when a country wants to become independant. For example, Estonia wanted to become independent from the German empire, so the Estonians can be considered nationalist. The Estonians spoke a different language then the Germans, this was another reason for the need to make them selves independent from Germany. However Italy was also a nationalistic country and it became very powerful during this time. Theres a possibility Estonia could be as powerful as Italy, only time could tell.
