World War I was, essentially, the settling of nationalistic feuds that had simmered for years between the old guard European establishment. European relations during the three decades preceding the war were characterized by extreme nationalism, economic rivalry, and suspicion. France had experienced a humiliating defeat at the hands of the newly united Germans, and Great Britain's maritime and economic interests were clashing with the growing threat of German imperialism. The Germans, on the other hand, were resentful that the European scramble for colonies in Africa and elsewhere had passed them by. The war was also an accident waiting to happen. At the beginning of World War I the major nations of Europe were aligned into two potentially hostile alliances, with Germany and Austria in one and France, Great Britain, and Russia in the other. America, who would eventually tip the balance in favor of the latter countries, temporarily remained neutral. If World War I was Europe on fire, its tinder box was the Balkans.Against a backdrop of an earlier war in 1912, Austria-Hungary was fed up with Bosnian-Serb nationalism and agitation. Austria-Hungary's rulers found an excuse to suppress Serbia and shore up its southern Balkan territories when its crown prince Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in the summer of 1914. Declaring war on Serbia, Austria-Hungary set in motion a series of what could be characterized as stupid, but inevitable, events. A web of treaties and alliances resulted in German support of Austria-Hungary. Russia declared that Austria-Hungary must not be allowed to crush Serbia. Russia's ally France had a historical fear and alarm over Germany(Austria-Hungary's ally), who issued an ultimatum to France requiring a promise of neutrality. In August of 1914 Germany declared war against Russia and France and invaded Belgium (Great Britain's Ally). This invasion brought Great Britain into the war. So, in an outof-control chain reaction, where everyone declared war on everyone else, many in the United States shook their heads in wonder watching Europeans kill each other over nothing more than the assassination of portly Austrian Archduke by a fanatic Serb. In America, Woodrow Wilson tried to maintain U.S. neutrality during the first years of the war. Wilson even won reelection on the slogan "He kept us out of war." He correctly perceived that there was no great support on the part of the American public for involvement in a foreign war. Even the loss of American lives on the high seas as a result of German submarine warfare wasn't sufficient to tip the balance in favor of war. Everything changed with the publication of the infamous Zimmerman Telegram to the Mexican government. The German Foreign Minister sent a coded telegram to his ambassador in Mexico. The Germans told the Mexicans that, if the United States should enter the war against Germany, Mexico should become Germany's ally. Mexico's reward, in the event of Allied defeat, would be the recovery of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona from the United States. The British Admiralty Intelligence intercepted this message and gave it to the U.S. press. This revelation immediately set off a nationwide demand for war against Germany. This incident and the German announcement of the resumption of open submarine warfare led Wilson to ask Congress to declare war on the Germans. World War I started when a Serbian national approached and shot an Austrian Archduke. The results were the deaths of millions and the beginning of an age of violence and breakdown of society in Europe. The war's outcome was as unsatisfactory as its beginning, as the victorious allies imposed a harsh peace on the defeated Germans and set the stage for World War II. It could be argued that there were not two world wars in the 20th century. We really experienced only one

war the war that began in 1914, annihilated one full generation of young men, experienced a pause to allow us to temporarily forget the carnage and horror, and then recommenced in 1939 only to end with the dawning of the nuclear age.