What the exam asks
- Causation (Reasoning Process): Distinguish between long-term structural causes of the war and short-term diplomatic triggers.
- Governance (GOV): Explain how belligerent states waged total war, mobilizing domestic and colonial populations through economic planning, censorship, and propaganda.
- Technology and Innovation (TEC): Connect industrialized weaponry directly to tactical stalemate and unprecedented casualty rates.
- Sourcing and Situation (Skill 2): Analyze the point of view, purpose, historical situation, or audience of wartime propaganda posters, letters from colonial soldiers, and state decrees.
Core ideas
Causes of World War I
Historians organize the structural causes of World War I around four main forces (often remembered as MAIN), which turned a regional Balkan crisis—the June 1914 assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist—into a global conflict:
| Factor | Historical Development (as in the CED, College Board’s course description) | Key Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Militarism | Industrialized states engaged in naval and arms races, developing inflexible mobilization schedules. | Anglo-German naval race (Dreadnought battleships) |
| Alliances | A flawed system of secret and rigid mutual-defense treaties turned bilateral disputes into continental war. | Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia) vs. Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) |
| Imperialism | Competition for overseas colonies, markets, and raw resources heightened diplomatic rivalries. | Moroccan Crises; lingering tensions from the Scramble for Africa |
| Nationalism | Intense pride fueled great-power rivalry while self-determination movements destabilized multiethnic empires. | Pan-Slavism in the Balkans challenging Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian rule |
Total war and state mobilization
World War I was the first total war: a conflict in which governments dedicated their entire national economic, social, and political resources to victory, blurring the distinction between civilians and combatants.
- Economic and social control: States instituted conscription, rationed food, fixed wages, converted factories to munitions production, and brought millions of women into the industrial workforce.
- Ideological mobilization: Governments used political propaganda, visual art, and censored media to demonize enemies, sell war bonds, and intensify nationalism.
- Global and colonial mobilization: European empires conscripted and recruited millions of colonial subjects to fight and labor in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Examples include the British Indian Army (over 1.3 million volunteers), French West African Tirailleurs Sénégalais, and the ANZAC troops from Australia and New Zealand.