Responsibility for World War I: An Analysis of Germany.
This five-page undergraduate paper examines Imperial Germany’s responsibility for causing World War I. The author discusses the pervasiveness of militarism in German society, Germany’s determination to acquire a global colonial empire, the rigidity of the Schlieffen Plan, and the autocratic system of government in Germany, which placed all power in the hands of a flawed leader such as Kaiser Wilhelm II. All of these elements combined to cause World War I, and Germany must bear most of the blame, for German intransigence or aggressiveness was displayed at nearly every stage of the crisis in 1914.