Your Name
Am. History 2
15 September 2014
Dr. Fred Freres
The Great War On July 28, 1914 a seemingly small war broke out between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, but soon because of treaties written obligating Germany, Russia, Great Britain, and France to help defend said countries this conflict was blown to massive proportions. In fact, almost everything that subsequently happened occurred because of World War I: the Great Depression, World War II, the Holocaust, the Cold War, and the collapse of empires (Mintz). We tend to look at today’s politics and yearn for the simpler days, but if anything World War I, formerly known as “The Great War”, proves that politics have always been convoluted and difficult to understand all of the aspects of no matter what shade of rosy glasses you have on. I would not consider the American involvements in WWI inevitable mainly because the American’s public laissez faire attitude about foreign policy. We, as a western nation, went to great lengths to stay as neutral as possible in this Great War because quite frankly it wasn’t our concern, but by December 1918, nearly the end for all intents and purposes, we joined in to try to obtain peace among a very angered sum of countries (Brinkley 526). In the end Germany pretty much paid through the nose for every bit of damage brought on by this world war. This severe justice later became the first of many domino effect type occurrences that set us up for World War II.