AP® European History review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/euro/units/7/7-9)
Unit 7 · Topic 7.9
7.9 Causation in 19th-Century Perspectives and Political Developments
This wrap-up topic asks you to explain causes and effects across Unit 7, especially how nationalism, unification, imperial rivalry and the alliance system made Europe less stable before 1914. The key skill is naming a cause, its effect and the specific way one led to the other.
Key terms
- causation
- long-term and short-term causes
- balance of power
- alliance system
- imperial rivalry
Long-term and short-term causes
Historians separate long-term causes, conditions that built up over decades, from short-term causes, the specific events that set things off. For World War I, the long-term causes come from this unit, and the short-term trigger, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, comes in 8.2. A common memory aid for the long-term causes is MAIN: militarism, alliances, imperialism and nationalism. Use it to organize your thinking, but on the exam always support each cause with specific evidence.
| Cause | Specific evidence from Unit 7 | How it raised the risk of war |
|---|---|---|
| Militarism | Anglo-German naval race after 1898; HMS Dreadnought (1906); large conscript armies and detailed war plans | Leaders expected war and planned to strike fast |
| Alliances | Triple Alliance (1882); Franco-Russian Alliance (1894); Triple Entente (1904–1907) | A local conflict could pull in every great power |
| Imperialism | Fashoda (1898); Moroccan crises (1905, 1911) | Rivalry overseas hardened suspicion and the blocs |
| Nationalism | Serbian and South Slav nationalism; Austria-Hungary's subject peoples; French anger over Alsace-Lorraine | Made the Balkans explosive and compromise harder |
The causal chain from 1848 to 1914
- 1848's failure taught leaders to unify nations through power, not idealism (7.1).
- The Crimean War broke the Concert of Europe and isolated Austria (7.1).
- Cavour and Bismarck unified Italy and Germany through war (7.3).
- Germany's victory over France in 1871 created a powerful new state and a French desire to recover Alsace-Lorraine.
- Bismarck's alliances kept France isolated until 1890, but his successors let the Russian link lapse, producing two rival blocs.
- German industrial growth (6.3) and Weltpolitik alarmed Britain; colonial crises pushed Britain toward France and Russia (7.7).
- The decline of the Ottoman Empire left a power vacuum in the Balkans, where Austria-Hungary and Russia, and Serbian nationalism, collided (1908, 1912–1913).
Other causal threads in the unit
Not every causation question is about World War I. Other strong chains: how the Second Industrial Revolution supplied the tools of imperialism (6.3 to 7.6); how Darwin's theory, misapplied as Social Darwinism, helped justify racism and empire (7.4 to 7.6); and how anti-Semitic nationalism, seen in the Dreyfus affair, helped cause the rise of Zionism (7.2).
Showing complexity: the debate over responsibility
Historians disagree about which causes mattered most. In the 1960s the German historian Fritz Fischer argued that Germany's leaders bore the main responsibility, pursuing aggressive war aims. Others stress shared responsibility, arguing that all the powers' leaders made choices that, taken together, led to war. Naming this debate, or weighing one cause against another and explaining your choice, is a reliable way to earn the complexity point.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Writing a causation paragraph
Evaluate the extent to which the alliance system caused the outbreak of a general European war in 1914. Write a thesis and one body paragraph.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Take a clear position that ranks causes: alliances turned a local war into a general one, but they did not cause the conflict on their own.
- Step 2: Support the claim with specific evidence: the Triple Alliance, the Franco-Russian Alliance and the Triple Entente; Germany's backing of Austria-Hungary.
- Step 3: Explain the mechanism: commitments meant that war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia drew in Russia, then Germany, then France and Britain.
- Step 4: Qualify: nationalism in the Balkans created the crisis, and militarism made leaders act fast.
Answer: Thesis: The alliance system was the main reason a Balkan crisis became a general European war in 1914, but Balkan nationalism created the crisis and militarism made it spread quickly. Paragraph: By 1907 Europe was divided between the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy and the Triple Entente of France, Russia and Britain. When Austria-Hungary confronted Serbia after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Russia backed Serbia, and Germany backed Austria-Hungary. Because the Franco-Russian Alliance (1894) tied France to Russia, a quarrel in the Balkans became a war between the great powers within weeks. Yet alliances alone did not decide the outcome: Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance, stayed neutral in 1914, showing that governments still chose whether to honor their commitments.
Common mistakes
- Just listing MAIN with definitions. Each cause needs specific evidence and an explanation of how it pushed Europe toward war.
- Treating the assassination as the main cause. It was the trigger; the essay usually needs the long-term causes to explain why a single murder led to a world war.
- Forgetting that Italy stayed neutral in 1914 and joined the Allies in 1915, which complicates the alliance argument.
On the exam
- Long essay prompts about the causes of World War I are common. Plan one paragraph per major cause and decide in advance which cause you will argue mattered most.
- Use the Fischer debate or a weighing of causes to earn complexity, but only if you explain it accurately.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
4 questions on 7.9 Causation in 19th-Century Perspectives and Political Developments. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Which of the following was a long-term cause of the First World War rather than an immediate one?
Which of the following was a consequence of Kaiser Wilhelm II's foreign policy after he dismissed Bismarck in 1890?
Which of the following best explains how imperial rivalry contributed to instability in Europe before 1914?
The Fashoda crisis of 1898 is significant mainly because its peaceful settlement
0 of 4 answered