I have to write a persuasive essay by using M.A.I.N causes of the war. I don't even know how should I start the essay! We must have the clear thesis and the outline of my three controlling ideas. Right now, I cant think of any ideas. CAN ANYONE HELP ME? PLEASE? I just wanna know how can I start the essay! Please.

hey. is this forum working? Hello people!

there was a thread on this a few weeks back, chack the search button.

but I need an written essay!!!

Start with the secret alliances that Bismarck parlayed. Then you have underlying ethnic tensions in the Balkans. Thirdly, competing colonial interests. Now, get googling.

I think the "avoidability" aspect that your teacher wants you to analyze regards the fact that due to all the mutual pacts and alliances all European countries had to enter the war out of a small incident like the murder of Franz Josef. Noone could really foresee that breakthru and noone really expected that war to break out. But like Bulldog said, there were important competing colonial interests at play. It would have been avoidable if the countries weren't that much entangled in those strict and binding reciprocal alliances.

To quote Barbara Tuchman, who's book The Guns Of August is still the definitive read on the start of WWI:

As long as the conflict stayed between Austria-Hungary and Serbia there was hope for a quick peace, but once the major powers started to come in to honor alliances that extinguished any hope of avoiding world war.

I would examine those alliances and show how they came into play thus making WWI inevitable.