History of the War Before U.S. Involvement.
Map of European alliances
America wasn't involved in the war for quite some time. As a nation we didn't enter the war till April 6th, 1917 (Trueman) Nations had a great entanglement of treaties that spread through out all of Europe. However, when we look at the reasons for the starting of the war we would see is that Austria-Hungary's archduke franz ferdinand was assassinated. They believed that a secret Serbian society, that Black Hand, was responsible for the assassination (Shackelford) and war unraveled. European nations were bound by treaty to one another, which caused more fighting all over europe. On the map you can see how expansive the treaties were with each other. The allied nations (blue) ended up being the power that America sided with due to friction with Germany regarding the submarine warfare. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria also contained a great power that took on a lot of Europe.
The fighting over seas began to expand causing greater nations to get involved with in just a few months. After a few years France and Britain were tired and needed help, which is part of the reason America decided to enter World War I aiding France and Britain.
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