Did Germany or England start the worldwar1?

Answer 1

Though they both played a big part in the lead up to World War 1. But so did, France, Austria-Hungary and Russia. The imminent short term cause was a Serb killing the Austro-Hungarian Arch Duke. Russia promised Serbia defence if Austria-Hungary attacked it. Russia also had an alliance with the British Empire and France. Austria-Hungary had an alliance with Germany and Italy.

So Austro-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary. Then Germany declared war on Russia and because Germany knew France would then declare war on them and invade them, they decided to declare war on France. The Germans had a plan to go through neutral Belgium to France as the French would be expecting an attack at the Franco-German border and not through Belgium. They 'asked' the Belgians if they could go through the Belgians refused and so Germany invaded. Britain, which England was a part of, was sitting out of the war up until the point where Germany invaded Belgium. Then they decided to get involved and fight the German's from Belgians.

Belgium wanted to remain neutral a while before and there was a chart which many European Empires agreed to. This included the Germans, French, Austro-Hungarians, British and others. So Belgium was well in its right to not want Germany to go through the country and become involved in a war.

However there was tensions between Germany and Britain. Germany had decided to challenge Britain at being the best navy in the world at the time. They did also have some good relations. Queen Victoria, dead around 13 years at WW1 outbreak, was a British Empress of German decent who also took a German husband. The British King and German Kaiser, along with the Russian Tsar, at the outbreak of WW1 were all cousins.

So you really can't place a majority blame on ether as Europe had a turbulante history and tensions were very high in every country, not just them.