To provide an answer, the views of six historians shall be considered. To begin, James Joll's answer to the question will be examined. It will be seen that he considered several factors that, according to him, interlinked and lead to the conflict. Five additional explanatory models will be analyzed: those of historians Arno Mayer, Wolfgang Mommsen, Donald Lammers, Micheal Gordon and Konrad Jarausch. They concentrated on more specific issues as part of interpreting the causes of the conflict.

In his 1980s book The Origins of the First World War, historian James Joll offers an explanation linking the entire social, political and economic spectrum of 20th C. Europe. First, he star

Fourthly, Joll examined the importance of domestic policies, which, according to several historians, could have influenced foreign policy decisions. Every Great Power was "passing through a political and social crisis in 1914." The Austro-Hungarian Empire was losing its geopolitical integrity; Britain had to deal with the Ulster Irish question that was about to overspill; France had as issues taxation and the Three-Year service issue. Nevertheless, Joll points out that domestic policies played a part, but not a big one as to lead to war. Ultimately, politicians did not "deliberately embarked on war as a way out of their insoluble domestic, social and political problems."

The explanatory models presented by these five historians have the undeniable quality of elaborating and detailing complementary explanations about the origins of the WWI. Even if many historians have not spent time analyzing Bethmann's decision making process as Jarausch did, his research reasonably exculpates the Chancellor from beliefs that he pursued annexationist policies. Gordon's comparative article of Germany with Britain produces one of the most efficient analysis in understanding why Germany and Britain took, in a moment of crisis, radically different decisions. Donald Lammers also used a socio/political comparison of Britain and Germany in order to conclude that all the evidence is insufficient to attribute input guilt to the socio/political differences between the states. Mommsen's article had as aim to eliminate as a causal explanation German imperialistic aims and the argumentation is convincing in that respect. Regarding Mayer, he clearly attributed a large causal role to domestic policies within the Great Powers and presents compelling evidence to that effect. Ultimately, these explanatory models do not present a clear view as to the cause of the war, as much as they elaborate on individual factors believed to have contributed to its start. The complex European problems of 1914 make it quite difficult to discern a clear view as to what ignited WWI. Historians have thus been forced to work by elimination of improbable causes and by researching bit by bit the various socio/political/economic/cultural aspects of early 20th C. Europe in order to complete the larger, explanatory puzzle. WWI, its arrival and devastating effects, truly was a mind boggling Gordian Knot, for the events shattered all positive beliefs and hopes of the Western Civilization. Joll's work is thus an efficient multi spectral analysis. The additional explanatory models, although they are sometimes contradictory, complement each other in providing the future historian, and any reader, with an answer as to what caused WWI. Which explanatory model, however, seems to provide the best answers as to the cause?

The author concluded his work admitting that, in a different time, a historian will see causes from a different perspective. The following historians wrote in different decades and approached the causes of WWI from different directions.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4325
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page double spaced)