World War I

The assassination was perceived not only as a security crisis but also as a matter of honor and prestige. State leaders interpreted the event through the lens of fear of reputational damage and humiliation, which rapidly escalated diplomatic tensions.

The Ottoman decision reflects fear, ambition, and elite calculation. Leaders sought to restore prestige after imperial decline. The alliance with Germany was seen as a means of regaining status. The desire to reassert greatness shaped the strategic alignment. Classical realism highlights how declining powers often gamble, driven by pride rather than rational restraint.

Gallipoli is regarded as an elite decision failure resulting from leaders’ misperception, hubris, and overconfidence; in other words, human nature and prestige politics lead to strategic error.

The Battle of the Somme exemplifies a large-scale offensive assessed within elite decision-making and politics. Leaders considered prestige, reputation, and willpower, with decisions influenced by perception, cost-benefit analysis, and prudence.

The Russian Revolution is regarded as an example of regime collapse resulting from economic strain and social unrest, thereby weakening state capacity. What is decisive is not the ideology itself but rather elements such as erosion of elite authority, decline in state legitimacy, and leadership breakdown. Internal instability directly affects foreign policy choices. Russia's withdrawal from the war is a consequence of the state's prioritization of survival and domestic stability over external commitments.

The United States' entry into the Allied Powers is seen as an example of material capability injection and resource mobilization within power politics. This step is not ideologically driven but rather grounded in national interests and the recalibration of the balance of power. Military and financial support changed the course of the war, shifting the distribution of relative advantage.

Germany launched this attack to gain the initiative before American troops arrived and to shift the balance of power in its favor. This was a decision made by leaders based on strategic timing and national interest. However, the fact that initial successes were not lasting demonstrated resource limits and the limitations of the decision.

It is regarded as a strategic choice by states that acknowledged the material costs and power limitations of continuous warfare. This move stemmed from national interests and the priority of state survival over ideology.

The assassination is a trigger event. The root cause of the war is not a single crisis, but rather the multipolar structure of Europe, rising systemic tensions, and mutual distrust. The event plays a role in accelerating an already fragile security dilemma.

The escalation of conflict is seen as a balance of power reflex; great powers believe that a rival state establishing regional or continental hegemony would weaken their own security. Therefore, interventions are aimed more at preventive balancing and power equilibrium maintenance than aggression. In the neorealist perspective, states act not ideologically, but based on relative power position and long-term security calculations; the resulting picture is interpreted as systemic balancing behavior.

The goal of the operation is not to gain territory, but to weaken the opponent's logistics and strengthen one's own relative power position by achieving geostrategic control. Failure is explained more by material constraints, defensive advantage, and power projection limits than by leadership error.

Russia's internal affairs redistribute capabilities within the international system and trigger an automatic systemic rebalancing process. The withdrawal of a major actor directly alters the distribution of power.

The United States' entry into the war was a move to prevent a single state from becoming the hegemonic power over the entire European continent. In 1917, Germany was considered a potential hegemon because its military capacity and position on the fronts conferred a significant advantage in relative power. Therefore, U.S. involvement is considered a typical example of offshore balancing, not a direct expansionist goal, but rather a means of balancing the European balance of power against Germany.

Germany's last major offensive is explained by a behavioral pattern known as the last-window strategy, or preventive logic. That is, a state attempts to achieve a swift and decisive result using its existing military capacity before the balance of power permanently shifts in favor of its opponent. From this perspective, the attack is not an act of "anger" or "revenge," but is entirely related to systemic pressure and expectations regarding future capabilities.

The classical liberal perspective is not very strong in directly explaining the "cause" of the assassination itself, because the theory is more concerned with domestic political conditions and societal tensions than with individual violence. Nevertheless, the event is attributed to weak political representation, limited civil liberties and the activities of nationalist groups operating outside democratic channels.

The escalation of the war is linked to insufficient economic interdependence and weak commercial ties. Intensive trade relations could have acted as a deterrent by increasing the cost of war.

The Gallipoli Campaign is evaluated less in terms of military tactics and more in terms of public accountability, representative governance, and economic interdependence. The decision-making process for foreign policy was concentrated within a small elite group rather than involving parliamentary oversight and extensive public discussion, thereby increasing the risk of military risks.

The transformation of the assassination into a crisis is due to the lack of effective conflict-resolution mechanisms and strong international institutions. As institutional channels for crisis management were weak, information sharing and diplomatic coordination were insufficient.

The international system of that era had not produced strong multilateral frameworks and monitoring mechanisms through which states could manage crises. Therefore, while states focused on protecting their short-term interests, they turned to conflict rather than pursuing absolute gains from cooperation, and the crisis rapidly escalated into war.

The Gallipoli Campaign is explained by a lack of coordination among the allies and inadequate multilateral planning. Additionally, information asymmetry and limited institutional coordination among the allies led to inefficiencies in logistics and military planning.

The long and exhausting conflict at Verdun is explained by the lack of institutionalized channels for negotiation and conflict management between the parties. Because there were no strong international institutions to manage the crisis or to maintain continuous diplomatic mediation, the parties were unable to establish a cooperative arrangement to jointly reduce the costs of the war. Furthermore, low institutional trust and limited information transparency made it difficult for the parties to obtain reliable information about the other side's intentions. This weakened incentives for cooperation and led to the continuation of the conflict rather than a diplomatic resolution.

The Battle of the Somme is explained by problems in coordinating collective strategy among the Allies and by the high transaction costs of cooperation. Military planning could not be carried out in a fully coordinated manner because strong institutional coordination mechanisms and regular information-sharing channels were lacking to develop a common strategy.

The ceasefire was made possible when the parties recognized the mutual gains from cooperation and accepted the high cost of the war. When diplomatic channels reopened, negotiation mechanisms began functioning, enabling the parties to halt the conflict. Lower transaction costs and increased institutional communication laid the groundwork for a negotiated settlement.

The murder of an heir to a throne was an attack on the dynastic order itself, and the society of states had settled such crises before by protest, mediation, and a conference of the great powers. What followed instead was an ultimatum written to be refused. For the English School the tragedy of 1914 begins here, in the choice to abandon diplomacy at the very moment the society of states most needed it.

Ottoman entry carried the war beyond Christian Europe into an empire the European society of states had long admitted only on unequal terms. Its provinces promptly became prizes to be promised away in secret agreements between allies. The war was dissolving the standard of civilization that had defined membership, and redrawing the question of who belonged.

Gallipoli was fought by soldiers from Australia, New Zealand, India, and Senegal, empires spending colonial lives on a European quarrel. The society of states was European in its rules yet global in its reach, and the periphery paid for the failure of the centre. For the English School the campaign shows how an international society built on empire exports its wars to peoples who never chose them.

The Somme opened with the bloodiest day in British military history and ended having moved the line barely at all. Both sides now fought not for a settlement to be negotiated but for the exhaustion of the enemy society itself. When belligerents abandon the idea of a peace to be bargained, the laws of war lose the political logic that once restrained them.

The Bolsheviks did not merely leave the war; they repudiated the treaties, published the secret agreements, and denounced the states system as a criminal conspiracy. Here was a revolutionary power, a member that denied the society's right to exist at all. The English School treats 1917 as the arrival of an enemy within the society of states rather than simply another rival inside it.

Wilson brought armies and something more disruptive, a demand that the war end in open covenants, self determination, and a league to keep the peace. This was a solidarist challenge to a pluralist order that had asked only that states respect one another's sovereignty. The society of states was being told to acquire a conscience, and it has been arguing about that demand ever since.

Germany gambled everything on breaking the line before American numbers told, and for a few weeks the front moved as it had not moved in years. When the offensive stalled, the German command understood that no outcome would now be dictated by arms. The road back to the society of states ran through the one institution the war had suspended, diplomacy.

In a railway carriage at Compiegne the guns stopped by agreement rather than by annihilation, and enemies became parties to a document again. The English School stresses how quickly the forms returned: envoys, terms, signatures, the ordinary grammar of states dealing with states. After four years of unlimited violence the institution of diplomacy survived to end what it had failed to prevent.

The assassination is not merely a security crisis, but is linked to strong national identity narratives and nationalist norms in the Balkans. Pan-Slavic identity and anti-imperial discourses have framed political violence as a legitimate tool for some groups.

The assassination of the Archduke was perceived by Austria-Hungary not only as a security issue but also as a challenge to the empire's great power identity and authority. Therefore, the declaration of war took on meaning within the framework of the great-power prestige norms and imperial authority narratives that were significant in the international community at the time. The state believed it had to respond aggressively to safeguard its status and legitimacy.

The entry of great powers into war is more closely associated with identity alignment and shared political narratives than with alliances. States have positioned themselves within specific civilizational blocs or political values.

While the Allied Powers framed the blockade as a legitimate tool to weaken the enemy's war-making capacity, in Germany, this generated a powerful narrative of victimhood and a discourse of collective grievance. These differing discourses significantly influenced how the war was understood and how societies viewed the international system.

The Ottoman Empire's entry into the war was not merely a strategic security decision but also linked to imperial identity, legitimacy concerns, and the dominant political narratives of the time. Ottoman elites still viewed themselves as a great power and a vast imperial political community. Therefore, being a completely passive or ineffective actor in the international system might not have been seen as compatible with the empire's identity.

Gallipoli is not only a military operation, but is also associated with collective memory and national myth-making processes in different societies. This event has generated powerful narratives of national identity in many countries.

Verdun has become a powerful symbol of national resistance in France. The conflict gained meaning not only through strategy but also through narratives of national identity and collective sacrifice.

The Somme has created a shared trauma narrative that influences how societies perceive war. These experiences shape how war is collectively remembered.

The revolution is seen as a powerful ideational shift and the emergence of a new political ideology. Bolshevik identity and revolutionary discourse redefine the international role of the state.

The US entry into the war is explained through the narrative of democracy vs. autocracy and the discourse of moral legitimacy. The war is portrayed not just as a strategic fight but also as an ideological battle.

This offense is associated not only with a military strategy but also with powerful victory narratives and national will discourse. Within German leadership and public opinion, there was a strong narrative that the war could still be won. Such national identity narratives and collective beliefs reinforced the perception that a military breakthrough was possible and necessary. Therefore, the decision was shaped not only by calculations of material capacity but also by ideas, beliefs, and wartime discourse.

The ceasefire is associated with shifts in public narratives about the meaning of war and the growing discourse of war-weariness. The legitimacy of peace has strengthened in societies.

Versailles, particularly in Germany, generated a powerful narrative of humiliation and a collective-identity of grievance. These discourses significantly influenced political behavior in the subsequent period.