Why did the World War I. last so long?
Year 1914 marked the end of rather peaceful years, in consideration to what followed afterwards, of 19th century. This year during which Europe was engulfed in one of the most painful and largest conflicts in human history and there are several reasons as of why did such a thing happen.
First reason that contributed to the length of war was, that both Treaty and Alliance had expectations which were not possible to be fulfilled and the fact that no one had had the experience with similar conflict, as the previous ones were only short regional wars. Everyone expected a short war and believed to be home by Christmas. Unfortunately the conflict that they had in hands was no regional war and definitely not short one either, as it lasted four long years. Reason that it grew into such a scale is that before war was started, the major European powers went to great lengths to maintain a balance of power on the continent, therefore countless treaties and alliances were formed and signed between several countries and states, starting with Holly Alliance in 1815. This fact made a simple regional war with country, which is part of alliance, impossible task. Yet, Germany prepared to put to place Schlieffen Plan and mobilized in preparation to attack France while in the Balkans was expected to be just a regional war between the Kingdom of Serbia and Austria- Hungary. Germany depended on Schlieffen plan, which was to ensure quick attack on France before Russia, with whom had France alliance, mobilized. Therefore, few days after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Germany invaded neutral Belgium on 2nd August and put Schlieffen plan to use and did not expected this neutral country to oppose.
However, Belgium resisted, so it took Germany full 19 days to conquer Brussels, which itself is a fact that greatly crippled their plan, as they could no longer surprise attack on France for it was already in mobilization. Furthermore,...