DSE History: causes of the First World War (tutor lesson plan)

2026-11-03

Tutor lesson-prep guides · Secondary History

Students can recite four causes but cannot say how they fired at the same moment. This lesson separates structure from contingency with a 30-day timeline.

Objectives — Students can: (1) order the key events from 28 June to 4 August 1914 and calculate that 30 days separate the assassination from the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war; (2) sort at least six causes into long-term structure (nationalism, imperial rivalry, alliances, arms race) and short-term triggers (Balkan wars, Sarajevo), explaining the different role each plays in the causal chain; (3) answer the counterfactual “would war have come without the assassination?” with a position and evidence.

01 Prerequisites (3-minute check)

If any of these fails, fix it before the lesson starts.

Skill	Quick check	Pass mark
Century conversion	Which century does 1914 belong to?	The twentieth
Timeline ordering	Put three events from one year in order	By month: June, July, August
Cause versus correlation	Does simultaneous mean causal?	No, a mechanism is needed

02 Lesson flow (45 minutes)

Time	Stage	Tutor does	Student does
0–8 min	One timeline	Write only three dates on the board and ask students to guess what happened between them	At least two events named
8–18 min	Unpack the 30 days	Fill in the ultimatum, mobilisation and declarations day by day	Explain why mobilisation equals war
18–30 min	Four layers	Sort six causes into long-term and short-term, each with a mechanism sentence	Three per column with mechanisms
30–38 min	Structure and accident	Force a position on the counterfactual, then demand evidence	One written position sentence
38–43 min	Two sources	Austro-Hungarian ultimatum and the German blank cheque; ask who could have stopped it	Name the decision point
43–45 min	Exit check	Mark on the spot and name the act to reteach	All three correct

03 Teaching script (read it out)

Scene 1: Watch 30 days, not four years

Three dates only: 28 June 1914 Sarajevo, 28 July 1914 Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, 4 August Britain enters. Thirty days separate the first from the declaration, and those thirty days started a war of 1,567 days.
Nothing in those days was weather. Each day someone signed, telegraphed or ordered mobilisation. That is why the assassination is the first square, not the answer.
Ask for five squares only: assassination, ultimatum, declaration, Russian general mobilisation, German declaration on Russia and France. Once the five are ordered, the causal analysis has something to stand on.

Student must say: why did Russian general mobilisation make the war harder to stop than the declaration on Serbia?

Scene 2: Four layers, added one at a time

Four long-term layers, from deep to shallow:
1. Nationalism: nineteenth-century ideas made language and blood the basis of statehood, so every Balkan nation wanted out of an empire, and Austria-Hungary was the empire being pulled apart.
2. Imperial rivalry: the Anglo-German naval race, two Moroccan crises and the Russo-Austrian contest in the Balkans turned local disputes into great-power prestige.
3. Alliances: Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) against Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia). Designed to deter, wired to deliver.
4. Arms race: fleets, conscription and timetables were planned in advance, so once mobilisation began the military clock outran diplomacy.
Ask the same question of every layer: how does this turn a Balkan quarrel into a European war?

Student must say: alliances were meant to prevent war, so why did they produce the opposite?

Scene 3: Put accident back inside structure

Counterfactual: without the assassination on 28 June, would war still have come in 1914?
Both answers can score, with evidence. For “yes”: Morocco in 1905 and 1911 had already brought Europe close to war, the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 had wrecked the regional order, and mobilisation plans were locked. Structure was already loaded.
For “not necessarily”: in July 1914 there were still diplomatic options. The blank cheque, the terms of the ultimatum and the timing of Russian mobilisation were human decisions, not machinery.
The single marking standard: a good answer handles structure and decision together; a weak one handles only one side.

Student must say: which decision point mattered most, and on what date?

04 Question types and worked steps

Type	Example	Steps	Answer
Timeline ordering	Order assassination, ultimatum, declaration, Russian mobilisation, German declaration on France	Fix months first, then order within the month, then check the causal order still reads forward	28/6 assassination, 23/7 ultimatum, 28/7 declaration, 30/7 Russian mobilisation, 3/8 Germany on France
Cause sorting	Sort six causes into long-term and short-term	Ask how long the condition existed before 1914, then state the mechanism that escalated conflict	Long: nationalism, imperial rivalry, alliances, arms race. Short: Balkan wars, assassination
Source analysis	Given the ultimatum, was it designed to be rejected?	Check whether clauses breach sovereignty, such as Austro-Hungarian officials conducting the investigation, then read the Serbian reply	Yes: clause 6 would be rejected by any sovereign state
Essay judgement	“The alliance system was the main cause of WWI.” Do you agree?	Define “main cause”, weigh alliances against the other three layers, then give a conditional position	Partly: alliances widened and sped up the war, but without nationalism and imperial rivalry there was nothing to defend

Sanity check (teach this): Check the dates with code: 28 June to 28 July 1914 is 30 days; the war ran from 1914 to 1918, four years and 1,567 days; three powers in the Triple Alliance against three in the Triple Entente. Read every date from the computed values, never from memory in front of a class.

05 Independent practice (3 questions)

Question	Answer	What to watch
Put the five events on a timeline and write, beside each, which country lost which option.	Assassination: Austria-Hungary loses the moderate route. Ultimatum: Serbia loses room to negotiate. Declaration: Russia loses the option to wait. Mobilisation: Germany loses the one-front option. Declaration on France: Britain loses its reason to stay out.	Does every entry name a country and a lost option, not just an event
Use three causes to explain how a Balkan quarrel became a European war.	Nationalism made Serbia an existential threat in Austrian eyes; alliances pulled Russia, Germany, France and Britain in one by one; the arms race let timetables replace diplomacy.	Are three mechanisms stated rather than three nouns listed
Counterfactual in 120 words: without the assassination, would war have come?	Either “yes, but differently”, citing Morocco and the Balkan Wars as accumulated pressure with the assassination only fixing the timing, or “not necessarily”, citing live diplomatic options in July.	Is the position explicit and supported by at least one dated event

06 Common mistakes and what to say

Mistake	Student writes	Say this
Reciting nouns	“The causes were nationalism, imperialism, the arms race and alliances.”	“I accept the four nouns. Now tell me how nationalism made Austria-Hungary fight.”
Treating the assassination as the main cause	“WWI happened because Franz Ferdinand was shot.”	“The shot lit the fuse. Your job is to say who laid the powder and how long it had been there.”
Reversing the timeline	“Austria declared war, then Russia mobilised, so Russia started it.”	“The declaration was 28 July, Russian mobilisation 30 July. Reverse the dates and you reverse the causation.”
One-sided evaluation	“I agree, because alliances always cause war.”	“That ignores the other side: without alliances, would the Balkan quarrel still have escalated? Answer that first.”

07 Homework (paper, section and question numbers)

Redo the independent practice on this page — Questions 1 to 3: every timeline entry must name a country and a lost option; the counterfactual is capped at 120 words and is collected next lesson.
Preview the next chapter: the Treaty of Versailles — Find the Versailles chapter on the subject index, read only its first section and bring one question.

08 Exit check (last 5 minutes)

Question	Answer	Decision
How many days from Sarajevo to the Austro-Hungarian declaration?	30 days, 28 June to 28 July 1914	Answering “about a month” means reteach act one for precision
Name the three Triple Alliance powers.	Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy	Missing Italy means the treaty system is only half known
What is the main weakness of “the alliance system was the main cause”?	It explains scale and speed but not why states felt they had to fight; weigh it against nationalism and imperial rivalry	Answering only “it is wrong” means the evaluation skill is missing

09 Tutor FAQ

How many dates must be memorised?

Five: 28 June, 23 July, 28 July, 30 July, 3 August, plus the war years. Other dates are evidence, not recitation.

How do I answer “was Germany most responsible”?

Contrast Article 231 of 1919 with the 1960s Fischer controversy so students see a historiographical judgement rather than common sense.

Should I teach this with a map?

Yes. Draw the two alliance lines and mark the Balkans; the two-front pressure becomes visible at once.

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A TutorZone lesson-prep guide. Written by the TutorZone team; questions and lesson flow are original and are not taken from any school or publisher material.