Abstract
The autor analyses factors and processes leading to the bread-out of the Great War 1914–1918 and doing so, he examines three main areas: international relations, economy, and the cultural situation in Europe in general. He argues that the in historiography usual reduction of the "causes" of war to one of two historical facts is further impossible to maintain.
In multi-casual model, it is on the other hand difficult to find an unifying structure among all the historical facts and to appraise their real importance. The world was not heading toward the war with the inevitabilityof machine and also demonization of Germany is not the correct description of the reality.
The Europe´s way toward the war is full of paradoxes and irrationality and only multi-sided synthesising approach can provide an answer to the question how is it possible, that after a few decades of peace, there could have been such a terrible conflagration.