The First World War commenced in August 1914 and was directly caused by the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife on the 28th June, 1914 by Gavrilo Princep, a revolutionary from Bosnia. Although this single event had triggered the First World War, the actual causes of the war are quite complicated and continue to be a matter of debate amongst historians. World War I was the result of rising tensions amongst European leaders due to the pattern of aggression that emerged against each other. This aggression received further support by way of the increasing nationalism that had spread into all countries in Europe. The fear arising from the high levels of economic and colonial competition and the increasing risk of war made most of the European countries to form military alliances that further led to an arms race. Consequently tensions kept escalating which ultimately led to the outbreak of World War I.

The Just War Theory is a principle of ethics followed in the military that originated from Catholic and Roman philosophy. The principle has also been put forward by international policy makers in the modern world in holding that conflicts should cater to the needs of political, religious and philosophical justice by following a given code of conduct. There are basically four ways in which war can be thought about. The first is realism whereby war becomes a subject matter of power and necessity so that there is no room for making any analysis on moral grounds. The second may be called a holy war which is fought to authorize the intimidation or killing of non believers. The third way pertains to a war that can be referred to as something which is fundamentally immoral. The fourth way in thinking about war relates to the human activities that is called a just war, whereby a complete moral reasoning must be made applicable to the activities related to war thus assisting in determining whether the use of force is justified or not. Wheeler (2002) has defined Just War Theory as one that