How do I find sources for these two very specific, World War argumentative research paper topics?

by Karma_Akabane14

Hi, I am working on a high school research paper and I have two topics I like but I am struggling to find sources that talk about my specific topics and their counterarguments. Here are my two topics:

  1. Prussia was a victim in World War II and we shouldn't have considered them the bad guy because they were just used as a scapegoat for the Third Reich.
  2. Austria-Hungary was in the right for declaring war on Serbia and the start of World War I was the Russian Empire and the German Empires fault for getting involved in Austria and Serbia's war.

Are there any specific places I could find information on these topics or any key words that would be helpful? Thank you!

BeadleoftheBeggars

I don't have much experience with 20th century history, aside some research papers of my own on Austro-Hungarian capitulation in the First World War that were too long ago for me to remember anything specific of value.

I'm not sure what you mean by Prussia being a victim of the Third Reich, unless you mean something to do with the dismantling of the federalist system of the Weimar Republic by the centralizing Nazis?

Your second argument seems circular, as you justify the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia based on the involvement of Russia and Germany, which happened afterwards?

I can direct you to this sub's wiki on the First World War if you want to read some sources on the topic:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/wwi/

As well as this thread whose recommendation of MacMillan's book on the lead up to the war strikes a good balance between quality and readability at a highschool level.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/pdrdb7/top_3_reads_on_wwi/

Don't feel bad if you have to rework your theses or arguments, the process of researching and going through the sources always leads to questioning of one's previously held assumptions and conclusions based on other sources.

CommodoreCoCo

Hi - we as mods have approved this thread, because while this is a homework question, it is asking for clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself, which is fine according to our rules. This policy is further explained in this Rules Roundtable thread and this META Thread.

As a result, we'd also like to remind potential answerers to follow our rules on homework - please make sure that your answers focus appropriately on clarifications and detailing the resources that OP could be using.

Additionally, while users may be able to help you out with specifics relating to your question, we also have plenty of information on /r/AskHistorians on how to find and understand good sources in general. For instance, please check out our six-part series, "Finding and Understanding Sources", which has a wealth of information that may be useful for finding and understanding information for your essay.