“The First World War was the result of a badly mismanaged Balkan Crisis in the summer of 1914 rather than the product of long-standing rivalries between the Great Powers.” Assess the truth of this opinion on the causes of the outbreak of World W
2 "The First World War was the result of a badly mismanaged Balkan Crisis in the summer of 1914 rather than the product of long-standing rivalries between the Great Powers." Assess the truth of this opinion on the causes of the outbreak of World War One.
I feel, in my opinion that this statement is incorrect. To say that the First World War started by any one reason would be unjust. The war came about due to a number of diplomatic crises and tensions, which accumulated before the Balkan crisis of 1914. If anything the First World War was well overdue, and should have started well before 1914, if you take into account the reasons, causes and tensions before then. To put the whole blame on the Balkan crisis would be wrong as there were many events which added diplomatic tension between the countries involved in the war, leading up to the Balkan crisis, and for that reason I disagree with the statement in question.
There are many causes to the First World War, one of which is found in Germany and her World Policy. Weltpolitik is the direct German translation of world policy which was a policy of German expansion further than Central Europe. Germany had found a transformation, since the Franco-Prussian war of 1871 and the new Germany was united. Germany wanted to gain a worldwide empire, much like Britain. By expanding, Germany would have been seen as another great power in Europe and would have meant they could be as strong as the British. Germany envied Britain's industry, of which Britain made money exporting goods. Britain essentially did this by having an empire. By Britain having colonies, it meant they had a large amount of resources, which they did not need to pay for, but which they could take from their empire and could sell to other European countries or use for herself.
Weltpolitik was a contrast to the foreign policy of Bismark, who stated that Germany needed peace to keep them a great power. By expanding too greatly and too fast it would interrupt the balance in Europe: Kaiser Wilhelme's views were differing to Bismark's. The two main objectives of Wilhelme was to build a strong German Empire and Navy. He extended his willingness to do this by appointing Bülow as Foreign Minister, with the instructions to look to expand and to have good international relations with Britain, and the appointment of Von Tirpitz as Navy office.
The successfulness of Weltpolitik by 1904 was limited. Moreover Britain gained territory in the Nile, the Far East and in South Africa. As well as that she had also gained alliances with Japan and France. However, Germany did gain colonies. Kiachow - China which was used as a naval base in 1897 and a Chinese province, called Shantung. Also in 1898 she gained a number of Pacific islands from Spain but considering the policy and the scale which Wilhelme wanted to expand, it was a failure.
Weltpolitik was a failure due to a number of reasons. Weltpolitik had no direct meaning, the policy was not that clear and was not understood by many government figures influential to its success. Also Germany rushed in too quickly and was too eager to have an empire.
