The political tension's in the late 1800's and early 1900's together with Germany's willingness to go to war, made a European war practically unavoidable.
“We do not say this war is declared yet, but we believe it is inevitable,” were the words of a Serbian government official during an interview in 1912. What he, however, did not know was the extent and lasting ramifications of this unavoidable war. While earlier conflicts in the Balkans had been regionally solved, the 1914 crisis was to be different. It was due to the buildup of all social, economic and political tensions between Europe’s imperialistic nations and the willingness, especially that of Germany’s, to engage in military conflict that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand allowed for the conflict to escalate. While there was strong rivalry between the Imperial powers to obtain their economic interests both sides of the Alliance system saw the benefits of a war they thought they were bound to win. This combined with new nationalist ideas produced throughout the 19th centaury allowed the situation to soar into a ferocious war.
The political tension’s in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s together with Germany’s willingness to go to war, made a European war practically unavoidable. With the Alliance system in place putting Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary on one side, and France, Great Britain and Russia on the other a war between any of these nations would likely mean the others would get involved. Due to the alliance Germany accused France and Russia of attempting to encircle them which made Germany highly suspicious and raised tensions and Austria-Hungary used the Alliance system to gain Germany’s support on the Balkan’s issue, known as the blank cheque. According to the well known German historian Fischer, Germany was determined to go to war and saw the Balkan issue as the perfect excuses. Keiser Wilhelm, in what is today know as the 1912 War Council was said to have made plans for an upcoming war, which he saw as necessary. It is also important to notice that Germany had only one mobilization scheme known as the Schliefen Plan which meat Germany had to mobilize on both fronts. This exactly supports D. Stewarts claim, which said that Germany was determined to go for everything or nothing. Russia, however, refused to back down as they had done with much humiliation in 1908 and promised to protect her brother Slavs. Mediation attempts were even made by Britain to resolve the conflict in the Balkans, but these according to D. Steward were dismissed by Germany and Austria-Hungary. There is however no general consensus between historians that Germany had planed and was to blame for the war. J. Röhl argues that many of the documents Fisher used to base his claim had been altered from the original, and the idea of Germany’s intentions for a European war were quite controversial. The fact however still remains, that the alliance system, Germany’s backing of Austria, weather they planed for war or not and tension due to the encirclement of Germany gave the conflict enough fuel to escalate and turn into a full scale war. It were these countless political tensions that made an international conflict inevitable.
