In chancellor Von Bismarck Germany had a very wise and clever leader. He made his foreign policy so that while unifying Germany, he made sure he did not disrupt the delicate European balance of power. He created an intricate system of treaties, however these often had covert clauses. Von Bismarck realised that there was a lot of tension between Germany and France, so he realised that if he could sign a treaty with one of the other major powers in Europe, he would give Germany some security against a possible French attack. So in 1872 the Dreikaiserbund was signed, which allied Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. This later became the Dual Alliance in 1879, but it only involved Germany and Austria-Hungary, due to disputes between Russia over the Balkans. This Dual Alliance promised mutual assistance with any future wars with Russia. It was believed that Von Bismarck had hoped that this agreement would restrain the aims of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans. The German diplomatic system was then strengthened in 1882 when the Triple Alliance was formed. This concerned Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
When France realised that Russia was no longer allied with Germany they saw this as an ideal opportunity to start an alliance with them, in order to give themselves some security if Germany was to ever attack. By 1904 the Triple Entente was signed, which allied Britain, France and Russia. Britain joined this alliance because by this time they had realised that they were the only major power in Europe that was not allied with anyone, and therefore was left very vulnerable for an invasion. The formation of these treaties made the tension in Europe heighten and really it became inevitable that if there were one minor crisis, which involved any of these countries, it would be likely that it would escalate into something much bigger.
The assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand was to be that minor crisis. On the 28th June 1914 a Serbian nationalist and member of the Black Hand movement assassinated Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. The assassins name was Gavrilo Princip. This led to Austria-Hungary taking action against Serbia. Russia told Austria-Hungary that they would go to the aid of Serbia if any attack were to take place, and started mobilising their army. At this point the Tsar started to mobilise the Russian troops. Germany swore to go to the aid of Austria-Hungary and gave the Tsar an ultimatum to demobilise his troops or they would declare war on them. The Tsar reinstated that he would not back down and so Germany declared war on Russia. Due to the alliance systems this minor disagreement in Serbia led to many countries to become involved and it had a domino effect on all the other countries in the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance.
Therefore these three factors were all very important to the causes of the Great War. Germany didn’t want to upset the balance of power in Europe so they set up some alliances; this in turn led to an alliance being set up against the Triple Alliance. Then when there was a problem in the Balkans, which concerned two of the countries in opposite alliances, it set of a domino effect which led to all the other countries becoming involved, and a minor problem turned into a major one. One which would cause a terrible loss of lives throughout Europe.
