Nationalism would have been the main culprit to Germany’s ambitions as regards to the war. It was the Germans that were striving to become the most powerful country in Europe, therefore feeling the need to do what they did that led up to the beginning of the war. Germany, being the nationalist country that it was began to highly train their army, naval force and build many more empires. The rise of Germany triggered an increase in underlying tension between the two different alliances.
As well as this, Germany pursued Weltpolitik, an aggressive form of imperialism. The main policies of Weltpolitik were to build a German navy strong enough to impose neutrality on the British in any future European war, to make Germany a major imperial power by way of territorial expansion; to use foreign-policy to unify the country and weaken the appeal of socialism. There was also the idea of ‘Sammlungspolitik’, the idea that Germany went to war to prevent revolution, by distracting the population with a glorious foreign policy. As for Weltpolitik, it led to a marked increase in tension within the sphere of international relations.
Marxist historians hold the view that imperial rivalry and the influence of monopoly capital were major underlying reasons for the war. The Marxist interpretation saw the war as being the direct consequence of imperial rivalry, which led capitalist businessmen to seek new markets and encouraged governments to support economic interests.
In the end, war did not come over the naval race, or commercial competition, or imperialism. Nor was it sparked by the institutional violence of the armed states, but by underground terrorism in the name of an oppressed people. Nor did it come over the ambitions of Great Powers to become greater, but over the fear of one Great Power that unless it took vigorous action it might cease to exist altogether. It began in the Balkans. In 1897 Austria-Hungary and Russia had agreed to put their dispute over the Balkans on ice. When the agreement ran out in 1907, the Ottoman Empire still ruled Macedonia, ringed by Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bulgaria. But everything else had changed. For now Austria-Hungary's only reliable ally was Germany, who’s Weltpolitik had led it to join the competition for influence at Constantinople. Russia was looking again at the Balkans for foreign policy advantage and enjoying, for the first time, a measure of British tolerance. In Serbia, the state most threatening to Vienna because of its ethnic tie to the Serbs and Croats inside the Dual Monarchy, a fundamental political shift had occurred. In previous years Vienna had neutralized Serbia by bribing the ruling Obrenovic dynasty, but in 1903 the rival Karageorgevic clan seized control in Belgrade in a bloody coup d'état and shifted to a violently anti-Austrian policy. Finally, in 1908, a cabal of officers known as the Young Turks staged the first modernizing revolution in the Muslim world and tried to force the Sultan to adopt liberal reforms. In particular the Young Turks called for parliamentary elections, thereby placing in doubt the status of Bosnia and Herzegovina, provinces still under Ottoman sovereignty but administered by Austria-Hungary since 1878. The Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, Aloys Aehrenthal, proposed to settle the Bosnian issue and to crush Serbian ambitions once and for all by annexing the provinces. To this purpose he teased the Russian foreign minister, Aleksandra Petrovich Izvolsky, with talk of a quid pro quo: Russia's acquiescence in annexation in return for Austria-Hungary's in the opening of the Dardanelles to Russian warships. When instead Aehrenthal acted unilaterally, and Izvolsky's straits proposal was rejected, the Russians felt betrayed. Their response was to increase aid and comfort to their client Serbia and to determine never again to back down in the Balkans.
German politics were also approaching a breaking point. Chancellor von Bülow had governed, with the support of Tirpitz, the Kaiser, and the moderate and conservative parties in the Reichstag, on the basis of a grand compromise of which the navy was the linchpin. Agrarian interests continued to demand protection against foreign foodstuffs, but the tariffs imposed to that end harmed German industrial exports. A large armaments program, especially naval, compensated heavy industry for lost foreign markets. The losers in the tariffs-plus-navy-legislation arrangement were consumers, who were taxed for the defence program after they had paid higher prices for bread. Popular resentment tended to increase the Socialist vote, and the other parties could command a majority only by banding together.
When war finally did break out, Germany was a mere spectator. When the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand visited Sarajevo with his wife Sophie, he was murdered by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. Austria-Hungary seized her opportunity and issued an ultimatum to Serbia, which would effectively have made Serbia a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Serbia asked for time to consider and Austria-Hungary declared war immediately. Germany was drawn into the war because of her alliance with Austria-Hungary and, in a matter of days; troops from all over Europe were happily setting off to war.
In conclusion, Germany can certainly be blamed for causing the hostile atmosphere that had developed by 1914 due to the alliance system, and also for giving Austria unconditional support during the Balkans crisis. Germany was very aggressive in the build up to the war and disrespectful of the longer-established countries of the Triple Alliance. However, to simply blame Germany for the outbreak of war would be not to consider all the facts as there were four other major powers involved. The Allies were suspicious of Germany’s actions before the war, in my opinion this only increased the tension as they should not have been. Austria’s loss of status, and subsequent wish to restore itself as a great power throughout the war led to a spark igniting, and the actual outbreak of war could be blamed on Austria’s desire for war an revenge on Serbia. The unfortunate practicality of fully mobilising Russia’s troops was also important in the outbreak of war. Germany can certainly be blamed partially for contributing to the outbreak of war, but other factors and other countries played a more pivotal role in Germany’s invasion of France in 1914.
