To what Extent was the Alliance System a cause of the First World War?

James Smith -Upper Sixth Picasso

The Alliance System must, simply because of the tension in Europe it caused, be included as a cause of the war and it can be dated back to the formation of Germany when Bismarck was chancellor and the architect of the system. However, there were other reasons such as Nationalism, Militarism, Imperialism and demographic changes that all played a role in the beginning of the war and it is difficult to decide exactly how much of a role each one played.

The Alliance System set up for the first time two main camps in Europe and these were the members of the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. This was a regular occurrence during the Cold War, however at this point in history this kind of divide through Europe was new and caused extremely high tensions between the powers in Europe. The Triple Alliance started with the formation of the Dual Alliance between Austria-Hungary and Germany. Bismarck, the chancellor of Germany at the time, designed a treaty between Austria-Hungary and Russia with Germany, so that France would be isolated and Germany had military back up, however this never happened. Instead in 1879, Italy took the place of Russia and the Triple Alliance was formed between Austria-Hungary, Italy and Germany. This was one camp in Europe. The second camp was formed out of fear and paranoia, for Germany was feared by both France and Britain due to its rapid ascension as a major power in Europe. France and Britain did not want to be outweighed in a place where they liked to think they were the biggest powers around and so formed the Triple Entente in 1907 which consisted of Russia, Britain and France and thus formed the second camp of Europe. Obviously tensions were high. With the peace in Europe being in such a precarious position only a small spark was needed and this came in the form of the assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, which brings us to the first example of Nationalism as a cause of World War One.

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Nationalism, which is defined as the desire to make ones country greater than it is, was seen firstly, in the form of the assassination and secondly, in the form of an intense nationalist spirit in Germany that in turn led to a Militarist way of thinking in Germany. The assassination was the culmination of a long lasting quarrel between the governments of Austria and Serbia which began with the Pig War of 1906 which saw Austria block the flow of Livestock into Serbia. In a cruel twist of fate for the Austrian government the Serbs came out of the crisis stronger than they were with new trade routes to Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Germany. After a period of arguments echoing to and from Austria-Hungary and Serbia, the Serbian reply was to try and end the quarrel with Austria-Hungry, in a surge for Serbian Nationalism, by assassinating Franz-Ferdinand. In normal circumstances, after such an instance, war could have been avoided but due to these stated reasons, amongst others, war became a reality.

The second Wave of Nationalism in the build up to WW1 came from Germany. Public feeling was good in Germany at this point in history. Germany had become a country instead of several individual states and had begun to emerge as a major power in Europe due to astounding demographic changes that saw a rise in population from 35.9 million to 65 million in just 60 years. The public wanted this success to continue and there were a lot of nationalist feelings in motion in Germany. Germany saw that the only way to continue and entrench itself as number one power in Europe was through war. War was conceived of as inevitable in Germany and so the raised nationalist feelings turned militaristic.

Germany began to plough extreme amounts of money into their military (especially their navy) and this too increased chances of war in Europe and tensions were definitely increased. The best example of this is the Anglo-German Naval race in 1906-1912. Britain had, for a long time, been the strongest naval power in the world and had adopted a 'two power' strategy meaning that it would have more naval power than the next two leading powers combined. Britain was able to run its trade routes with confidence. However, this confidence was threatened as Germany increased its naval capabilities ten fold even though it had no overseas colonies and an extremely limited coastline. Britain responded with the building of HMS Dreadnought, which instantly became the most powerful ship in the world due to its extensive power and armour. However this had a different result then expected for Britain. Germany built their own dreadnought called the Nassau and the naval race continued. Among other rising tensions in Europe, militarism caused another stir that in its own way contributed to World War One.

So to what extent did the Alliance System cause World War One? I think the answer is that every part of what has been mentioned played a role in starting the war, after all World Wars don’t just happen overnight, there are months of reasoning behind them. I do not think any one reason played a bigger part than any other in the build up to the war, my opinion is that it was the sheer combined weight of all these elements at the same time that converged to make the first ever World War a reality.

Created on 07/11/2002 9:49 PM Page