Russia had several reasons for joining the triple Entente.
- It shared Frances concerns about the rising power of Germany
- It had a long history of rivalry with Austria-Hungary. This was one of the reasons it was friendly with Serbia.
- Both Russians and Serbs were Slavs. Many more Slavs lived in Austria-Hungary’s empire. Russia felt it should have influence over them.
The Triple Alliance came about for some similar but also for some different reasons.
Germany
Until 1870 Germany had been a group of small, independent states, of these Prussia had been the most powerful, in 1870, after Prussia won a war against France, many of the small states joined together to form Germany.
The biggest reasons for Germany joining the Triple Alliance were:
- They wanted protection against a revenge attack from France after they took Alsace-Lorraine away.
- German leaders were very worried about something called “encirclement”. Because Russia and France had a strong friendship it was seen as an attempt, by Germany, to surround and threaten Germany.
- Germany was also worried about a build-up of arms, the biggest being in Russia.
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary was an extensive empire in central Europe. It was made up of lots of different ethnic groups. Many members of these groups wanted independence from Austria-Hungary.
The biggest reason for Austria-Hungary joining the Triple Alliance was:
- There independent neighbour Serbia was quickly growing in power. Austria Hungary did not want the Serbs to gain any more power but they couldn’t attack Serbia on there own because Russia would defend them. But they thought if they had powerful allies like Germany and Italy Russia wouldn’t dare fight back….
Italy
Italy, like Germany was a collection of small states who wanted to establish themselves. By 1914 they had settled and Italy wanted to “Flex there muscles”
With this aim in mind they joined Austria-Hungary and Germany.
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Kaiser Wilhelm II was a very unpredictable man and also incredibly powerful. He had hearing and mental disabilities from birth and had a short attention span.
He wanted Germany to be recognised as a world power. So he started building a navy to try to rival Britain’s. This made lots of countries nervous, if Germany didn’t want a war why would they be building a huge navy? Britain’s answer to this was a new, more powerful warship named the HMS Dreadnaught. Germany quickly followed suit and between 1906-1914 a total of 46 Dreadnaughts were produced. 29 being Britain’s and 17 made by Germany. This made countries even more worried!
The final act that convinced everyone that Germany wanted war was the Schlieffen Plan. This was Germany’s war arrangement. The plan was to attack and defeat France in 6 weeks, this was the estimated time for Russia to mobilise, and then turn their forces on Russia. They were confident this would work because they were convinced Russia would be slow to prepare and they had defeated France in this way before.
Assassination in Sarajevo
The Sarajevo Assassination was the “Spark that lit the bonfire” so to speak.
In 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand was visiting Sarajevo in Bosnia. Although he was advised against the visit, he probably wanted to show he was not scared. But no-one knew that 6 teenage members of the Black Hand Terrorist group were there, ready to kill the Archduke. Each of them had a bomb and phial of cyanide. As the car roller through the street the first two lost their nerve and fled. But the third threw his bomb at the car then swallowed his poison and jumped into the river. The poison did not work though. The bomb landed on the car but the Archduke just flicked it off. It landed under the car behind, injuring several people. There was a lot of confusion and the Archduke was quickly driven to the town hall. Once safe he demanded to be taken to see the bomb victims. The remaining terrorist, Princip, soon found out that the Archduke was not dead and went wandering round the streets, ending up at a café.
He was at the café feeling sorry for himself when suddenly the Archdukes car pulled up beside him. He quickly ran towards it, drawing his pistol and fired two shots from 3 or 4 metres away. One pierced the Archdukes neck and the other ricocheted of the car into the Archdukes wife, Sophie’s stomach. Fifteen minutes later she died followed soon after by the Archduke.
Serbia was quickly blamed by Austria-Hungary and Austria declared war on the Serbs. The Russian army got ready to help Serbia defend itself. Germany warned Russia not to get involved. They didn’t listen.
Germany then declared war on Russia; they also began moving their army towards France and Belgium.
The French quickly prepared its army to fight against the German invasion.
Germany then declared war on France and invaded Belgium. But instead of Belgium surrendering their army fought against the Germans. They were greatly outnumbered, almost ten to one, but they succeeded in slowing down Germany enough to allow Russia, Britain and France to prepare for war.
Morocco
Two crises occurred in Morocco one in1905 and one in 1911.
In 1905, the Kaiser decided to visit Morocco in North Africa, the Kaiser had built up and empire in central and southern Africa and wanted to show that Germany was an important power in all of Africa. The Kaiser made a speech stating that he supports Independence for Morocco the French, who were planning to take over Morocco, were infuriated about this. An international conference was held in 1906 to try to calm things down but it did the opposite. The Kaiser was humiliated, and his views were not listened to. He was also angry that Britain and France seemed to have a strong friendship and were sticking together to oppose him.
In 1907, Britain and France formed an alliance with Russia and the Triple Entente was formed. Germany suddenly felt very threatened as it had an enemy on each side.
In 1911 a new crisis emerged. The French tried to take control of Morocco again.
They claimed they would compensate Germany for any lost trade it suffered. But the Kaisers response was to send a gunboat to Agadir. The British were worried that the Kaiser intended to set up a naval base, and they did not want German ships in the Mediterranean. Another conference was called and again Britain and France opposed Germany. France took over Morocco and Germany was given some land in central Africa as compensation. Without Germany knowing, Britain and France reached an agreement that France would patrol the Mediterranian Sea and the British Navy would defend Frances North and South Coasts.
The Balkans
The Balkans was a very unstable area where many different nationalities were mixed together, it had been ruled by turkey but now Turkish powers were in decline. New governments that had been set up regualy argued. Austria and Russia were both very eager to control the area.
The First Chris happened in 1908 when Austria took the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russia and Serbia both protested, buy backed down when Germany nade it clear to them that they supported Austria. Neither Russia nor Serbia were prepared to risk starting a war with Germany over the area of land. But now Austria felt very confident with their new, powerful ally germany and started to purposely make trouble with Austria and Russia.
In 1912-1913 there were lots of small, local wars. Serbia emerged as the most powerful country in the Balkans. This was bad news for Austria as Serbia now had a strong army and was close friends with Russia. Austria decided Serbia needed to be destroyed and this opportunity came with the Asassination on Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
To sum up I would say that if the alliance system was not in place the war would not have happened, or at least it wouldn’t have been as wide spread. Austria would have attacked Serbia then Russia would have probably attacked Austria, Germany would possibly help Austria but neither Briatin nor France would have got involved. And over 2 Million troops wouldn’t have died.
