In 1905 France was preparing to turn Morocco into one of its colonies. France had no objection from Britain, Spain or Italy. However Kaiser Wilhelm had not been informed of Frances intentions or asked his opinions on them and so he went to Morocco and told the Sultan that he would stop the French. The Kaiser claimed he was doing this to help the Moroccans; however he had an ulterior motive. He wanted to test the loyalty of France’s newly formed alliance, Britain and to test whether or not Frances government would readily declare war on Germany. The French and British decided to settle the matter at a conference held in Algeciras in 1906, although the conference agreed that Morocco would not become a colony of France, France was still given rights over Morocco. This decision still displeased the Kaiser but from this he discovered that Britain was willing to back France up in decision making but neither France nor Britain was ready for war. This test was a very dangerous move for Germany and it showed the Kaiser as a bad decision maker. Due to if Britain and France had decided to make war on Germany, Germany would have started a world war over a colony, Morocco, which it had no real interest in. In 1911 Kaiser Wilhelm again got involved in the affairs of Morocco. He sent the Panther, a war ship, to Agadir, a small port on the Moroccan coastline. This was a direct result of France sending twenty thousand soldiers to drive out Moroccan rebels who attacked the town of Fez and Kaiser Wilhelm making the assumption that France was trying to take control over Morocco. The arrival of the Panther in Agadir scared the British navy, as they controlled a naval base nearby in Gibraltar. The British navy were under the impression that that the German navy would make Agadir into a rival navy base and they prepared for a naval war. However just before the war officially broke out Kaiser Wilhelm ordered his navy to leave Agadir, narrowly avoiding war. This caused both Britain and France to become more involved with building more dreadnoughts in the naval race.
In 1908, the Turkish started to loose control of its bordering countries, the Balkans, this meant that their ottoman empire was falling apart. Many other countries were interested in being in control over the Balkans. Russia wanted ports in the Mediterranean, as did Austria- Hungary and Italy wanted to gain a strip of land on the other side of the Adriatic Sea, so that they had control of the Adriatic. Germany wanted to expand their land empire and Kaiser Wilhelm wanted to build a railway linking Berlin and Baghdad, whilst the people of the Balkans wanted to be in control of their own countries. Bosnia, a Balkan country, was dependent and Austria-Hungary had ruled it since 1908. Many Bosnians did not have a problem with this, however some wanted independence, whilst others wanted to be ruled by Serbia. At this time an organisation called ‘The Black Hand’ was in existence. It consisted of around 2000 members, whose main aim was to fight Austria-Hungary and unite the Slav countries, Serbia and Bosnia. To begin with, the members of ‘The Black Hand’ caused minor problems, such as smashing the windows of Austrian shops. However one member of ‘The Black Hand’, Ilic, moved into the deeper aspects o terrorism and got hold of some discarded Serbian weaponry. This comprised of two guns, grenades and cyanide pills, however the guns were defective and inaccurate unless fired from ten yards away. Franz Joseph, ruler of Austria, announced that Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife Sophie were to visit Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, on the 28th June 1914. ‘The Black Hand’ did not want the heir to the Austrian throne in the capital of a Slav country; hence, Ilic devised a plan to kill the Archduke when he went on a tour of the city. The day arrived and Ilic gave Serb weaponry and orders to kill the Archduke to four other Black Hand members. However, the first assassination attempts fail, one grenade was faulty and did not explode, whilst another grenade, which was thrown, blew up the car behind the Archdukes; causing complete chaos. The Archduke was drove off quickly in the confusion and despite counsel warning him to return home to Austria immediately, he decided to go to the hospital and visit those who had been injured by the grenade. The Archduke’s chauffeur took a wrong turn and the Archduke made him stop the car, unfortunately for him the car stopped right out side Schiller’s coffee shop. Standing only ten yards away from the coffee shop was a member of ‘The Black Hand’, Princip who was armed a pistol. Due to the chaos surrounding these events, uncertainty regarding whether the Archduke was alive or dead, arose. Princip was also unsure to the whereabouts of any other ‘Black Hand’ members. However, then he saw the Archdukes car and he fired his pistol twice at Sophie’s neck and three times at the Archduke’s chest, both died immediately. Therefore, a Serb pistol had murdered the heir to the Austrian throne. This gave Austria the implication that the Serbian Government had supported the shootings of the Archduke Ferdinand and had even provided the assassins with weaponry. Franz Joseph sent a letter to king peter of Serbia demanding that the Serbian government was to terminate all terrorists and was to allow Austrian officials into Serbia, to ensure that terrorism was being effectively abolished. King peter replied saying that he would terminate terrorists in Serbia but he would not allow Austrian officials into his country. This was a dash on Austrian pride and Franz Joseph assumed that if Serbia would not allow his officials into their country then there was no proof that the removal of future terrorist threat was in occurrence. His ultimatum was that Austria-Hungary would attack Serbia. War broke out between the two countries on the 28th July 1914, with the bombing of Belgrade in Serbia.
During the proceeding years, in 1905, Kaiser Wilhelm had devised the Schleiffen plan. Kaiser Wilhelm saw the plan, as the only way Germany could defend itself against the huge alliance of France, Britain and Russia. The plan relied upon the idea that if Russia mobilised its army, then France would do the same. German generals recognised that as Russia is such a vast country it would take at least 6 weeks for the Russian generals to organise their army. Therefore to defend itself the Schleiffen plan stated that as soon as the Russian army was mobilised, even if it did no mobilise against Germany then Germany would launch an unprovoked attack on France. However if the Schleiffen plan were to operate successfully then Germany would have to defeat France within four or five weeks, so that the Germany army would be able to defend itself against, and hopefully defeat the attack from the Russian army. This was an especially obtuse plan because it indicated that if the Russian army mobilised, even if it did not mobilise against Germany, then Germany would launch an unprovoked attack on France. It also meant that Germany would have to attack Belgium, as the only way into France, without going through the Alps, was to go through Belgium. Not only did this mean involving more countries than necessary, but involving Belgium in a war would be very dangerous because it would also mean involving Britain, as Britain had a protective alliance with Belgium. As Germany had no democracy, no one could debate the plan. The Schleiffen plan implicated Kaiser Wilhelm as a warmonger, whose main interest was to be a war hero. The French also devised a military strategy, Plan 17, in 1913. The French plan stated that as soon as the German army moved towards Paris then all French soldiers would capture to move the ‘lost provinces’ of Alsace and Lorraine. After this they would move to capture Berlin. However these provinces were in the mountains, therefore if the German armies mobilised, the French army would leave Paris and move towards the mountains. Leaving Paris unarmed to the German onslaught through Belgium. This was also an ill advised plan, as in a war between the two countries, France would theoretically have won, but France could have lost without any defences being left in Paris.
Another cause for argument was the size of the army and navy of each country. In 1906 the naval arms race began with Britain building the Dreadnought, it was the most powerful battleship ever built and it could blow up an enemy ship from thirty two kilometres away, making ships with smaller guns useless. In retaliation to this the Germans built the Rheinland, an equally powerful ship to the Dreadnought. In response Britain, in 1911, built HMS Neptune, a ‘super-dreadnought’ with more speed and artillery. Finally Britain produced the HMS Queen Elizabeth, a ship with a greater number of more powerful weaponry. The naval raced occurred as a direct result of the German ‘risk theory’. This was again devised by Kaiser Wilhelm and stated his belief that as long as Germany had a fleet, which was a big enough threat to Britain, then Britain would keep their navy in port rather than risk considerable damage to their own naval fleet. However the British response to the German ‘risk theory’ was the ‘two power standard’. This was when Britain decided to make the royal navy equal in size to the two strongest navies in Europe combined. By the time war broke out in 1914 the British had won the naval race with twenty-nine battleships compared to Germanys seventeen. The naval race once again upset the balance of power. This is because Britain is an island, so therefore needs a navy, but has a lesser army of around 140,000 men. However Germany is surrounded by land, so has a huge army, but now additionally had a huge navy. This gave the implication that Germany was planning an attack on Britain, as it did not need a huge navy for defence. In reality the reason for this huge navy build up was because of Kaiser Wilhelm’s hunger for power and his dream of Germany being the most powerful country. Additionally, economically Germany could not afford to have a huge army and navy, as its infrastructure would collapse. Therefore the only way to improve Germany’s economy would be by going to war.
On the 29th July 1914, following the bombing of Belgrade in Serbia by Austria-Hungary, Russia mobilised its army in order to stand up for its brother country, Serbia. As they are united countries, due to them both being the only countries sharing the Russian Orthodox Christian faith and were both Slav countries. So Russia’s army mobilised against Austria- Hungary, but due to lack of communication and Kaiser Wilhelm’s Schleiffen plan, Germany assumed that Russia was mobilised against them. Kaiser Wilhelm sent an order to king Peter of Serbia, to stop Russian troops, but Russia was protecting Serbia, so the troops marched on. On the 1st August Germany declared war on Russia, in the hope that Russia would back down. AS France WAS Russia’s ally, France then mobilised its army. By the 2nd August the German army was mobilised and on the 3rd August Germany attacked France through Belgium. This led to Britain sending a telegram to Kaiser Wilhelm, telling him to back down by the 4th August, as Britain had a protective alliance with Belgium. Germany did not back down and on the 4th August Britain and its colonies joined the conflict, making a world war, which was to become the most horrific war in history.
