The second alliance signed, was the one between Germany and Austria-hungry, 1879. This brought the two countries even closer together. They were already close because of the culture, traditions and languages that they shared.
The next alliance was the Triple Alliance, 1882. This was between Germany, Austria-hungry and Italy. The Russian were left out mainly because of how spread out Russia was and how much closer Italy was.
They strengthened this alliance in 1887.
The French understandably were worried about these alliances. Despite Germanys tactics being all-defensive, the French had no way of knowing what were in these alliances.
Bismarck was doing fine with Germany by keeping it out of trouble and the Kaiser was happy with his job, but when Kaiser Wilhelm II came to the throne he had Bismarck throne out of office within his first year of being leader. The traditional dislike of Slavs kept Bismarck’s successors from renewing the understanding with Russia. France took advantage of this to get an ally and the Franco-russian entente was formed in 1891, which became formal in 1894.
In 1904 the Entente cordialle was formed. This alliance consisted of French and Britain. They had originally been rivals but they were both conscious of Germanys want for colonies in Africa, so they signed an agreement to keep Germany away. It was a known fact that the Kaiser wanted a ‘place in the sun’.
In 1907, the entente cordialle joined up with Russia making the final alliance – the triple entente.
In 1904, the year the entente cordialle was signed, Britain had given France 1 of their colonies in north Africa, Morocco. In 1905 Germany announced its support in independence for morocco.
Moroccans wanted their freedom but this idea of Kaisers wasn’t to help out the Moroccan people, it was to make a German impression in morocco. The British defended the French and avoided war by an international conference in Algercias, 1906, which allowed France to make Morocco a French protectorate.
Another cause of tension was the fight between Russia and Austria-hungry over land in the Balkans – ottoman empire. They were both trying to extend their influence on the countries.
Russia’s main interest was a warm water port. To the Northwest of Russia there was a port but because of the weather conditions it was frozen half the year. In the south there was water but to get to the Mediterranean sea ships would have to pass through the Turkish ports. This meant the Russians had to be nice to them otherwise it would be very expensive trade.
A conflict much similar to the one in morocco was in the Balkans. This was over the Austria-Hungarian annexation of former Turkish province of Bosnia in 1908. The Greater Serbian movement had as an object the acquisition of Slavic Bosnia. So Serbia threatened war on Austria-hungry. Russia had agreed to support their alliance with Serbia and by doing so, mobilised her army. This caused Germany, ally of Austria-hungry to then threaten war on Russia. The beginning of WW1 was postponed by Russia backing down, but relations between Austria-hungry and Serbia were still strained and came of an importance closer to august 1914.
1911 was Moroccan crisis part two. Germany decided to send over a warship to Agadir, a port off the cost of morocco. This was in protest to the French supremacy in morocco. Germany claimed that the French had violated the agreement at Algeciras. Britain again rose to Frances defence and gave the Germans strict warnings. The warship, the ‘Panther’, returned to a shamed Germany. This contributed to the tension in Europe and German jealousy of Britain and now France.
Britain had shown in both of the Moroccan crisis, that they were a very strong country. Their strengths shone a great amount in their navy. Britain had in the 1800’s the largest and strongest navy, which is always useful to an island. Germany was also very jealous about this and wanted to add up to the Britain supremacy of the waters.
But now the navy was becoming so obsolete that if there was any chance of war, the navy could not help or save it. Wooden ships were out and over in America the idea of using steals for shipbuilding had just come about. In 1906 Britain made their first decent, modernised ship. It was made completely out of steel and run on coal. It was fully armoured and could send a shell a good 7 miles! This first ship of her kind was called the ‘Dreadnought’. As Britain were the first to make this ship it meant all other countries were behind. As Germany started to invent her own developments, Britain were off making replicas of their first masterpiece. By 1914 Britain had made far more ships than Germany, but Germany had excelled in the Arms race.
The Arms race stared later than the navy – 1912. Germany now modernising their navy decided to update their obsolete ground army, with new rifles, machine guns, ammunition and artillery. Germany was set to be finished in 1914 – 2 years after they had started. But just as Germany were behind in the navy race because they started later, Britain and France were in the same position now with the arms. If Germany were plotting a war, 1914 would be a good time because Britain and France had started later and would not be complete by the time the Germans were.
Little did the other countries know that Germany, in actual fact, had been plotting a war – but since 1905! This was a long time before war came about. The guy who came up with the plan was dead before it was used in action. He was called schieflen. His plan – the Sciheflen Plan.
This plan was an attack on the French. The idea was that while a small part of the German army was attacking the French across their borders, a larger number of troops would invade Belgium and go through there. Once through to France on the other side of Belgium they would simply attack the French troops from behind. Therefore trapping the French army and forcing them to accept defeat. As we know this operation, estimated to take a few weeks, lasted nearly 4 years. A good but failed plan.
A plan that surpassingly did go its way and resulted in conflict, which started WW1, was the plan formed by a Serbian movement in Bosnia, The Backhand. This was simply the plan to assassinate the heir to the Austiran-hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand. The blackhead after hearing about the Archduke coming to inspect his troops in Bosnia, plotted to station themselves on the route he was due to take, armed with guns and bombs.
En route one member of the Blackhand blew up himself and a few others by letting off his bomb to early. After hearing this explosion, it was decided that it was unsafe for the duke to carry on so they took a different route. The carts guarding and guiding the duke’s carriage went one way and the Archdukes carriage a different. When they realised they had taken the wrong way they stopped to decide how to get back. Unfortunately, for the Archduke, a member of the Blackhand – Gavrilo Princip – happened to be where the cart had stopped. Taking his chances he shot and missed Ferdinand and got his wife, he shot again and killed the Archduke.
Once the Austrian-Hungarians found out Gavrilo Prinsip were trained in Serbia – Serbia were sent an ultimatum. Unhappy with the Serbian agreement to most of the statements Austria-hungry got Germany involved, who therefore told Russia to stay out, who then mobilised her army forcing Germany to declare war on Russia. France then came to Russia’s rescue by fighting back and Germany took charge of Belgium, the schiflen plan in action. After Germany refused to get out of Belgium after Britains threat, Britain declared war on Germany, 4th August 1914.
Each event represented a domino piece in this lead up to the Great war. Each one triggered off another until finally the whole pack were down and they had to start fighting. There is no one cause for WW1 but if there had been less jealousy, envy and want for action maybe WW1 would not have happened.
