World War 1: A Tragedy of Miscalculation Essay

Triple Alliance- Triple Alliance - Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy had a full offensive-defensive alliance (signed 1882). At this point in history this meant if any three of them got into war even if they started it themselves the others would follow. Britain, Russia, and France formed the Triple Entente. Britain, France, and Russia all had one thing in common, they hated the Alliance (more so Germany than anything). It also didn’t help that the Russian an Austrian had different ideas of what each country wanted with the Balkan Peninsula. While Germany was off getting

World War 1 was partly caused by the two opposing alliances developed by Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck formed the Three Emperor’s League, an alliance between Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. He also took advantage of the Italian dislike towards France and created the Triple Alliance between Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. After Bismarck was fired, the dislike of Slavs prevented countries from allying themselves with Russia. France took advantage of this and became allies with Russia, forming the Franco-Russian Entente. Britain and France ignored all imperialistic conflicts between them and formed the Entente Cordiale. International tension rapidly increased and more countries became involved.

This leads to the conclusion that the European powers were ready for war in 1914. It is important to realize that since the European powers made alliances with each other, small arguments concerning one power might lead to a war involving all the powers. In the case of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, this situation created a serious misunderstanding between Austria-Hungary and Serbia and as a result, the other nations in Europe involved in alliances with either 2 countries were obligated to support them. Alliances were originally created strictly for defensive purposes but by 1910, many of the alliances had changed their character like the Austro-German alliance. Germany promised to give military aid to Austria-Hungary to invade Serbia and on the other hand, Russia provided Serbia with military assistance. As alliances had become instruments of national aggression, the chances of war doubled. The probability of Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia due to the death of their heir increased because Austria-Hungary could rely on the support of Germany to help achieve its goal. In addition, this fragile interlock of alliances relied on the leaders of the European countries to act reasonably however, this was not the case in the situation of World War 1. The Kaiser of Germany felt his country was being denied the chance to unleash its full potential by Britain so the power hungry ruler was determined to

In February 1891 Count Alfred von Schlieffen was appointed Chief of the Prussian General Staff, a post which he held until the end of 1905. The most important responsibility of the General Staff was to produce the annual deployment plans, which stipulated how the German army was to be drawn up ready for battle in case of war. The initial pattern of deployment was the basis of the operational plan for the conduct of the war itself. The General Staff routinely tested these war plans in studies and exercises. During most of Schlieffen’s time as Chief of Staff, the essential strategic problem for Germany was indeed the likelihood that the next war would have to be fought against two enemies on widely separated fronts, the French in the west and the Russians in the east. Schlieffen never found a convincing solution to this problem. His suggestion was to deploy much greater forces on one of the fronts in order to defeat that enemy quickly and decisively, and then to use rail mobility to reinforce the other front and win a decisive victory there too. That sounded fine in theory, but when it was tested in exercises it proved hard to achieve. An initial victory on one front could not be fully exploited because of the need to switch forces promptly to the other front. Once that happened, the first enemy

Bismarck’s alliance system brought peace between the European countries. (Stewart, Fitzgerald, Pickard 12) His alliance system starts with a treaty with Austria-Hungary who was one of the 5 powers in Europe. In 1879, Germany and Austria-Hungary signed the Dual Alliance, which was planned as a merely defensive arrangement or military alliance. Both governments promised that they should help or remain neutral when other powerful countries such as Russia or France attack. (Stewart, Fitzgerald, Pickard 13) The second allied country was with Italy. In 1882, Bismarck turns Dual Alliance into Triple Alliance by making Italy to join in his alliance system. Since Italy had close friendship with Great Britain, although Italy was not a strong military nation, it was an influential part of the Alliance. And at the same time, Great Britain and Germany had conflict in North Africa on colonial aspiration. Therefore, it was the perfect time to be an ally with her to isolate France. (Stewart, Fitzgerald, Pickard 14) Making Great Britain as a close friend was a benefit for Germany. Bismarck’s next target to isolate France was Russia. In 1881, the Dreikaiserbund was made a treaty, which was the agreement between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia promising not to help the fourth power, France. However in 1884, this treaty had renewed and Russia refused to renew her membership in Dreikaiserbund. Then Bismarck discussed the Reinsurance Treaty with

To begin with, the pre-war alliance in Europe intensified the long-lasting tensions between countries. In 1879, Germany and Austria-Hungary made an alliance against Russia. In 1881, Austria Hungary allied with Serbia against Russia. The Triple Alliance reveals the alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. On the other hand, Russia, France, and Britain agreed to become the Triple Entente. (Doc 1) The alliance clearly divided the countries in Europe into two groups, each of which hated the others very much. (Doc 4) The

According to Document ten, the Germans believed a European war was going to happen since 1911 (likely due to the poor diplomatic relations between countries caused by imperialism, according to document five), and they wanted to be the ones to start it in order to gain an advantage. In addition, according to Fritz Fischer, Germany had long aimed to expand in Europe, consisting of, “An eastern empire [and] predominance over Belgium and France. ”(Document Ten) This excerpt provides support to the claim that Germany was using the war to further their imperial control, with the “eastern empire” referring to expansion into russian territory. It could also entail that Germany wanted the belgians and the french to cede their colonies, which would be of great interest to the expansion of the German Empire.

When Germany declared war on Russia in 1914, they also had their own military plan, which called for a two front war with France and Russia. It was called The Schlieffen Plan and was developed by General Alfred von Schlieffen in 1903 but was revised in December of 1905. At this time, he was chief of the German General Staff, and Europe was separated into the Triple Alliance, which consisted of Germany, Austria, and Italy, on one side and the Triple Entente, which consisted of Great Britain, France, and Russia, on the other. Schlieffen was sought out by the Kaiser in order to construct an arrangement that would allow Germany to

Two Alliances were formed in Europe preceding World War 1. The triple alliance consisting of: Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary (Document 1). The other alliance being the triple entente, which was made of the three powers: Great Britain, Russia, and France (Document 2). Both of these alliances were formed to oppose one another. When there was a conflict preceding the war and Germany rose up, France formed an alliance with Great Britain and Russia in order to have a defense in case of an attack from Germany. In turn Germany took this as a sign that these countries were preparing for a conflict. So, in response they formed an alliance with France and Austria-Hungary.

The Schlieffen Plan was created by Alfred von Schlieffen, and he created it to avoid fighting both France and Russia at the same time. The problem was that France and Russia were on opposite sides of Europe. Which meant they would have to split their army in half. The Schlieffen Plan stated that Germany would defeat France while Russia would be mobilizing itś army. They assumed that Russia would take six weeks to mobilize,and that France was weak and Russia was strong. They didn´t think that GB would be fighting for France because of the treaty signed seventy - five years ago. The Schlieffen Plan had many flaws and assumptions.But instead of taking six weeks Russia took ten days, and started fighting when they weren't ready. Which made

World War One was many years in the making with separate incidences occurring between the empires that ultimately lead up to war beginning. With many powerful empires on edge and wanting to be the most powerful, they did whatever they could to make this happen. The First World War was not sparked by one event or motive, but in turn was started due to many major factors. The war’s blame can be placed on all of the countries involved, rather than solely Germany. These factors from World War One were the product of each empire and their long-term needs such as nationalism, imperialism, militarism and the alliances. The short-term event that was the final push to start the war was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

In particular, after Russia and the Ottoman Empire ended the Russo-Turkish War with the Treaty of San Stefano, German Chancellor Bismarck successfully annulled the treaty. Although Germany was dissociated with the war strictly between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Bismarck claimed that the unbalance of power Russia caused was unfair. This being said, Germany took the land that Russia gained away; Russia left the League of the Three Emperors (an alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia). As a result, Germany and Austria formed the Dual Alliance of 1879 that stated, “Should, [...] one of the two Empires be attacked by Russia the High Contracting Parties are bound to come to the assistance one of the other with the whole war strength of their Empires (Article I). Basically, if one of the two countries were attacked, the other would equally defend them. Similarly, Russia allied with France when the Franco Russian Entente in 1894 which progressed into the Triple Entente when Britain became involved. Evidently, Germany caused the division of world powers with their alliances which led to World War I. More specifically, when Austria-Hungary went to war with Serbia after their archduke was assassinated, the two alliances clashed. Russia, who aided Serbia, had backup from France and Britain and Austria-Hungary had Germany who was also allied with the Ottoman Empire. Seeing this caused both parties to declare major war, Germany’s alliances did cause tension that resulted in World War

An alliance is a friendship or a pact between two countries. During the World War the main alliances were Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, also Great Britain, France and Russia. The alliances came to each other’s need during the war; and fought off the other allied forces. The map on Document B states that there were triple alliances during the war. The three countries all joined forces to fight in the World War. The countries gathered all of their alliances to gain more military force to help them fight in the war. Like a chain reaction when a country joins the war, another country joins the war, and the cycle continues. The second factor that led to the war was

The Triple Alliance was a military alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed on March 20th 1882. Each country promised support in the event of attack.

It ended up with a conference, in which the German Kaiser humiliated and tensions were built. In 1911, France tries to take over Morocco again, so Morocco requests support. What happens is because the British did not want German ships in the Mediterranean, and was afraid that Germany would going to build a fort on the coast, another conference was called, and France takes over Morocco, but as compensation, Germany was given land in central Africa. This creates animosity in Germany towards the French and the British, because Germany lost against the French, failing to protect Morocco. German imperialism, the Kaiser’s ambition of over sea empire, and nationalism, the thought of Germany being the world power, has caused militarism, expansion of her army and navy. The three elements were the causes of World War 1 but what has made the war inevitable was the alliance system that existed at that time.