HISTORY - CONFLICT AND TENSION

• This series of lessons will be dedicated to the causes, outbreak and conduct of the First World War from 1894 to 1918
• Causes of the First World War

  • Complexity compared to the Second World War
  • Imperialism and nationalism
  • Personalities of individual rulers
  • Competitive nature of European Empires
• Major European powers at the start of the First World War

  • German Empire
  • Austro-Hungarian Empire
  • Italy
  • British Empire
  • French Empire
  • Russian Empire
• Triple Alliance/Central Powers


  Germany, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy
• Triple Entente


  British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire
• Germany did not exist as a unified state until 1871
• Germany's unification


  Conflict with France, Germany acquired Alsace-Lorraine
• Purpose of the Triple Alliance

  To fend off aggressive acts by France
• Germany had a strong industrial and economic development, surpassing Britain
• Germany building a large navy


  Caused tensions with Britain's desire to maintain naval superiority
• Austro-Hungarian Empire


  • Encompassed many ethnicities, languages and cultures
  • Tensions over internal stability and independence movements
  • Tensions with Serbia, an ally of Russia
• Italy in the Triple Alliance


  Weakest and least significant member, but provided a security guarantee
• The creation of two large alliance systems (Central Powers and Triple Entente) contributed to the outbreak of the First World War
• Triple Entente


  • Composed of Britain, France and Russia
  • Britain ended its policy of isolationism in Europe
  • Agreements over colonial interests in Africa
• Britain was less concerned about the Russian Empire after its defeat against Japan in 1904
• Europe has but at the turn of the century we will see this policy change we will see an end to this concept of of a splendid isolation in fact what will happen is um Britain will have greater alliances with France and the reason for this is uh the result of a number of agreements that is made when it comes to colonies in Africa
• Towards the middle part of the 1800s the 1850s and onwards we start to see a a a shift take place in terms of colonialism in terms of Empires taking further territories we see a shift away from the Americas and a move towards uh Africa this is known as the Scramble for Africa
• Britain was also less concerned about the Russian Empire since they had lost in 1904 to a conflict against Japan this was the Russo Japanese war and so as a result there is less concern about any kind of conflict with Russia
• Russia and Britain had a relatively cordial relationship over the majority of its history when Russia was an imperial state so from 1725 at the Ascension uh or sorry at the death of Peter the Great of Russia uh thear moving into all the way up to the end of the Romanov Dynasty in Russia in 1918 Bren had a general cordial relationship with Russia except for a number of uh of major incidents where uh their relationship was not particularly uh cordial
• Britain becomes very concerned and mainly concerned about the naval Ambitions of Germany
• France had the greatest tensions with Germany at the turn of the Century um for a number of reasons why this was the case they had been defeated in a conflict against Germany in 1870
• The German Kaiser was also Keen to build up a very strong military and Industrial Force within Germany something that would obviously concern the neighbor of that particular country that was at war with them in the 1870s namely the neighbor being France themselves
• France began to build up a military of their own and began to build up a uh an industry alongside Germany to try and compete with Germany in any meaningful Sense
• France began to establish alliances on the other side of Germany with Russia so Russia and uh and France we will talk about Russia in a second and begin to Ally themselves together against Germany uh as a way to try and protect themselves against Germany and against any kind of aggression from the German Empire military alliances will be established between France and Russia as early as 1892
• Russia while being far by far the largest of the European powers as you geographically it had the most territory it was also at the turn of the century the least industrially developed most of the Russian economy would rely on agriculture
• Russia also had to deal with a number of tense relations with their neighbors as well so they had to worry and deal with the Growing Power of Germany as we would understand but as well as this the um the growing tensions that existed with Austria Hungary because of the fact that Austria Hungary was um very much intense relations with other Eastern European Slavic States like Serbia and because Russia aligned themselves with the uh Eastern European Slavic states such as Serbia we start to see more and more tensions grow in that region as well
• The establishment of the triple hant takes place in the early 1900s all three of these European powers would establish a number of alliances with each other so Britain and France will sign a Cooperative agreement in 1904 uh when it comes to an alliance between these two Britain and Russia would then sign an agreement in 1907 signifying a certain amount of Alliance
• While these agreements did not specifically mandate that Great Britain would come to the aid of the powers of France and Russia in the event of a particular um conflict it was generally seen that this is a likely commitment that was going to take place
• The reason for Britain entering into the first world war on the side of France and Russia was actually due to an ultimatum um relating to Belgium
• There existed this Anglo German rivalry as we lead up to the beginning of the first World War
• Britain had gone about detaching itself from international relations During the period that we note to be the splendid isolation during the majority of the 1800s
• Germany was becoming more and more expansionist both of these ideas culminate in Germany growing in power significantly with with Britain on the international stage um having a a lot less power especially within Europe as well specifically
• Kaiser vilam II was born in 1861 and arguably suffered brain damage at Birth
• Kaiser vilhelm II himself had a number of aims within the realm of foreign policy like I mentioned he wants to play a greater role in international politics he saw himself and he saw Germany as one that ought to be increasingly expansionist developing more economic communities around the world as well with greater trade and colonialism and imperialism around the world a growth of the German Empire the acquisition of colonies and the aggressive foreign policy uh was known within the um within Germany as the v politique um ideas of expansionism
• One of the main developments of this aggressive foreign policy was the creation and building of a larger Navy
• Great Britain would ultimately respond to the German Naval announcement in 19 1906 by launching the development of a new class of Battleship these will become known as the HMS dreadn and
• In response to this Germany would respond by introducing their own class of dreadnots and so so we see in the early 1900s somewhat of an arms race when it came to Naval capacities with the Great British dreadnut uh equaling up to 29 um by 1914 compared to that of 17 by Germany
• While most historians agree that Germany had the best trained military in the world or one of the best trained militaries in the world it was not necessarily the largest in the world
• Germany developed a plan to try and um to try and exacerbate or to try and uh get one of the fronts out of the way first and so that they can focus the majority of their attention on the other front because generally speaking in terms of military practice is not a good idea to try and fight a war on two fronts
• The aim of the Schlieffen Plan was to try and deal with both France and Russia at the same time or at least deal with France first and then go to deal with Russia