Causes Of Events Leading Up To Ww1 Essay

Events Leading Up to WWI

It should be known that even before WWI Europe wasn’t a peaceful place. Anti government groups were rampant, governments cracked down to try to stop the groups but only caused more hate. Additionally, other countries would aid anti government groups in enemy territories. This caused many accusations between governments which in turn caused a lot of conflicts, the largest one being WWI. The first Balkan war was one of the conflicts that played a part in starting WWI. Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia had all gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. However most of the people from the racial groups of each country were still inside the borders of the Ottoman Empire. The four countries formed an alliance and attacked the Ottoman Empire on October 8, 1912. The war only lasted 7 months with minor victory's for the alliance, however the fighting was stopped due to the Treaty of London. While it wasn’t a very large conflict compared to what was to come, it was an important event because it gave hope for the anti government organizations, causing stress to build in Europe.

The treaty was an alliance between France and Russia. It would protect them both in the case of a German attack. The treaty would force Germany to fight on a war with two fronts because of the alliance if they were to attack either France or Russia, which are on opposite sides of Germany. When the treaty was first ratified it only protected against a unprovoked attack directly on France or Russia. However once the Balkan war started the treaty was changed to an alliance against Germany, anywhere for any reason. Many people thought this was unfair because Germany could be attacked on two sides without much of a reason. Understandably this raised tension between governments. It also strained relations between the people of the countries and their respective