Three Main Causes Of World War I

Paper #1 The tension was uncreditable at the time prior to the First World War. Countries like Austria-Hungary had big ethnic problems and a lot of magyarization was going on. Germany had a lot of jealousy issues with other countries. One country in particular was Great Britain. Great Britain was a powerhouse and had very impressive military status. There were also some alliances going on that made Germany very uncomfortable. After the first two Balkan Wars ended, it was just a matter of time before the third Balkan war would begin, otherwise known as World War I. The three main causes of World War I were the alliance system, Imperialism, and of course the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungry. Strap yourself in because there

The agreements were the Franco-Russian Dual Alliance of 1894 (between France & Russia) , the Entente Cordiale of 1904 (between Britain & France) and finally the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907 (between Britain & Russia). Germany thought Britain would want to make an alliance with them because Britain and France had been rivals for many years, and had fought countless wars throughout history. Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow and his political adviser, Friedrich von Holstein felt that Britain could turn to no other power and when Britain came crawling to Germany, they would refuse the agreement. They would do this to demand a better defensive alliance. Well, the Germans were wrong. British government, having no intention of going that far, turned to France, and the result was the Entente Cordiale, concluded on April 8, 1904 (Gilbert & Large, p. 92). France and Russia had already had the Franco-Russian Dual Alliance that came about because Russia needed a loan and France was still determined to regain Alsace-Lorraine from Germany. When this alliance was formed, the Germans felt very anxious because they were now encircled. Britain and Russia already had alliances with France and both nations wished to settle areas of dispute in the Middle East and the Far East. Instead of fighting over the areas, they tried to carefully assert control over nations. After

This alliance is refered to as the Balkan League.The Ottoman Empire at this time still controlled much of the Balkan Peninsula and the Balkans had been in a state of turmoil. In the early 1900s, there were years of guerrilla warfare in Macedonia followed by the Young Turk Revolution and the protracted Bosnian Crisis. The outbreak of the Italo-Turkish War in 1911 had further weakened the Ottomans and emboldened the Balkan states. The combined armies of the Balkan League overcame the smaller and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success. The main reason for the Ottoman defeat in the fall of 1912 was the decision on part of the Ottoman government to respond to the ultimatum from the Balkan League on October 15, 1912. At the time of the declaration of war there were 580,000 Ottoman soldiers in the Balkans facing 912,000 soldiers of the Balkan League and the bad condition of the roads together with scarce railroad networks had led to the Ottoman mobilization being grossly behind schedule, and many of the commanders were new to their units. The Treaty of London ended the First Balkan War on May 30, 1913. All Ottoman territory west of the Enez-Kıyıköy line was granted to the Balkan League. This treaty also declared Albania to be an independent state. Almost all of the territory that was designated to form the new Albanian state was