Alliance System

1
Alliance System

• 1914 Europe was divided into two power blocs The
  Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. These
  were secret diplomatic agreements that divided
  Europe.

2
Alliances

• 1879 Austria and Germany sign Dual Alliance
  largely because Bismarck feared an aggressive
  Russia. This was a promise to help each other
  militarily if attacked by a third country(Russia
  or France). First secret treaty (secret
  diplomacy). Try to be one of three. USA stayed
  out of world affairs at this point. Why did they
  ally? Was it fear of encirclement?

3
Alliance system

• Balkans remained a hot bed of trouble. Decaying
  Ottoman Empire left vacuum there--- mixture of
  ethnicities, serbs,croats, albanians etc.
• Kaiser Wilhelm takes power in 1890, bellicose,
  unpredictable, threatening.
• Italy joins to make Triple Alliance in 1882 but
  remained a less committed power.
• Was Germany simply afraid of being encircled?

4
Alliance system

• Secret treaties had considerable flexibility.
  France worried about being isolated from the rest
  of Europe joins with Russia in 1892 (economic and
  military ties).
• Were the alliance systems representations of
  deeper hostilities? A.J.P Taylor says it was the
  breakdown of the balance of power not the
  alliance system per se that led to war. He saw
  Europe as a balance of power. Was it revenche
  over Alsace Lorraine? Sidney Fay claimed that the
  alliances were at the heart of the the causes of
  war.There developed a system of alliances which
  divided Europe into two hostile camps Woodrow
  Wilson claimed that the main cause was secret
  diplomacy and the distrust that went with it.

5
Britain

• Splendid isolation, GR navy build up, 1902
  alliance with Japan, Entente Cordiale in 1904
  with France and with Russia in 1907.
• The Moroccan Crises 1905 and 1911 forced this
  agreement from an economic one to a military one.
• Most Brits wanted no war with Germany, there was
  no direct quarrel in 1914.

6
Historians

• J.Joll Above all the alliance system conditioned
  expectations
• The alliance system proved the framework in which
  the diplomacy of the pre-war period was
  conducted.
• AJP Taylor As to the Bof P it would be truer to
  say that the war was caused by its breakdown
  rather than by its existence