Some may argue that no one wanted war. Winston Churchill stated that the Great Powers slid over the brink into a war nobody wanted. (Doc I). Russia and France were forced into war because Germany declared war on Russia 1 August 1914 and war on France 3 August 1914. Therefore, it may be true that countries that did not want war were forced into it, however, “nobody” is inaccurate due to the fact that Germany wanted war.
Germany at the time was the most powerful single country in Europe, but it’s weak allies required Germany’s support on their various fronts. Italy refused to enter WW1 and remained neutral. The lure of territorial gains convinced Italy to side with the Allies in May 1915. Russia had an alliance with Serbia and that brought the military efforts of both nations together to fight against the Central Powers. The core of the Allies was the treaty between France and Russia.
These tensions started to disrupt their dual alliance with Austria-Hungary, even with a ‘Blank Cheque’ being given to them. With the Kaiser believing that foreign policy and civil war was increasingly the same, it can be assumed that aggressive foreign policy may have been set to distract the German public away from things at home and more onto how to become a strong world power. A factor that both strengthens and weakens the argument of aggressive foreign policy being the reason for the outbreak of war in 1914 is that of encirclement. Source V mentions ‘They felt encircled not merely by the Triple Entente, but also by the forces of change.’ First of all, Germany became sceptical about the alliance between Britain, France and Russia, the Triple Entente, they thought it was not going to work and did not fear it until they tried to cause problems between France and Britain with the ownership of the Balkan islands, which was unsuccessful. When Germany realised that the entente was a
The Germans started having second thoughts about the war and urged their ally to negotiate with Russia. Russia realized that an agreement would hurt their position in the Balkans. This basically created a stand still and the countries involved could no longer back out, The Germans started their plan to gain European dominance on July 31st. The Germans sent ultimatums to St. Petersburg and Paris telling them that the Russians need to stop mobilizing their troops and demanded a pledge of neutrality from France. They did not receive a satisfactory reply and they declared war on Russia and France.
were really defensive in nature, where Germany tried to gain an edge before the western Allies grew too strong. Thus the question, why did the western Allies fight? Their centuries old goal had been to limit German power. Despite having vast overseas empires and large European territories, both England and France considered any German
The Tsar left his wife to rule in his stead with the aid of Rasputin who was an advisor to the Romanov family. As the Russian casualties mounted, anti-German sentiment arose in Russia, which was difficult for the Tsar to
v v Yalta conference agreements resulted in Germany being divided into zones of occupation and Berlin was to have a western zone. Western Germany and Berlin was set up on capitalist ideals whereas Easy Germany and Berlin was set up on communist principles. No, it was not a result of the Second World War: v v v v v Tension had begun during the Russian Civil War 1918-21 and for years the USA did not recognize the USSR. Different ideologies. Zinoviev’s Letter Munich agreement September 1938 Appeasement policy Conclusion v Regardless of the war, a Cold War scenario was inevitable due to Political, economic and ideological differences.
Bismarck’s desire was to alienate France from European affairs, a France which had become resurgent and powerful after the Franco-Prussian war. In order to achieve this, he needed to remain on good terms with both Russia and Austria-Hungary, thus he formed the Dreikaiserbund (1873-1878). However, the significance of this alliance was not so great, as Austria refused to agree to any military help. Furthermore, both Russia and Austria-Hungary were rivals in the Balkans, thus making the relations between them and Germany volatile. A few years later, a crisis arose in the Balkans, as a result of which, the Dreikaiserbund was terminated.
The mistakes that occurred by the Germans assisted the axis empire to be defeated, some examples of these errors are attempting to fight the war on multiple fronts, deciding to attack Russia as well as being at war with the USA as both of these countries could easily outnumber and surround the Nazis although Germany may have had little choice in fighting the USA as Britain was their closest ally and they would have got involved to defend their friend and Russia was planning to enter the war a few months after she was attacked anyway. Germany had made poor choices with allies; the alliance with Italy was a noose around the neck of the Nazis, Japan would’ve only made sense as an ally if it had attacked the Far East. Hitler chose his allies on ideology and not from shared interests or goals, the less powerful members of the axis only really wanted one thing, to gain territory. Hitler was the ultimate commander of Germany throughout the war so it seems inevitable that his decisions must be responsible for Germany having victory torn from their grasps in the Second World War. He refused to listen to anyone else’s advice,even his own
This is implying of course that the decision by Nicholas II to go to war against Germany and it’s allies in 1914 was wrong, but this is not the case. Russia actually had many reasons to risk war again; the war was weighed heavily in the allies favour as the combined forces of Great Britain, France and Russia were far stronger than that of Germany, Austria and Hungary. Russia was aware of it’s major failing though, it’s slow modernisation had left it trailing behind that of the other countries, and Russia would have to be prepared for the rapid social and economic change that a war brings. This was Russia’s best chance to modernise and not be left behind. Russia’s early hopes were soon dashed however.