After the test on imperialism, I thought it would be a good idea to preview the next section, WWI. As it said in the book, national tensions regarding the age were high; countries almost went to war, and sometimes did, over colonies during the imperialism race. The European countries felt this tension greater than the late-starting US and far-off Japan. When all potential colonies were claimed, the European countries used diplomacy, as in threats, blockades, and shady business, to make claimed territories official. By this time, every country was ready to go to war, as shown by a string of treaties, a sudden rise in armed forces, and preemptive planning. All that was left before the inevitable conflict was an excuse to attack anybody, and that excuse came in the form of a Serbian terrorist attack. When Serbian terrorist Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Ferdinand of Germany in the year 1914, all of Europe flailed their guns and artillery at each other, thus starting the First World War.
As usual, America was late to the battle. President Wilson promised to keep America out of the war as his campaign slogan, but in 1917, he was compelled to send troops overseas to "protect democracy."
In an effort to help people understand why the pre-war alliances led to war, I am going to break down the sequence of events.
ReplyDeleteAs Oliver said, the domino effect was triggered when the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated and Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Russia then felt an obligation to help its Slavic brothers in Serbia. As a result, Germany declared war on Russia out of its alliance with Serbia. With Russia now fighting several enemies, the French mobilized troops to help their ally Russia. This lead to Germany’s declaration of war on France and the initiation of the Schlieffen Plan, which involved sweeping through neutral Belgium to swiftly take over Paris. When the German army entered Belgium, Britain was forced to join the war as a result of its alliance with Belgium, the Secret Treaty of London, and declared war on Germany. Austria-Hungary further got involved when Germany declared war on France and Russia, to fulfill their part of the alliance.
My question is if it ever crossed any country’s minds to not honor their alliances. Did they realize that by honoring them they would be getting into a far greater battle then anything they would experience as a result of ignoring the alliance and having to suffer some retaliation from their supposed ally?
Source: http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i
Thanks for this post, this is interesting! It makes sense that the need to protect colonies drove Europe to make lots of tangled alliances and then later go to war because of them. However, I also feel like countries back out of agreements so much, it's surprising they didn't back out here. Again, it's probably because they didn't want their colonies attacked.
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