Pre- World War I Alliances Alsace & Lorraine - 1870 German unification - Franco-Prussian War - Germany took Alsace & Lorraine from France - German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck looked for support in case France attacked > 1879 Austro-German Alliance > 1882 Triple Alliance (Germany, A-H, & Italy) secret
> 1887 Reinsurance Treaty (Germany & Russia) [Each neutral in war unless Russia attacked A-H or Germany attacked France] > 1890 Bismarck fired by Kaiser Wilhelm II {lets Reinsurance Treaty lapse} > 1894 Franco-Russian Alliance (Radical Republic & Autocracy) > 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1899-1901 Boer War costly & difficult) (1898 Germany begins building a navy)
HMS Dreadnought
Dreadnoughts in 1914 At Sea Under Construction Britain 19 13 Germany 13 7 USA 8 France 8 Japan 4 A-H 2 Italy 1
> 1904 Anglo-French Entente (settle disputes in empire) > 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War (Did not drag Britain & France into it, which strengthened the Entente.) > 1905 Moroccan Crisis (Wilhelm II tests Br.-Fr. friendship) > 1907 Anglo-Russian Entente (settle disputes in Persia/Afghanistan) > 1908-13 Balkan Wars (newly independent nations in S.E. Europe looking to expand)
MOST IMPORTANT EVENT OF THE 2OTH CENTURY! (1908 A-H annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina) (Serbia wanted them to gain sea access) (Russia saw itself as the Slav “big brother,” but had to back down – never again.) July Crisis - June 28, 1914 A-H Archduke Francis Ferdinand visited Sarajevo; Bosnian capital > Black Hand (Gavrilo Princip, Bosnian revolutionary, assassinated the archduke) MOST IMPORTANT EVENT OF THE 2OTH CENTURY!
Franz Ferdinand & Gavrilo Princip
Franz Ferdinand & Sophie