Britain and France were keen empire builders. They owned countries around the world. Between them they owned some of the countries with the most resources in the world. In 1870, when Germany was formed, there was a war with France. France lost the war and had to give up two regions of the country to Germany; Alsace and Lorraine. Germany was jealous of Britain and France’s empires. Germany wanted it’s own empire but all the countries with the most wealth were already owned by France or Britain. Germany was a proud military nation and always kept a strong army. After it became a country in 1870 Germany increased its army and navy – this is in part because Germany thought France and Britain wanted to keep Germany weak. France found out about Germany secretly building up her army, France worried that if they didn’t started building up their army then Germany would beat them easily in a fight. France started building up the army. Britain found out about Germany secretly building up her navy and army, so Britain started to build up hers – especially the navy. Germany realised that France, Britain and Russia were all building up their military. This made Germany really worried because Germany felt surrounded. They thought they were about to be attacked. Russia, Austria-Hungary and Italy found out about the other countries building up their militaries. They didn’t want to be the weak ones so they too started to build up their armies. Germany signed secret alliances with Austria-Hungary and Italy. The alliances said that they would come to the defence of each other if they were attacked. When France found out Germany was building up it’s army France worried that Germany would attack, so they had to build up their own army. France and Russia worried that Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary had signed a secret alliance in order to attack them. So Russia and France agreed to their own secret alliance. The alliance said they would help each other if either of them were attacked. Britain had the most powerful battleships in the world in her navy: The Dreadnoughts. These ships could destroy any other ship in a fight at sea. Germany wanted to be able to compete for an empire and to be able to defend itself if attacked so Germany decided to build its own Dreadnoughts. When Britain heard that Germany was building its own Dreadnoughts, Britain was worried and started building more of their own. Britain also signed a secret alliance with France and Russia that said if any of them were attacked then they would help each other. The Triple Alliance Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary The Triple Entente France, Britain, Russia Belgium and Serbia were the two weakest countries involved in this crisis. They couldn’t hope to win a war against any of the stronger countries. Austria-Hungary had taken control of Bosnia, which the Serbians thought should be part of their country. Serbia couldn’t hope to fight Austria-Hungary so it had to accept that they couldn’t have Bosnia. Britain had signed a treaty in 1839 that said it would defend Belgium if it was ever invaded. Russia and Serbia were full of a race of people called the Slavs. Russia and Serbia were friendly to one another and Serbia would look to Russia if it needed support. Germany had a plan in case there was a war in Europe. Germany guessed that if there was to be a war then they would have to fight France and Russia at once, and they were on either side of Germany. The plan was to march through Belgium and easily beat the Belgian army if it tried to fight back, then to invade France in an area that the French wouldn’t expect them. When the German army had beaten the French it would then get into trains and travel across Germany to attack the Russian army.