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Attempting to evaluate the origins of World War One is both a complex and contentious issue, highly debated amongst historians with discussion generally centring on war guilt and the main contributing factors. Amongst the most topical issues in this area are the extent of Germanic blame in relation to the war guilt dispute, and also the degree of blame that can be placed on the Alliance System in creating a war climate. The view that the Alliance System was the key element of the war climate can be supported by the argument that it is what caused the war to transform from an isolated incident to a global war. Whereas, this can be defended by the view that the whole tension of the European powers before the 1914 outbreak can be attributed to all elements of the environment equally. When analysing which nation was the main aggressor of war, Germany, according to many historians deserves to shoulder much of the blame. Contrary to this, the ‘Revisionist’ school of thinking does not see Germany’s pre war actions as offensive but rather defensive. This school of thought generally shares the blame equally amongst the powers, when considering some of the factors on the pre1914 Germany. The joining of these two arguments show the complexity of the origins of the ‘war to end all wars’, and show that there is validity in many of the view points when considering the arguments and the bias that each historian is inevitably subject to. Of all of the components within the pre war environment, the Alliance System is the element that determined the creation of a global war and additionally was a factor in generating suspicion between the powers during the lead up to war. By the outbreak of war in August 1914, Europe and through imperialism much of the world, was divided into two strongly opposed and hostile armoured camps, due to the Alliance System. The alliances were comprised of France, Britain and Russia on the one side under the ‘Triple Entente’ agreement (1907). The opposing force was the Triple Alliance (1882), which included Germany, Austro-Hungary and Italy. The alliances held the fundamental purpose of mutual military assistance in time of attack or defence. Additionally they acted as the balance upon which power was rested, so each Alliance was counteracted by an equal and opposite force. This system is what ensured that as war broke out, it spread rapidly due to alliance obligations engaging other nations and their empires in the originally local conflict. This view is expressed by Paul Kennedy when saying, “ …. These coalitions mean that even if one belligerent was heavily defeated in a campaign or saw that its resources were inadequate to sustain further conflict; it was encouraged to stay in the war by hope – and promise - of aid from its allies.
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