Triple Alliance Causes

The long-term origins to World War One start back in 1870 with the Franco-Prussian War. In the Franco-Prussian war France lost to Germany which lead to the two countries never being in an alliance with one another. Once the war was over it lead to the forming of the triple Alliance which was one of the main alliances during the first world war. The Triple alliance was made up of the countries - Germany, Austo-Hungery and Italy, and it was first formed because Germany needed help to guard Alsace-Lorrain from France as France wanted to get back its stolen land.

Another of the long-term origins to World War One was Weltpolitic. Weltpolitic was a policy Kaiser Wilhelm the second, who believed that Germany had a right to become a global imperial
Arms Race was a race to build the biggest Army and Navy and Airforce for the Battle ahead. All countries except Britain and Germany were trying to Build the biggest army anyone had every seen where as Britain and Germany were trying to Build up there navy as Germany wanted the Biggest navy so as to beat Britain. In Germany they had a small army but people said that it, Even though one of the smallest, It was the best trained and most powerful out of all armies involved in World War One. In 1900 Russia had the biggest army with 1.1 million but by 1914 it had lost half a million to be an army of 0.8 million, all other countries except Britain had gained a bigger army. Count Alfred von Schlieffen created the Schlieffen plan and it was a plan that was supposed to protect Germany from fighting the war on two fronts. People were told that - 'Under this plan they would quickly attack and defeat France, then turn their forces on Russia which would be slow to get its troops ready for war' (Modern World History, P9). This Plan was a Failure to Germany as it had many Flaws, For example - Britain was not brought into the Equation and France was stronger than what they