Was Germany To Blame For World War I

Germany’s Burden
World History II
May 10, 2011

World War I, lasting from 1914-1918, is a war that will definitely be remembered for years to come. After the allies had won the war after four long years Germany was the country that received the full blame for the war, but the question arises if it’s safe to say that Germany had totally caused World War I. In actuality, Germany had never asked or wanted a war. Germany was only honoring the Triple Alliance of 1882 and fighting alongside Austria-Hungary. As Germany should not take full blame for the war, they are responsible for World War I to the extent that France and Great Britain came into the war, because of a number of their own actions. Finally, Germany
Germany never really had a good relationship with France from the beginning and the French still had hatred in their hearts towards Germany for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine during the Franco-Prussian War; a war caused by Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the 1870s to help win support of southern German States. Plus France would have eventually joined the war since Germany declared war on Russia, but Germany saved them the trouble of it by declaring war on France, because Germany was aware of the Triple Entente. Germany’s relationship with Great Britain, on the other hand, had once been a prized one. Great Britain and Germany had showed great respect and admiration towards each other, which came from the Bismarckian Era (time when former chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had control of Germany). However, Kaiser Wilhelm II was not consistent in being respectful to Britain. He began to make mockeries of Britain and started a naval rivalry with Britain (Wilkinson 3). This left a lot of anti-Germany attitudes in the hearts of the British. The British finally had it after Germany had invaded Belgium in August of 1914. This action had awoken the Treaty of London (1839) which was and agreement between Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium that recognized Belgium as a neutral nation and to guard
The real background causes were a small chain of events between Serbia, Austria-Hungary, and Russia that led to the war. To start off, Serbia had wanted to create an entire nation for all Slavs to be free. However, Austria-Hungary rejected this idea, due to the fact that they feared it would make them look like a weaker nation and threaten Austria-Hungary’s existence (Fay 2). Austria had also annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 and 1909, also known as the Bosnian Crisis (Anderson 1). This damaged Austria’s ties with Serbia and Russia, since the Serbs thought that the Slavic area should be theirs. As tensions steadily rose between Austria and Serbia, Austria promised Serbia and Russia that any efforts to take territory from Austria on the Balkans would be crushed. Franz Ferdinand’s assassination at Sarajevo in 1914 was caused by the secret Serbian group known as the Black Hand who was out to rid Bosnia and Herzegovinia of Austrian rule. This set up the ultimatum presented by Austria, especially since Pashitch, the Premier of Serbia, had not warned Austria about the assassination after learning about the Black Hand’s plot (Fay 1). Serbia did not want war even if they had Russia on their side, but feared that the assassination would almost definitely lead to it . Austria, fearing its downfall after the assassination, was in no mood to negotiate