Background

Background:

The great alliances (1879- 1914)

The most outstanding international development in the period preceding World War I was the formation of 2 alliances:

1. The triple alliance

• Bismarck was responsible for the formation. He had been responsible for three wars (paradoxically) but he wanted peace. Moreover, he wanted peace for consolidating the newly formed German Empire. He feared a coalition of power with France in the head; and in order to prevent it he supported Republic in France, thinking that a republic form of government would be weak, and encouraged French expansion in Africa and Asia. He removed the “French isolation” stage.

• He formed an alliance with Austria and Russia (League of three Emperors, 1872) in order to keep them coming to terms with French.

• He recognized the weakness of the League of three Emperors, and made a separate argument with Austria (1879), as a defense against Russia and France.

• Italy become a party to the alliance in (1882), it was seeking revenge against France for having taken Tunis.

• It was purely a defensive alliance. At the beginning of World War I, Italy withdrew from the alliance.