Austro-Hungarian emperor, Franz Joseph, c. 1915
France
France was a nation that was still licking its wounds since the humiliating defeat to the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1. The Prussians, Germany’s predecessors, had taken as a spoil of war the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and extracted massive reparations to the tune of 5 billion francs, and for the French this was the cause of much indignation. It was a wrong that needed to be righted. But the French knew full well they were no match for the expanding might of Germany. And this was the cause of much anxiety.
Russia
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
Russia also harboured dreams of expansion – towards the Pacific in the east. But, after a two-year war, the Russians, like the British in South Africa, were humbled by a supposedly inferior foe, the Japanese. The Russian tsar, Nicholas II, had hoped the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 would distract his people and quell the simmering unrest infecting his empire and restore national prestige. Instead, defeat merely intensified the sense of dissatisfaction with the tsar and his autocratic rule, leading to unrest and public demonstrations. Nicholas responded to what became known as the Russian Revolution of 1905 with the promise of democracy and reform, promises he reneged on almost as soon as they had been implemented.
On the western side of its empire, Russia relied on the imports and exports transported across the Black Sea. In order to reach the Black Sea, Russian ships needed continual access through the Turkish Straits, including the Dardanelles. When, in 1912, the Ottoman Empire had closed the Dardanelles, it caused temporary chaos to the Russian economy. Thus, Russia eyed the disintegrating Ottoman Empire with both interest and concern.
Austria-Hungary
While Britain’s empire was still flourishing, notwithstanding the odd reverse, the empire of Austria-Hungary, once the Holy Roman Empire, was slowly crumbling. Ruled since 1848 by the elderly Franz Joseph, the empire encompassed several ethnic groups, and not all of them happily included. Particularly resentful were the Bosnian Slavs. Bosnia, having been shackled for three centuries to the Ottoman Empire, had become, in 1878, part of Austria-Hungary and, from 1908, a fully annexed part of it. The Slavs of Bosnia wished unification with their fellow Slavs to the south, in Serbia. But the loss of territory, and thereby status, and the example it would provide to other disgruntled ethnicities within the empire, was not something the Austro-Hungarian leadership was prepared to contemplate.
Serbia
Serbia itself had only been a fully independent nation since 1882, but had flexed its military muscle in defeating first the Ottoman Empire and then Bulgaria in two Balkan Wars between 1912 and 1913. It viewed the empire immediately to its north with mounting hostility. As a landlocked nation, Serbia desired access to the Adriatic but with Bosnia annexed by Austria-Hungary, and Albania, also recently established as an independent nation, blocking the route further south, they were to remain frustrated.
Italy
Italy, like Germany, was a new country, unified in 1861, and, like Germany, it desired its own empire. An excursion to capture Tunisia was thwarted in 1881 by the French and worse still for Italy’s reputation was a humiliating defeat to the Ethiopians in 1896. But Italy did gain sovereignty over Libya, having defeated the Ottomans in 1912.
Belgium
Belgium wished to remain aloof from these undercurrents of international manoeuvring, putting its faith in the 1839 Treaty of London where, among the signatories recognizing its neutrality, were Great Britain and Germany. Meanwhile, between 1885 and 1908, the Belgian king, Leopold II, put his efforts into running his own empire, the Congo Free State, an enterprise which caused the death of over 10 million Congolese.
Military alliances in 1914
These various ambitions and fears resulted in a number of treaties and alliances as governments sought to take sides in the name of defence and national security. Germany and Austria-Hungary signed the ‘Dual Alliance’ in 1879, a pledge to aid one another in case of an attack, with Italy adding their signature in 1882 to make it the Triple Alliance. (In 1902, Italy also secretly signed a similar agreement with France, in which Italy agreed to remain neutral should Germany attack France.)
Although technically a defensive agreement, the Triple Alliance caused much alarm. In 1894, as a direct consequence of the three-way treaty, France and Russia ratified a military alliance, resulting in what Germany feared the most – a potential enemy on both its western and eastern borders. In 1904, Britain signed an agreement with France, the Entente Cordiale. Although it was not a military alliance and did not commit either side should the other be attacked, the agreement did signal greater understanding between the two nations, recognizing their respective African territories and ending traditional rivalries.
Three years later, in 1907, Britain signed a similar agreement with Russia, partly to acknowledge their spheres of influence in Central Asia, where Afghanistan, in particular, had been a source of conflict for almost a century. So, in responding to what was happening in Europe, Britain had managed to forestall colonial enmity with two of its longstanding rivals. Thus the three nations, Britain, France and Russia, had, through the Triple Entente, formed a powerful counterbalance to the Triple Alliance. The powers of Europe had now set their stall and committed themselves to one side or the other.
Further afield, in 1902, Great Britain had signed an alliance with Japan with the aim of discouraging Russian expansionism in the Far East.
Despite the multiple failsafes against potential hostilities, war was nevertheless regarded by many civilian members of these states as inevitable and, for some, even desirable. War was seen in intellectual circles as a process of national rejuvenation, a means by which to cleanse the ills of society. In the 1890s, the German historian, Heinrich von Treitschke, wrote, ‘If the flag of the State is insulted, it is the duty of the State to demand satisfaction, and if satisfaction is not forthcoming, to declare war, how trivial the occasion may appear.’ The German Youth League, the Jungdeutschlandbund, declared, ‘War is beautiful.’ We must wait for it with the manly knowledge that when it strikes, it will be more beautiful and more wonderful to live for ever among the heroes on a war memorial … than to die an empty death in bed, nameless.’ While in Great Britain, Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts’ movement, urged young British boys to play their part in protecting the empire: ‘Play up! Play up! Each man in his place and play the game!’ Writing in 1899, British writer, Sidney Low, spoke for many when he wrote, ‘A righteous and necessary war is no more brutal than a surgical operation. Better give the patient