I've got a Feeling

Brandon Gatewood
3/6/08
Rough Draft

World War I: one of the biggest events in our American history. It was originally triggered by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and his wife. It was an awful bump in our history. But the real question is: could it have been prevented? The assassination is what triggered the declarations of the war, but the alliances were what started it.

The first big reason alliances caused the First World War was the issue of distrust. Mainly among the European powers. These suspicions prevented the diplomats to devise a reasonable solution to many of the crisis’s leading to the war. And since the alliances were made on a war-footing it heightened tension and led to an arms race between the powers of Europe. And this arm race is what led Britain to go into the Triple Entente with Russia and France.

One of the main reasons alliances were a cause of the war was the formation of the Triple Entente. It was the alliance made between Russia, France, and Britain to counter the increasing danger from Germany. Germany started to feel the threat of their security and the press talked about “encirclement” meaning being surrounded by enemies on all sides. This influenced William II to pursue a more vigorous foreign policy to break the unity of the Entente powers. This ended in a series of international crisis’s from 1905-1914., as more and more alliances were formed.

Alliances were also a huge cause because there were some countries that had no choice but to declare war if other allies declared war first. The main fact that the European powers had made alliances with one another, there was always a small dispute concerning one power might lead to a war involving all powers.