Europe Before World War I
by Staff EditorThough the determining factors that set off World War I are confusing at best, what is certain is that the “War to end all wars” catapulted the world into a conflict it had never before seen and thanks to advancing warfare technology, WWI became the first war to wreak havoc on all fronts – land, sea and air.
By the end of the 1800s, the landscape of the world was changing and the balance of power was clearly shifting from the old empire system to a series of new, independent nations all eager to make a place for themselves in the new geopolitical sphere. Empires like Austria-Hungary and Turkey were giving way to new nations like Germany and Italy and each was hungry to exert supremacy over the other.
Though the empire system was not completely dead by 1914, there were sufficient cracks in the foundation to make conflict possible. The emergence of independent states gave the countries still under the thumb of the empires hope that they too could one day break free and prompted the empires to want to extend their territories.
Whereas in an empire, territories were protected via their automatic alliance with their ruling monarch, this new global landscape meant that countries were now essentially on their own to fend for themselves should a conflict arise. This led to a series of tangled and fuzzy alliances in Europe that contributed to the unrest.
In a nutshell, these alliances were: the Triple Alliance made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy (also called the Central Powers) and the Triple Entente: France, Russia and Great Britain (who later became known as the Allied Forces). The logic was that Germany felt Austria could protect it should the rival alliance of France, Great Britain and Russia decide to strike. By the same token, France chose to align itself with Russia to ensure a helping hand in the event of a conflict with Germany.
And so the alliances built until Europe was divided into two sets of heavily armed factions, both of which were constantly looking over their collective shoulders in anticipation of the other initiating a conflict. No government was actively seeking out a war, though they were all prepared in the event that one should break out. Each side had a precise timetable set in the event of war. Every detail was planned out; the recruit of civilian soldiers, artillery preparation, equipment issuing and the transportation of all the needed supplies to the front lines. Though there was no direct threat, Europe was never as prepared to wage a war as it was in 1914.
