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One of the reasons that's
most cited as to a cause

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or the cause of why World War
I turned into a world war,

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as opposed to just a regional
conflict in southeast Europe,

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is the alliance system that
was developing in the decades

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leading up to World War
I. And to understand

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that, I've distilled a bunch
of the alliances that occurred

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in those decades leading
up to World War I.

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And this is just a
distilled version.

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There were many other alliances
that were tangentially related.

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But I tried to distill down the
ones that were directly related

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to all of the dominoes
falling in 1914 that

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led to all of Europe
being essentially at war

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with each other.

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So to understand that, we
have to rewind 75 years.

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So World War I starts in 1914.

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75 years before that, in 1839,
you have the Treaty of London.

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And the Treaty of
London did many things.

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But Article 7 is what's relevant
to the beginning of World War

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I, where Britain
agrees to protect

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the neutrality of Belgium.

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And if you're skeptical,
you might say, hey,

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this is a 75-year-old treaty.

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Why does this matter anymore?

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And that, actually,
would be a good question.

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Really, all of these
alliances-- it's

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a very healthy debate
you can have as to

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whether these are the
direct causes of why

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one of these powers
declared war on the other.

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Or whether these
were just excuses.

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These were a legal
pretext for saying,

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oh, I need to
declare war on you.

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When in reality,
they really did want

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to declare war for a
whole set of reasons

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to keep the other
person's empire in check,

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to flex their
military muscle, to go

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after more territory
in their empires.

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Who knows what it might be?

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But needless to say,
1839 was the legal basis

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for the British Empire
to protect Belgium.

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Now, you fast-forward 40
years, you get to 1879.

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You have a newly
born German Empire

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out of the Franco-Prussian
War in 1871.

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That newly born German empire,
they just had-- essentially,

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it's an extension of
Prussia, fundamentally,

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a German kingdom.

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They just had a war with France.

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They took some very valuable
territory from France.

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They're paranoid that France
wants to get back at them.

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They're paranoid
about the Russians.

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And they have some connection
with the Austrians--

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the Austro-Hungarians,
I should say.

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And so in 1879, they sign
the Dual Alliance Treaty

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between Germany
and Austria-Hungary

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to protect each other
if Russia attacks.

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They have this common enemy
right over here, Russia.

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So they are going to-- let me
do this in a different color.

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They are going to
protect each other.

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So this makes the new German
Empire feel a little bit better

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about its position
in Europe, in case

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they were to get into a war
with either of these characters.

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Then in 1892--
you could imagine,

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if you ever play a game
of Risk or if you ever

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play the game of Diplomacy,
which is actually

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based on what
happened in World War

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I. If you see some
people that you might be

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at war with starting
to become friends,

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you want to look for other
friends, other alliances

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that you can form in case
they declare war on you.

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So in 1892, you have an
alliance between the French

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and the Russians, the
Franco-Russian Military

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Convention.

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So this is an alliance.

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Let me do this in the
magenta color again.

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You have an alliance
between France and Russia.

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And then finally, in the
early 1900s, 1904 to 1907,

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you have a series of agreements.

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"Entente" essentially
means agreements.

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Agreements between the
British Empire and France,

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between the British Empire
and the Russian Empire,

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to essentially get on good
terms with each other.

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These weren't as
formally bonding

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that, hey, if someone's
going to attack you,

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I'm going to attack them.

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But they were, essentially,
able to resolve

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a lot of their issues
on what's going on

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in their other
imperial conquests.

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And they formed what is
called the Triple Entente,

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the triple agreement
between Britain,

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between the British Empire--
and right here, I just

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circled the United Kingdom--
France, and Russia.

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And on the other side of that,
you had the Triple Alliance.

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You have Germany.

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You have Austria-Hungary.

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And you also have Italy.

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Now, the reason why, even though
entering into World War I,

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Italy was formerly part
of the Triple Alliance.

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And there were treaties
between Italy and Germany

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to become part of
this Triple Alliance.

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The reason I don't focus on
those is once the war started,

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Italy did not go on the side
of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

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It went on the
side of the Allies,

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on the side of the
Triple Entente.

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But this will give
you a good background

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for why what would seem like a
regional skirmish in southeast

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Europe turns into a pan-Europe
and eventually pan-global war.

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