Alliances that led to World War One

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

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

as opposed to just a regional
conflict in southeast Europe,

is the alliance system that
was developing in the decades

leading up to World War
I. And to understand

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

in those decades leading
up to World War I.

And this is just a
distilled version.

There were many other alliances
that were tangentially related.

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

to all of the dominoes
falling in 1914 that

led to all of Europe
being essentially at war

with each other.

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

So World War I starts in 1914.

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

And the Treaty of
London did many things.

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

I, where Britain
agrees to protect

the neutrality of Belgium.

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

this is a 75-year-old treaty.

Why does this matter anymore?

And that, actually,
would be a good question.

Really, all of these
alliances-- it's

a very healthy debate
you can have as to

whether these are the
direct causes of why

one of these powers
declared war on the other.

Or whether these
were just excuses.

These were a legal
pretext for saying,

oh, I need to
declare war on you.

When in reality,
they really did want

to declare war for a
whole set of reasons

to keep the other
person's empire in check,

to flex their
military muscle, to go

after more territory
in their empires.

Who knows what it might be?

But needless to say,
1839 was the legal basis

for the British Empire
to protect Belgium.

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

You have a newly
born German Empire

out of the Franco-Prussian
War in 1871.

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

it's an extension of
Prussia, fundamentally,

a German kingdom.

They just had a war with France.

They took some very valuable
territory from France.

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

They're paranoid
about the Russians.

And they have some connection
with the Austrians--

the Austro-Hungarians,
I should say.

And so in 1879, they sign
the Dual Alliance Treaty

between Germany
and Austria-Hungary

to protect each other
if Russia attacks.

They have this common enemy
right over here, Russia.

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

They are going to
protect each other.

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

about its position
in Europe, in case

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

Then in 1892--
you could imagine,

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

play the game of Diplomacy,
which is actually

based on what
happened in World War

I. If you see some
people that you might be

at war with starting
to become friends,

you want to look for other
friends, other alliances

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

So in 1892, you have an
alliance between the French

and the Russians, the
Franco-Russian Military

Convention.

So this is an alliance.

Let me do this in the
magenta color again.

You have an alliance
between France and Russia.

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

you have a series of agreements.

"Entente" essentially
means agreements.

Agreements between the
British Empire and France,

between the British Empire
and the Russian Empire,

to essentially get on good
terms with each other.

These weren't as
formally bonding

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

I'm going to attack them.

But they were, essentially,
able to resolve

a lot of their issues
on what's going on

in their other
imperial conquests.

And they formed what is
called the Triple Entente,

the triple agreement
between Britain,

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

circled the United Kingdom--
France, and Russia.

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

You have Germany.

You have Austria-Hungary.

And you also have Italy.

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

Italy was formerly part
of the Triple Alliance.

And there were treaties
between Italy and Germany

to become part of
this Triple Alliance.

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

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

It went on the
side of the Allies,

on the side of the
Triple Entente.

But this will give
you a good background

for why what would seem like a
regional skirmish in southeast

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