WHILE READING
Objective: Make a spidergram of the four underlying causes of the First World War. Use the information from the map to find examples of nationalism, imperialism, militarism and alliances in three of the countries and add them to the spidergram.
Time:10 minutes.
The countries in detail
Look at the map below. Check each country in turn to find out more about the different events that took place in the World War I. The Triple Alliance countries are coloured in red and the Triple Entente countries in blue. Why are they categorized in those groups? Check the reading to find the information.
BRITAIN
Britain has become very concerned about Germany since Kaiser Wilhelm II had succeeded to the throne in 1887 because:
• Germany had begun to build up an empire in Africa and the Pacific.
• The German goverment has passed the Navy Laws in 1898 and 1900, saying that the German Navy would be built up to rival the Royal Navy.
After 1906 Britain and Germany started to try to build more ships that the other. At the Treaty of Westminster in 1839 Britain had promised to defend Belgium if it was ever attacked.
FRANCE
• In 1870 France had gone to war with Prussia (Germany) and had been badly defeated. Germany took two french provinces after the war, Alsace and Lorraine. Even after, the French hated Germany and wanted revenge.
France had built up alliances:
• 1894, the Dual Entente with Russia.
• 1904, the Entente Cordiale with Britain.
• 1907, the Triple Entente (France, Russia and Britain).
• The French Army had a military plan to attack Germany, it was called Plan 17 and it meant that they would charge straight into Germany through the area of Champagne.
• Germany had made alliances with Austria- Hungary (1870) and in Italy (1882)- this was called the Triple Alliance.
• The German goverment expected the French to try to get Alsace and Lorraine back. It expected “a war on two fronts” against France and Russia.
• The Germany army´s Schlieffen Plan planned to defeat France before the Russian army was ready to fight. The German army would attack through Belgium, which was a neutral country, and defeat France quickly. Then It would deal with Russia.
GERMANY
ITALY
• Italy became a united country only in 1861.
• The Italians wanted an empire, and had conquered land in East Africa by 1890. In 1911, Italy conquered Libya from Turkey.
• Italy joined the Triple Alliance, although Italy wanted Austrian land, and supported France against Germany in the Moroccan crises of 1906 and 1911.
AUSTRIA- HUNGARY
• Austria- Hungary had been growing weaker for many years, but wanted to expand its empire to the south, into the Balkans. The Austrians annexed Bosnia in 1908.
• The only country which now stood in the Australians´way was Serbia, which had become powerful in the years from 1900 to 1914. The Austrians wanted to attack Serbia, but knew that RUssia backed up Serbia.
• The Austrian goverment knew that it could not defeat Russia unless it got support from Germany.
• Russia had been defeated in a war with Japan in 1905 and wanted to prove that it was still a major power.
• The Russian goverment believed that the Russian army could defeat the army of any other European country.
• Russia also wanted to gain more influence in the Balkans and wanted to stop Austria- Hungary from expanding there.
• Russia supported Serbia because the Serbians had a similar language and religion as Russia. The Russian goverment was determined to protect Serbia against Austria- Hungary.
RUSSIA
Remember to write down information to design your spidergram!
Click to check some tips to mark, underline and take notes of specific information inside a text.
Click to check any unknown vocabulary.
