Comments by "TIKhistory" (@TheImperatorKnight) on "Europe Prior to World War I: Alliances and Enemies I PRELUDE TO WW1 - Part 1/3" video.

  1. Once again, great episode! I'm glad you touched upon the alliances that were in place before the start of the war. It's worth mentioning that these alliances weren't set in stone. Incidents like Fashoda and the fact that Britain's excuse for aiding France was over the "scrap of paper" which was the Treaty of London (1839) proves that the war could have been completely different. France and England were long standing rivals. Had Anglo-German relations not soured due to the First and Second Moroccan Crisis and the building of the German fleet, Britain may have chosen not to sign the Entente Cordiale with France and could have stayed neutral as she had during the Franco-Prussian War. Equally, had the Entente Cordial not been signed, the Triple Entente may not have been. Arguably, had Germany not felt the need to launch a preemptive strike on France in the event of war with Russia, the war could have been confined to the East. But it was the Franco-Russian Alliance and the Triple Entente that caused them to come up with the Schlieffen Plan to attack France first, which then dragged Britain in also. It stands to reason that the set of shaky alliances developed prior to the war were the reason (or the excuse) that the war became so big so quickly.
    111