The Onset of War
History 104 / March 25, 2013
I. Domestic conflicts intensify
A. France: the Dreyfus Affair
B. Germany: the phenomenal growth of the SPD
C. Russia's near-revolution in 1905
D. Austria-Hungary: inter-ethnic strife
1. Polarization between Czechs and Germans
2. The "South Slav" problem
II. Continental rivalries eclipse colonial ones
A. Austria-Hungary vs. Russia
1. The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire
2. Aggressive new states in the Balkans
> Russian support for Serbia
B. Germany vs. its western neighbors
1. The feud over Alsace-Lorraine
2. Challenging Britain: Germany's battle fleet
C. Two rival alliances
1. The Triple Entente
2. The Triple Alliance
D. Intimations of the coming conflict
1. From sea to land: an arms race on the continent
2. War imagined: invasion fantasies
3. Three years of messy Balkan wars, 1911-13
III. World War in four easy steps
A. Austria declares war on Serbia
B. Russia mobilizes against Austria – and Germany
C. Germany’s “Schlieffen Plan” leads to an invasion of France
D. Britain declares war