After 1870, the possibility of war loomed over Europe. The
Great Powers formed unstable alliances with each other that pitted France,
Britain, and Russia against the Triple Entente of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and
Italy. After a series of crises in the Balkans, war broke out with the
assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg empire,
in 1914. Hopes that the war would end quickly dissipated as the warring powers
settled into a stalemate. Russia, facing internal pressures related to the
revolution it had undergone in 1917, signed a treaty with the Germans at the
end of that year. The Americans began to mobilize, and their intervention led
to Germany's surrender to the Allies in 1918. The German and
Austrian-Hungarian empires collapsed, and Germany was forced to bear the brunt of the peace settlements. The experiences of World War I left their mark on
European culture, the relationship between governments and national economies,
and on international relations. The Treaty of Versailles would prove a failure,
as would the League of Nations, founding in hopes of preventing similar conflicts
in the future. |
2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education