The alliance system, which was started by Bismark, helped keep the peace throughout Europe. Although the reason it was started was to keep Germany from ever having to fight a war on two fronts (France and Russia). So Germany had an alliance with Austria-Hungary and also had an alliance with Russia.
             Then Bismark was dismissed and the Kaiser did not renew the treaty with Russia. Instead a Triple Alliance was made between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. This made France and Russia very nervous so they decided to form their own alliance which was called the Franco-Russian Alliance. Britain tried to stay out of the alliances, but Britain highly distrusted Germany after the Boer war and so they joined forces with France and Russia. This formed the Triple Entente Alliance.
             In the years that followed, several crisis happened within the alliances to lend fuel to the start of the war. First of all there was the Tangier Crisis. In which the Kaiser wanted to try out his new army and Britain and France negotiated peace to avoid a fight. I think the Kaiser wanted to beat the French to show the Brits how much stronger his army is. Then there was the Agadir Crisis, the Bosnian Crisis and the Balkan wars. All of these were smaller battles between two or three countries which very easily could have involved the other allied countries. Instead people got angrier and more power-hungry. It built upon itself until the final straw – which was the assassination of Ferdinand.
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