ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TARİHİ

Debates about the outbreak of the First World War have continued intensely since the end of the war. In today’s literature, a general distinction is made between the causes of the war and the origins of the war. Studies on its underlying causes have focused mostly on the relations between the great powers of Europe and their struggle for superiority with each other.

Secret alliances upset a fragile balance and helped erode the localization of wars, a common practice since the Congress of Vienna. With the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894 (whose secretive nature upset both Germany and Britain), Europe had de facto divided itself into two camps.

By 1918, Europe was in turmoil, and the old players began to lose their hegemony over the rest of the world. Ironically, the new visions and systems proposed for a new world order came from outside of Europe.

In order to prevent an unstable situation created by Russia after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 from exploding, Bismarck convened the Congress of Berlin in 1878 as a check and balance for the region.

The first of the diplomatic crises was the Fashoda Crisis of 1898 between France and Britain. Though the French had pulled back in the face of a British demonstration of power, crises such as this in a remote African region showed how quickly armed conflict between great European powers might erupt, even from a distant colonial backwater.

Though the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914 by Serbian nationalist-anarchist Gavrilo Princip was a sui generis incident, the erosion of the European system since 1904 had removed too many barriers to potential armed conflict. Unlike like the other two crises, developments generated in the Balkans caused a chain reaction this time.

There were also other main causes that led to the outbreak of the war in 1914. These were militarism and armaments, nationalism, and imperialism.

Germany began the war with great speed. Employing the Schlieffen Plan, which proposed attacking through neutral Belgium in order to take out the French as quickly as possible before moving against Russia.

The major Entente offensive aimed at the Turkish Straits was the Gallipoli Campaign (Dardanel Battles). Though the initial naval attack failed, fighting on this front lasted from 17 February 1915 until January 1916, when the Turks prevailed

The Paris Peace Conference was convened on January 18, 1919 in order to shape the content and terms of post-war peace settlements with the defeated countries, namely Germany, Austria- Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria.

The defeated countries, namely Germany, Austria- Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria.

Nazi regime is related to Second World War

The Triple Entente was an “association between Great Britain, France, and Russia, the nucleus of the Allied Powers in World War I. It developed from the Franco- Russian alliance that gradually developed and was formalized in 1894, the Anglo- French Entente Cordiale of 1904, and an Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907, which brought the Triple Entente into existence”.

The Balkan wars occurred 1912-1913.

Some of the main causes of The First World War were militarism and armaments, nationalism, and imperialism.

Bolsheviks were formed in Russia.

The League of Nations was founded to guide the post-war world order.

Fourteen Points

Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.

Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike,”