The point of forming alliances was to prevent war by deterrence but, if war did happen a countries allies job was to help them win the war. The problem with this is that if any country got into any type of conflict then everyone and the alliance system would also get into conflict. Which is why many countries had many conflicts with each other because of the alliances which also proves how alliances is an important cause to world war 1.
An alliance is an agreement made between two or more countries to give
each other help if it is needed. This was the main reason that World War One was the“Great War”because it involved more than just the countries in Europe. When a country declared war, allies had no option but to declare war , and allies of those countries had to declare war to. Therefore, a chain reaction occurred when war was declared. On August 1, 1914, when war was declared by Germany, the two main Alliances came into play: The allies and the central powers.Because Germany declared war on Russia, Russia’s allies entered the War. They included France and Britain. Now during this the central powers came into play and the allies of Germany, which included Italy and the Austria-Hungary Empire, were at war against each other. As you can see these alliances caused this war, instead of being contained in Europe, to spread and become a International affair. If there were no alliances during World War One, each country would have been fighting for themselves, and therefore the War would have been contained in the countries who wanted to go to war, but in this case, these alliances resulted in compulsory attendance in war as an alliance and this caused such a devastating war.
Alliances is the most important cause of world war 1 because if it wasn’t for countries becoming allies with each other than there would have only been a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. For example, document 9 shows how If Austria attacked Serbia, Russia will fall upon Austria, Germany upon Russia, and France and England upon German, which shows how each country’s allies got involved just to protect each other. Document 2 also shows who allied up with who. For example “the allies”(triple entente) were britain, france, and russia. while the “central powers”(triple alliance) were germany, austria-hungary, turkey, and italy until italy decided to exchange sides to go with the opposing team who was winning the war at the time.
Out of all the different causes of world war 1 the most important and relevant cause was alliances because there would not have been war between every country in europe if it wasnt for countries getting involved because of their alliances.