Refer to the SOURCE 5 timeline and answer the following questions:

World War I had its origins in rival alliances, national competitiveness, an arms race and a climate of tension among the major powers — Austria–Hungary, Britain, France, Germany and Russia. Any issue among them that could not be resolved could lead to war. The European powers had spent years preparing for war and their peoples had come to think of war as a normal and likely occurrence.

In the late nineteenth century, many Europeans had come to think of war as a heroic adventure in which they might one day have the chance to participate. Newspaper articles, cartoons, novels and songs presented a romantic image of war and the adventurous life of a man in uniform. Governments encouraged nationalism and patriotism to unify people who often still felt more loyal to their local area than to their nation. Countries saw involvement in war as evidence of a nation’s maturity.

Education encouraged and focused students’ attention on past wrongs and current threats that other European powers had or were supposedly inflicting on their nation. People took pride in all things military. Parents dressed their young children in sailors’ suits and gave their sons toy soldiers to play with. In England, children eagerly awaited the fortnightly instalments of Robert Baden- Powell’s Scouting for Boys , which helped boys (and girls) learn many of the skills of resourcefulness, which he had previously used in training soldiers.

People saw war as the likely outcome of the rivalries among the great powers in the areas of:

• competition to take advantage of trading opportunities

• competition to control territory and resources in Africa that would give nations access to raw materials that weren’t available in Europe

• the development of weapons and ships that nations could use to protect their interests

• the size and strength of armies and navies and the arms race (especially between Britain and Germany) that resulted from this

• individual power and status.

One nation’s attempts to protect its interests led others to fear its power. In 1898, Germany set out to create a navy twice the size of Britain’s. In 1906, Britain launched the HMS Dreadnought, considered to be the most powerful ship afl oat. German engineers were soon copying this design, leading to further tension:

• Britain feared Germany’s navy and the possibility of such a navy cutting Britain off from the rest of its empire.

• Germany argued that its navy was essential to protect its trade.

Increased tensions among the major powers led them to prepare strategies to be used if war broke out. Germany developed, and continued to update, a plan known as the Schlieffen Plan; France developed the war plan known as Plan 17.

Increasing national rivalries within and beyond Europe resulted in nations forming two rival alliances. From 1907 onwards, the major powers were all members of one of these two rival and armed power blocs. Britain had joined with Russia and France in an alliance known as the Triple Entente, while Germany was linked with Austria–Hungary and Italy in the Triple Alliance. These agreements increased nations’ sense of strength and protection and fostered the fear and mistrust of the nations that did not belong to them. They reflected the threat that the powers sensed from one another, and the desire to avenge past ‘wrongs’:

• Russia and Austria–Hungary competed with each other to extend their power in the area of south-eastern Europe known as the Balkans.

• France feared Germany’s army and sought revanche (revenge) for Germany taking the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine from France in 1871.

Between 1905 and 1913, tensions among the great powers increased as a result of crises in northern Africa and the Balkans. The great powers resolved these crises, although hostility generally increased among those involved.