Whose fault is it?“The blame for the First World War must fall firmly on Germany. His aggressive leadership and militaristic attitude made an avoidable war inevitable." Europe was a region that had many powerful countries competing to be the best. These countries included Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. While all these countries fought to be the best, they didn't realize what this would lead to: this was a world war. This war was born from years of tensions and small battles. While many say that “the blame must rest firmly with Germany”, other countries such as Austria-Hungary, Russia, France and Great Britain were all involved in a dispute before the First World War. Since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, there have been great tensions in Europe. With many countries making alliances, building better and stronger navies or armies, and fighting over land were all recipes for disaster and eventually led to a world war. In 1871, when Germany unified, many tensions grew in Europe while other countries such as Russia and France saw this young powerful country emerge. Germany was not only rich, it was industrialized, had many resources, a very strong economy and a few years after unification it became one of the superpower countries. This endangered other European powers such as Great Britain, France and Russia. While all of this created some tension, the tension increased significantly when Germany entered into a triple alliance with Italy and Austria-Hungary in 1882. Germany did so because it felt threatened by France, Russia, and Britain surrounding Germany. While Germany had a reason for this alliance, the other powerful countries such as Britain, France and Russia saw it... middle of paper... the first Archduke Franz Ferdinand was on a royal visit to Bosnia, a group of pro-independence terrorists called The Black Hand Group assassinated the Archduke. They carried out the attack because Bosnia had recently been annexed by Austria and Franz Ferdinand was next in line to the throne. They therefore wanted to kill the next heir to the throne. After this attack Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and this was what started the war. The reason the war started was because the Russians supported Serbia, so when Austria attacked Serbia, Russia came. Historians call this the “domino effect” because when Russia entered the war, Germany followed, then France, then Italy, and finally Great Britain. After that the war was in full swing and many say it was Austria's fault, but other historians say it was the previous events that led to the war..