The extent to which it is fair to blame Germany for the outbreak of the First World War is still today a controversial topic. It is fair to say that the general public opinion would favour blaming Germany rather than considering different points of view. I believe that this is due to the anti-German propaganda that was set up before the war as well as after the war, considering how clear the trigger of the Second World War was, people tend to look at the concept of the two wars as if they were almost the same thing and therefore their perception of the causes is considerably biased. Amongst historians is it generally believed that the war was not caused by Germany on its own, but by a number of factors including for example, the "blank check" for Austria, militarism, assassination of Franz Ferdinand, expansionism during the final stages in the scramble Africa and international alliances. Some of the issues that led up to the First World War were caused by Germany itself, however many others were caused by other nations in Europe, certain events were in fact not linked to Germany in any way, as yet they created tensions and added to the already overflowing pot of doom. .
Firstly, there is no doubt that various alliances between different countries contributed to the outbreak of the First World War in a major way as they allowed a small conflict to quickly involve many countries, hence when Germany Invaded Belgium and Great Britain got involved. Austria-Hungary had an alliance with Germany, which is why Germany offered Austria the 'blank check' that symbolized their full support. France and Russia had a mutual alliance to defend against Germany. Britain had an alliance with Belgium. When Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, Germany put the Schlieffen Plan in effect and moved north to attack France. At the same time Russia and France declared war on Germany for their part in the Serbian invasion.
