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What crises occurred between the European powers in the period from 1905 to 1913
There were five major crises in the period between 1905 and 1913. These were the first and second Moroccan Crises, the Bosnian Crisis and the first and second Balkan Wars. These affected the alliance blocks in many ways, as they shifted the power between each of the countries, hence between alliances.
The first Moroccan Crisis occurred in 1905 because Germany wanted to challenge the agreement between Britain and France over Morocco. The agreement was that Morocco was a French sphere of influence and that they should be able to intervene if the authority of the Moroccan Sultan should collapse. Germany was unhappy with the extension of France’s influence and wanted to challenge it. The Germans had a few reasons for wanting to challenge the French. The military high command thought that 1905 was a good year to settle the disputes between France and Germany because Germany was currently militarily superior. Morocco could then be the alleged reason for a successful war against France. The other reason that Germany had was that some members of the German government thought that if they challenged the agreement under the Entente Cordiale, they could break up the alliance Britain and France had. In order to challenge France’s ownership, the Kaiser went to Morocco to announce their support of the Moroccan independence. At this time the Germans demanded that they have an international conference to discuss it. This conference occurred in 1906 in Spain, and Germany were completely outnumbered, as many other countries voted to assure France kept Morocco as a sphere of influence. Although Germany wanted to break down the alliance between Britain and France, they actually helped to strengthen it in this crisis. The crisis also increased the anti German feeling in these countries, and they began to have secret discussions on how to fight Germany in a European war.
The second crisis that occurred was the Bosnian Crisis of 1908. This was due to Austria breaking an agreement that the foreign ministers of both Austria-Hungary and Russia had decided on previously. The agreement was that Austria would be allowed to take over Bosnia and Herzegovina, which both used to be Turkish provinces, and Russia would be allowed to claim the right to free use of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles Straits to allow the Russian Black Sea fleet access to the Mediterranean. The foreign ministers had agreed to announce these agreements simultaneously so that they could prevent any opposition of the mutual violation law by other powers. Austria however, announced their annexation separately, while the Russian minister was in Paris. The other European powers then had such a bad reaction to the announcement, that Russia could no longer claim her side of the bargain. The actions of Austria-Hungary made Russia so angry that the Russian foreign minister denied that any deal had been made, and called for an international conference to fix the problem. While this was happening, Serbia began agitation against the takeovers, and in response, Austria began to mobilise against Serbia. At [next page]