Many of you will know all about France's Ferdinand and how his assassination caused World War I. You may also think it was the series of alliances that forced everyone into it, and you wouldn't be wrong. Both are true, but they don't give us the juicy stuff. The real question is, why everyone was so tied up in those alliances in the first place? Embaried in there is how Britain was crucial to World War I happening. Let's start with the beginning of the war. It's September 1914. Russia, Nostya, along with Germany are having huge battles in the east. The British and French have managed to stop the Germans winning quickly in the West, already hundreds of thousands have died as everyone tries to get used to modern warfare. Here's the technical reason the war started. Some Serbian's live in Serbia and others in Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Empire has loads of ethnic groups, and as a result, has lots of separatists. And one of those separatists was Serbia. He assassinates Archduke-Franz Ferdinand. Site-note, assassinations of world leaders in this area were super common. But all of these didn't start a war that killed tens of millions. In this case, it was the final straw before Austria declared war. Ooh, alright, Germany had a secret agreement with Austria that they backed them up if Russia declared war. Russia started to get its army ready, just in case. The Germans read this as Russia getting ready to attack, so they get going themselves. Now Germany's in a bit of a bind. Russia and France are very far apart from each other. Why is that a problem? Not many armies can fight and get supplies on two completely different fronts, and they know it. So they leave Austria to deal with the Russians, and they have a plan to beat France. It just involves invading Belgium really quickly using their train lines. Britain really hoped it wouldn't have to get involved in a messy European war, but then Belgium. The Belgium thing is a big deal. Britain and Germany signed a treaty decades before guaranteeing the independence of Belgium. Germany has obviously ignored that, but Britain, nope. The press goes into overdrive, demanding Britain joins. Parliament with reluctantly declares war on Germany. The rest is history. You might think, ah-ha, I've got you. Britain entered the war because of Belgium. Like they would drag into the war, basically. Germany needs to blame, and that's why all of that is true, and yet it doesn't tell the whole story. Why was Germany backing Austria so strongly? And how can I say Britain is the blame? Let's start with the story of Britain and Russia. Britain and Russia are rivals in the 19th century. The rivalry is called the Great Game. I could make a whole video on this alone, but the TRDR is that Russia is expanding towards the east and starts to get a little too close to comfort to India. Britain's cash cow, the jewel in the crown. Literally. Then there's the Crimean war where France and Britain fight against Russia to defend the Ottoman Empire. Stop Russia getting too big. Scary as Russia seems. It's very behind in terms of industrialisation. It's 1904, and here we have the Russo-Japanese war. Woo! Another rhyme. It seems a prototype of how modern wars will be fought. It was short, but it nearly bankrupted both sides. Modern Warfare was expensive and no one had that kind of money. Japan wins. This war is important for two reasons. First, it showed that Russia could beat him, which gave hope to Germany. Second, it gave everyone the wrong impression of how World War I would be fought. Everyone was convinced it'd be a quick war. Sixth to twelve months max. No one could afford more. No nation would tolerate more. The people would go mad. There'd be revolution. How wrong would they all were? All the while, in the background, during the Great Game, Prussia unites Germany. It has a huge population and wants to be a world power, just like Britain. It casts its jealous eye over what Britain controlled. It wanted it on it. As it was forming Germany, Prussia fought a war against France, who would win. Prussia destroyed them, and even managed to capture Paris. It was embarrassing for the French. Germany also takes out Sess their aim. After that, Germany tries to keep France diplomatically isolated, so it can't threaten them in the future. So, getting back on track, let's talk about the years leading up to the war. Germany decided it needed a decent navy, because big colonial daddy Britain had a huge navy. Navy equal success, right? So they build up a navy. Britain gets paranoid and starts building a bigger navy to counter the German one. And now we zoom over to Morocco. What does Morocco have to do with World War I? This isn't like mostly a European thing, right? Yeah, but North Africa is being treated to some colonialism by Europe, but especially France. One day, the German navy and Kaiser will hand the second turn up uninvited, especially from the French point of view. They don't like that France is keeping Morocco. All to themselves. Britain does not like what Germany is doing one bit, and threatens to go to war with them. It doesn't, but it does sign the Antón Codiel with its one-time huge rival, France, so that Germany won't try to bully poor little France again. It's not an alliance, more of an indication that they want to be nice to each other from now on. The end result, Germany tried to isolate France, and instead, it started to look isolated itself. This is the opposite of what they wanted. France already had no lines with Russia. Britain and Russia get closer, despite being huge rivals who don't like each other. All because they both distrust Germany. Russia feels threatened by Germany. Germany feels very threatened by Russia. All those people, they saw it as a matter of time, until Russia was too strong to contain. Then, surprise, surprise, Britain, France and Russia create the triple Antón as an informal alliance. This means that Germany is surrounded by threats that are united against them. In their minds, the question is not if they'll be a huge war. It's a case of when, not only so they could get that sweet, sweet imperial coin, but just for their continued survival. Once war was inevitable to them, they back Austria because Austria are their only realistic ally. Italy didn't count. Austria is against Russia. Remember, without German involvement in the Balkans, where Serbia is, there would have been a medium-sized war between Russia and Austria about the future of Serbia. Something like the Russo-Jaffanines War. It would have been bloody, sure, but nothing like the scale we saw. Oh my god, a double-ride. And so this is why Britain is to blame. It allied its most obvious rival, Russia, to create an enemy that felt it had to take them down. This created the perfect conditions for Germany's back Austria. The rest is just a series of traitors and alliances that basically force the hand of most of the countries who joined the war. But is Britain entirely to blame for everything that happened? No, nothing in history is ever that neat and tidy. Germany, Austria, Serbia and Russia share more of the blame for the Attrodetoration and Russia into a devastating war. But let's not let Britain off the hook for creating the perfect conditions for the Great War. Speaking of Britain's insecurity when it came to Russia and India, this had other effects too, like how that same relationship could be blamed for Iran's current bloody regime gaining power. This is way more clear-cut, I promise.