Triple Alliance
A secret defensive alliance between Germany , Austria-Hungary and Italy is called the Triple Alliance . It was created on May 20, 1882 when Italy joined the dual alliance , which was concluded in October 1879 and which continued to exist as a separate treaty. Italy hoped for support from the Triple Alliance for its colonial efforts in Africa.
On October 30, 1883, Romania joined the Triple Alliance, which was renewed every five years until 1912. The alliance lost its importance around the turn of the century and finally broke up in the First World War . Italy and Romania declared themselves neutral in 1914 until they entered the war on the Entente side in 1915 and 1916 respectively .
Obligations
The treaty committed the signatories to mutual assistance in the event of a simultaneous attack by two other powers or an unprovoked French attack on Germany or Italy. At the request of Italy, a clause was added that its participation should not be understood as directed against Great Britain . As in the dual agreement , Austria-Hungary was released from the obligation to support Germany against France.
The alliance from a German perspective
The Triple Alliance rounded off Bismarck's rebuilding of his alliance system after the Berlin Congress in 1878. With him Italy was now bound by treaty to Germany. On the one hand, the rivalry between Austria and Italy in the Balkans and on the eastern Adriatic coast was to be reduced; on the other hand, Italy was able to relieve Germany's southern flank as a military partner in a Franco-German war.
Significance for Italian colonial policy
The immediate reason for Italy's entry into the Dual Alliance was the invasion of French troops in Tunisia , which was declared a French protectorate with the Bardo Treaty of May 12, 1881 . Italy hoped that the Triple Alliance would provide support for its colonial policy towards France and Great Britain. After the Risorgimento , Italy wanted to take part in the race for Africa and saw its colonial ambitions threatened by France's policy in North Africa. As a result, Italian efforts focused on East Africa, where it tried to build a colonial empire with Eritrea and Italian Somaliland in the 1880s (see Italian East Africa ). It remained dependent on the free passage through the Suez Canal , which had been controlled by Great Britain since the intervention in 1881/82 . Due to the defeat in the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1895/96 , this policy suffered a serious setback. Italy only achieved success again in 1911 with the conquest of Libya in the Italo-Turkish War .
End of the Triple Alliance
Although still a new "Triple Alliance naval convention" occurred on November 1, 1913 for the naval warfare in the Mediterranean in force, broke the alliance in law in 1915, when Italy after signing the secret London agreement announced the Triple Alliance in order a little later on the side of the Entente in to enter the First World War . In fact, the Triple Alliance no longer played a major role in German foreign policy since the turn of the century: Italy reached a balance of interests with France in 1902 via the colonial spheres in North Africa and in 1909 with Russia via mutual interests in the Balkans. The Bosnian annexation crisis of 1908 weighed heavily on relations with Austria-Hungary, and Italy's war against the Ottoman Empire in 1911/12 was not compatible with German efforts to improve German-Turkish relations. This is one of the reasons why Germany relied all the more firmly on the existing connections with Austria-Hungary in the dual alliance .
Web link
See also
literature
- Holger Afflerbach : The Triple Alliance. European great power and alliance politics before the First World War . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-205-99399-3 .
- Fritz Fellner : The Triple Alliance. European diplomacy before the First World War . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1960.
- Fritz Fellner: From the Triple Alliance to the League of Nations. Studies on the history of international relations 1882–1919 . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-486-56091-3 .
- Johannes Hürter , Gian Enrico Rusconi (ed.): Italy's entry into the war in May 1915. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58278-9 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Keno Verseck : Romania . Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-55835-1 , p. 57.