... regarded as one of the greatest European powers, was humiliatingly defeated in the Franco-Prussian war in which Germany occupied Paris and took French Eastern territories. Furthermore the Treaty of Frankfurt deprived France of Alsace-Lorraine. It appeared as though Germany could seriously impact upon the fragile balance of power. At the turn of the century Germany was thriving with wealth, demand in industry and had an expanding railway system and a world policy, known as Weltpolitik, of heavy expansionist foreign policy had been adopted. Immanuel Geiss argues that Weltpolitik is in fact a dominant cause of world war one in itself. 1 However Germany was not the only power looking to expand. The late 19th Century saw an age of European dominance. Africa had been partitioned and Asia was ruled by Europeans. Since 1878 European powers had effectively helped themselves to large portions of the Ottoman Empire and it was on ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now