The Alliance System
“The idea of an “alliance system” was developed by Bismarck, chancellor of Prussia (a state in modern Germany). Before 1871, Germany was not a unified country, but a collection of independent states. The story continues below. Your job is to show the changing pattern of friendships and enmities in the diagram to the right of each part of the story. For example, use dotted black lines to represent friendships (“ententes”); solid black lines to represent military agreements (“alliances”); dotted red lines to represent tension; solid red lines to represent enmity”

This forms part of the newly updated ActiveHistory scheme of work on the Origins of World War One.