Triple Alliance

The Triple Alliance of 1882, the most famous of the triple alliances, was concluded by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. The groundwork for this alliance was laid in 1879, when the German chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck negotiated a secret defensive pact with Austria-Hungary. The alliance served a double purpose: It strengthened Germany in its relations with France, which had reached a new peak of animosity because of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, and it gave Austria-Hungary a powerful ally in its resistance to the developing expansionism of Russia (although in fact Bismarck had intended it as a means of restraining Austria from precipitate action). The Italians, angered by the French occupation of Tunisia in north Africa, joined the two allies in 1882, thus forming the Triple Alliance. The existing rivalry between Italy and Austria-Hungary in the Balkans and the Adriatic region, however, prevented the former from becoming completely integrated into the alliance.

During the ensuing three decades, Europe was the scene of a steady heightening of tensions between the countries of the Triple Alliance and the other major European powers. France, Britain, and Russia, alarmed by the threat to their security posed by the powerful combination of the Triple Alliance, concluded a rival pact known as the Triple Entente. The resulting division of Europe into two armed camps led eventually to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. For some years before 1914, the relations between Italy and its allies had been strained, and as a result Italy did not carry out its obligations under the Triple Alliance by entering the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Instead, after protacted secret negotiations in which the Triple Entente powers promised Italy substantial territorial gains, in 1915 Italy declared war upon its former allies, openly dissolving the Triple Alliance.