Triple Alliance (1882)

Austria-Hungary

By the late 1870s, Austrian territorial ambitions in both the Italian Peninsula and Central Europe had been thwarted by the rise of Italy and Germany as new powers. With the decline and the failed reforms of the Ottoman Empire, Slavic discontent in the occupied Balkans grew, which both Russia and Austria-Hungary saw as an opportunity to expand in the region. In 1876, Russia offered to partition the Balkans, but the Hungarian statesman Gyula Andrássy declined because Austria-Hungary was already a "saturated" state and could not cope with additional territories. The whole empire was thus drawn into a new style of diplomatic brinkmanship, which was first conceived of by Andrássy, centering on the province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a predominantly-Slav area that was still under the control of the Ottoman Empire.

On the heels of the Great Balkan Crisis, Austro-Hungarian forces occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in August 1878, and Austria-Hungary eventually annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 1908 as a common holding under the control of the finance ministry, rather than attaching it to either Austria or Hungary. The occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina was a step taken in response to Russian advances into Bessarabia. Unable to mediate between the Ottoman and the Russian Empires over the control of Serbia, Austria–Hungary declared neutrality when the conflict between the empires escalated into war. To counter Russian and French interests in Europe, an alliance was concluded with Germany in October 1879 and with Italy in May 1882.

Italy

Italy had several motives for joining the existing Austro-German alliance. The Italian government at that time was controlled by conservatives, who sympathized ideologically with the two monarchies. Also, Catholic Austria was a traditional protector of the Papacy, which Italy had poor relations with. However, perhaps most importantly, Italy was seeking potential allies against France. The Kingdom of Italy, like most of the other European powers, wanted to set up colonies and build up an overseas empire. Although France had supported Italian unification, Italy's colonial ambitions in Africa quickly brought it into a rivalry with France. That was reflected in anger at the French conquest of Tunisia in 1881, the so-called Slap of Tunis by the Italian press, which many Italians had seen as a potential colony. By joining the Alliance, Italy hoped to guarantee itself support in case of foreign aggression. The main alliance compelled any signatory country to support the other parties if two other countries attacked. Germany had won a war against France in 1870 and was a natural ally for Italy. Thus, Italy found itself coming to terms with its historical enemy, Austria-Hungary, against which Italy had fought three wars in the 34 years before the signing of the first treaty.

However, Italian public opinion remained unenthusiastic about their country's alignment with Austria-Hungary, a past enemy of Italian unification and whose Italian-populated districts in the Trentino and Istria were seen as occupied territories by Italian irredentists. In the years before World War I, many distinguished military analysts predicted that Italy would attack its supposed ally in the event of a large scale conflict. On its own hand, the Austro-Hungarian General Staff maintained at least from 1903 plans for a possible war against Rome. Mutual suspicions led to reinforcement of the frontier and speculation in the press about a war between the two countries into the first decade of the 20th century. As late as 1911, Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, the chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, was advocating a preemptive strike against Austria's supposed Italian ally. That prediction was strengthened by Italy's invasion and annexation of Libya, bringing it into conflict with the German-backed Ottoman Empire.

Romania

Romania, which had since 1866 been ruled by Carol I, a member of the German Hohenzollern Dynasty, naturally veered towards the German sphere of influence, which included allying with the Triple Alliance. Other motives that led to Romania's alignment with the faction included Germany's military prowess on the continent and fears of further Russian expansion into historically Romanian-inhabited regions, such as the Russian annexation of Bessarabia in 1812. These motives led Romania to secretly join the Triple Alliance on 18 October 1883. Only the King and a select handful of senior Romanian politicians knew about the political manoeuvre. Despite being allies on paper, the relations between Romania and Austria-Hungary weren't particularly cordial, as the two incongruous neighbours withheld various points of contention with each other, most notably the status and representation of the Romanians in Transylvania, a region owned by the Hungarian Crown but inhabited by a Romanian majority. Romania managed to develop into a regional power in the aftermath of the Second Balkan War and the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, however a year later World War I broke out. Although Romania was invoked by Austria-Hungary to join the war under the guidance of being a member of the Triple Alliance, it followed Italy's example of neutrality due to the fact that Austria-Hungary had taken the offensive by starting the war against Serbia, and thus was fighting an offensive not defensive war. Following Italy's withdrawal from the alliance in 1915 and acceptance into the Entente and the consolidation of the Central Powers, the alliance was rendered virtually meaningless, and eventually Romania would take up arms against all member states of the Central Powers in 1916. Despite many Romanian participation in the war alongside the Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces.