How to limit my History AI question? How to find sources?

[WannaAproveIB]

Hello everyone!!!

I'm a new IB student and it's my first time using this platform :)
This year my teacher of history had to go, so now I have a new one but she doesn't know much about the IB. Therefore, I'm a bit lost, especially in my IA, which I want to start so I don't get saturated next year.

For the last week I've been killing myself looking for sources for my inquiry question "To what extent were the Bismarckian alliance systems a cause of WWI?", but aside from not knowing how to look for sources, I've found that the inquiry question it's quite wide. So, reading some comments on this web page, I wanted to narrow it down.

Since I really want to do something in my IA related to Bismarck I decided to write the question "To what extent was the League of the Three Emperors successful in isolating France by preventing a coalition between Russia and France between 1871 and 1879?", although I don't know if it is well limited and/or it is possible to use it.

You see, putting us in the historical context a bit, the League of the Three Emperors was the first alliance system created by Bismarck (part of the Bismarckian systems) between Germany, Russia and Austria. In these systems, Bismarck had 3 aims: to isolate France (because France was likely to take revenge after the Franco-Prussian war), to make Germany the most important European power (to control Europe), and to do all this while avoiding war. Given this, I will try to cover the first objective, which is to isolate France. Among one of Bismarck's memoirs, there is talk about a "Nightmare of Coalitions", where he specifies that if France joins Russia it could attack Germany and therefore his Bismarckian system, which is why it is the creation of the alliance the League of the Three Emperors.

However, in the future, after Bismarck leaves his position as chancellor, Kaiser Whillhem II is useless in following the systems, so France and Russia end up allying, although all this happens after the years that I want to cover in my question. Still, during those years the Balkan crisis caused Russia to move a little away from Germany, blah, blah, blah. So, I intend to answer that during those years it was not as effective because the alliance ends up breaking up and Russia feels resentful with Germany, for that reason it will look for France.

Therefore, although the direct union of France with Russia is outside of the question's years, I do not know if my question is valid because of it.

Also, I have a serious problem looking for sources. I do not know where to start! I'm lousy at them. So if any of you have any recommendations as to where I can look, any useful pages or books, or ways I can look up sources, I'd be sooooo grateful.

I was thinking of using the same document where the alliance was singed as a main source. What do you guys think?

[Grac777]

Since your question is a to what extent question, you are also able to talk about the ways that the League of the Three Emperors was unsuccessful in its goals, so I think your question is valid.

 

With sources, if you can find any good ones its always good to mine the sources for that sources. Additionally, asking a librarian can get you a long ways.

[WannaAproveIB]

On 9/8/2022 at 2:40 PM, Grac777 said:

Since your question is a to what extent question, you are also able to talk about the ways that the League of the Three Emperors was unsuccessful in its goals, so I think your question is valid.

 

With sources, if you can find any good ones its always good to mine the sources for that sources. Additionally, asking a librarian can get you a long ways.

Thank uuu! But I'm thinking on changin the topic, becuase there's lack of sources for what I wanna do