Who Started World War II?

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Before the unification of Germany the biggest threat to British dominance was France and vice versa

Didn't they end their rivalry earlier after the Crimean war?

[Betonov]

They ended mutual hatred.
Rivalry persisted to 1914 but the more Germany grew, the more the rivalry got friendly.

France had a large colonial empire and the British were somewhat threatened by it, while Germany had a sausage factory in Tanganyika. I think they saw Germany capable of taking on the Royal navy more than France and Germany being capable of forcing France to cede colonial territory to further threaten Britain.
I may contradict myself here but I hope you got the idea.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

Didn't they end their rivalry earlier after the Crimean war?

Unofficially you could say that the rivalry ended after the Napoleonic wars, but it wasn't put on to paper until the signing of the Entente Cordiale in 1904. The Cordiale probably would have been signed earlier but we were too busy arguing over who got what in Africa, we did dabble briefly with the idea of joining the Triple Alliance with Germany but in the end sided with France.
Then, of course there was the Russio-Japanese war which involved an ally from both France and Britain going to war with the other, which should have resulted in a war between France and Britain, but both of them decided that such a war would just strengthen Germany and so signed the Entente Cordiale to make sure that such a thing did not happen.