Transcript Expansion of European Power and the New Imperialism

The Defining Event in Modern History
 First
truly total war
 Entire generation slaughtered
 Entire political structure of Europe changed:
 Second World War = direct continuation of
the Great War
 No Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf,
Israel, war in the Balkans, radical Muslim
terrorism, or U.S. as a hyperpower.
 The
appearance of a German Empire upset
balance of power in Europe.
 German Empire state of great wealth, industrial
capacity, military power, and population.
 Forces of nationalism threatened Austria with
disintegration.
 After defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, France
no longer a dominant Western European
power; obsessed with Germany.
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Bismarck: Avoid war, preserve Germany’s territorial
integrity
Established Three Emperors’ League with Austria and
Russia.
After League collapsed, The Treaty of San Stefano freed
the Balkan Slavic states from Ottoman rule; Russians
gained some territory.
Congress of Berlin(1878) settled Eastern Question
unsatisfactorily; south Slavic question remained a threat
to European peace.
Germany and Austria agreed to mutual defense treaty
from Russia (Dual Alliance); later joined by Italy.
Bismarck allied with Austria, Russia, and Italy, and on
good terms with Britain.
Changes under William II threatened future European
stability.
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Bismarck as “honest
broker”
Seeks coalition of three
powers
Fears encirclement
Isolate France
Encourage others toward
imperialism, deflect
attention
Russia cornerstone
Germany’s growth and
power=complicating
factor
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Three Emperors’ League
(1873)
Great Eastern Crisis
(1875-78)
• Pan-Slavism
• Bosnia rebellion
(1875)/Serbian war v.
Ottomans/Bulgarian
uprising (1876)
• Russia intervenes: War with
Turkey (1877-78)
• Britain becomes
concerned as Russia
approaches Constantinople

Berlin Congress (1878)

Web of Alliances
• Last gasp on “Concert”
• Goal: Entangle alliances
• Bismarck as “honest
• 1879 secret Dual Alliance
broker”
1. Bulgaria halved
2. Macedonia returned to
O.E.
3. Romania independent
4. A-H “temporary”
occupation of BosniaHezegovina and Sanjak of
Novi Pazar
5. Britain gains Cyprus
6. Russia feels cheated
w. Austria
• 1881: Three Emperors’
League renewed
• 1882: Italy joins A-H and G,
angered w. France over
Tunisia
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Bulgarian Crisis (1885-7)
Reinsurance Treaty
(1887)-Conditional
Neutrality w. Russia
.
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France, concerned with security against Germany, invested
in Russia, which in turn proffered a mutual defense treaty
against Germany.
William II instigated naval arms race in attempt to emulate
Britain, which simply produced more ships.
Entente Cordiale (1904) represented major step in
aligning Britain with France.
After Germany attempted to pressure France and the
international community into colonial concessions, Britain
and France arranged an alliance; forces mutually
dependent by 1914.
Britain concluded an agreement like Entente Cordiale with
Russia (1907).
The Triple Entente of Britain, Russia, and France were
aligned against the Triple Alliance of Germany, AustriaHungary, and the unreliable Italy.

Wilhelm II forces Bismarck from office (1890)
• Emphasize brinkmanship, ignore subtlety and restraint

Franco-Russian Alliance (1894)
• French investments
• Realpolitik
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Germany tries to bring UK in alliance
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Fashoda Incident (1898)
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• Splendid isolation ends
• Britain & France: War?
• Two power standard (1889)
• Kitchener & Omdurman
• Boer War (1899-1902)
• Fashoda & negotiation
 German sympathies with Boers,
frictions
• Delcasse backs down
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Wilhelm II after Bismarck
• Poor entourage
• Weltpolitik=“Place in Sun”
• “Zigzag” diplomacy
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Patron of Ottomans
• By 1900
• Berlin-Bagdad Railway
British reaction
• Alliance w. Japan (1902)
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Entente Cordiale (1904)
• France and Britain
• Resolves colonial disputes
 Egypt, Morocco
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Nicolas II begins disastrous reign (1894)
First victory of Asians over Europeans, shock
Russia & Japan clash over Manchuria
Japan sneak attack on Port Arthur (Feb 1904)
• Japan sinks Pacific fleet
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Battle of Tsushima Straits (1905)
• Japan sinks Baltic fleet
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Revolution of 1905
Peace of Portsmouth (1905)
• Japan controls Korea (annexes in 1910) and influence in S. Manchuria
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Russia focuses on Balkans
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Anglo-German Naval
Arms Race (1898-1912)
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• Admiral von Tirpitz
• Germany tries to provoke
wedge between Fr and UK
• Wilhelm II lands in Algeria,
pushes German claims
 “Risk Fleet” (2/3 UK)
• HMS Dreadnought (1906)
 Jackie Fisher
 Arms
Races
First Moroccan Crisis
(1905)
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Algeciras Conference
(1906)
• Germany isolated
• Britain supports France
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Anglo-Russian Entente
(1907)
• Settle colonial differences
The naval strength of the powers in 1914
Country
Personnel
Large
Naval Vessels (Dreadnoughts)
Tonnage
Russia 54,000
France 68,000
Britain 209,000
TOT 331,000
4
10
29
43
328,000
731,000
2,205,000
3,264,000
Germany79,000
17
1,019,000
Austria16,000
4
249,000
TOT 95,000
21
1,268,000
(Source: Ferguson 1999, p. 85)
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
Ottoman Empire
disintegrating
• Serbia, Montenegro,
Romania independent
(1878), Bulgaria
autonomous
• Armenian massacres
• Greek-Turkish War (1897)
• German patronage of
Ottomans worries Russia
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Serbia rising
• See selves as Piedmont of
the Balkans
• Officers murder royal
family (1903)
• “Pig War” (1906)
• Russian support revives
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Bosnia Crisis (1908)
• ‘Young Turks’ try to revive
•
•
•
•
empire
Austria formally annexes
Bosnia
Austria refuses Serbian and
Russian demands for
compensation
Italy also upset
Germany strongly backs
Austria, humiliates Russia
and Serbia
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Italy invades Libya
(1911)
Second Morocco Crisis
(1911)
• German gunboat “Panther”
•
•
•
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sent to Agadir demanding
compensation
Germany demands French
Congo
UK stands by France
Germany isolated
France & Britain formally
divide naval
responsibilities
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Balkan Wars (1913-14)
• Balkan League (Serbia,
Bulgaria, Greece,
Montenegro) turn against
Ottomans
• Serbia and Greece gain
most
• London Conference
 Austria demands independent
Albania
 Second war begins over
Macedonia
 Serbia keeps territory Bulgaria
wants
 Serbia & Bulgaria go to war
 Bulgaria loses
 Serbia 2 x in size
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River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
EUROPE IN 1914
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Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated, 28 June
1914
Outrage in Europe
Austria slow to respond to Serbia
• Blank check: Germany to Austria
• Russia: Likely to defend Serbia
 France to be drawn in
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Austria mobilized, Russia mobilized, Germany
declared war on Russia and the next day declared
war on France. Germany invaded Belgium, drawing
Britain into the war, Germany invaded France, and
then Britain declared war on Germany.
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River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
 Russia
mobilizes troops
 German demands
 France and Russia reject demands
 Germany declares war on Russia, then
France.
 Schlieffen Plan: German war plans-invasion of neutral Belgium
 Britain declares war on Germany.
 The slaughter begins and continues
until November 1918.
 First
large-scale use of many deadly
weapons:
• Machine guns
• Combat aircraft
• Tanks
• High velocity artillery
• Submarines
• Poison Gas
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
.
Sub-Saharan
Africa
• Four German colonies targeted
• Only Togoland falls quickly
Gallipoli
• Britain strikes Ottomans
• Battle of Gallopoli = disaster
 250,000 casualties each side
 Weakens Commonwealth ties
 Gallipoli Map
 The
incompetent government of Nicholas
II led to internal disorder in Russia.
 Peasant discontent plagued the
countryside.
 In the absence of Nicholas II,
incompetent government officials
attempted to keep order as the members
of Russia’s parliament remained
unsatisfied.
After
Gallipoli:
• Lose Caucasus to Russia
• British encourage Arab revolts
• T.E. Lawrence & Iban Ali Hussain
Balfour
declaration (1917)
• Zionist homeland
 After
the abdication of the tsar, the
provisional government continued to
support the war effort.
 After one failed coup attempt, a second
coup led by Lenin and Trotsky was
successful in November.
 The
government nationalized the land and
turned it over to peasants.
 Russia was taken out of the war.
 The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk yielded Poland,
Finland, the Baltic states, and Ukraine to
Germany.
 After a three year battle between the Red Army,
controlled by Lenin, and the White Russians,
who opposed the revolution, Lenin’s Bolshevik
forces were in firm control.
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 With
Russia out of the war, Germany, in
control of important European resources
like food, could focus on the western
front.
 The deadlock continued through 1917
although American involvement would
change the tide of the war.
US
Neutrality 1914-1916
• Supplies, loans to Allies
• By 1917 = Repayment dependant
on Allied Victory
• Submarine Warfare
 Lusitania, 1915: 1,198 casualties
 Zimmerman Telegram
• US declares war on Germany, 6
April 1917
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River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
April 1916: Easter Revolt in Ireland
Central Powers: Shortages, riots,
mutinies
1917: French mutiny
German offensive, Spring 1918
fails
US troops arrive = Break German
Front
Central Powers collapse
Armistice, 11 November 1918
April 1916: Easter Revolt in Ireland
Central Powers: Shortages, riots,
mutinies
1917: French mutiny
German offensive, Spring 1918
fails
US troops arrive = Break German
Front
Central Powers collapse
Armistice, 11 November 1918
 In
March, the Germans mounted a final
unsuccessful offensive.
 With Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey essentially
out of the war, the Germany army was finished.
 Germany set up a new government to be
established on democratic principles and
asked for peace based on the Fourteen Points
that were the Americans’ war aims.
• Fourteen Points included self-determination for
nationalities, open diplomacy, freedom of the seas,
and the establishment of a League of Nations to keep
the peace.
Germans felt betrayed by the terms of the
treaty.
 Casualties on both sides came to ten million
dead and over twenty million wounded.
 The financial resources of Europe were badly
strained and much of Europe was in debt to
Americans.
 The Great War undermined ideals of
Enlightenment progress and humanism.
 The aftermath of the Great War paved the way
for the Second World War and much of the
horrors of the rest of the century.
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 Its
new leaders, the Young Turks, saw
their nation divided up amongst Britain
and France. In its wake was the new
republic of Turkey.
 The Arab portions of the old empire were
divided into a collection of artificial
states with no historical reality governed
by foreign administrators.
War’s
toll
Leading powers:
• US (Wilson)
• Britain (George)
• France (Clemenceau)
Twenty-seven
nations
participate
Germany & Soviet Union not
allowed
 Public
opinion was a major force in
politics.
 Many of Europe’s ethnic groups
agitated for attention.
 Wilson’s idealism conflicted with the
practical war aims of the victorious
powers.
 Some nations had competing claims
for land.
 The victorious nations feared the
spread of Bolshevism.
Fourteen
Points:
• Free trade, arms reduction, colonial
rights, League of Nations concept
• Mostly rejected; Central Powers
betrayed
Peace Treaties, 1919
• French = Destroy German military
• Central Powers = War guilt, reparations
• Austria-Hungary dissolved; new ind. states
• Peace was a failure, set stage for WWII
Mustafa
Kemal, father of modern
Turkey
1923=Drive out Allied occupation,
proclaim Republic of Turkey
Reforms = Women’s
emancipation, Western dress,
European law
Secular rule
Supposed constitutional
democracy
Ataturk rules as dictator until 1938
Forty-two
members, twenty-six
outside Europe
Collective security
• No power to enforce decisions
• Relies on all nations, but US does
not join
Create
nation-states
• Based on ethnicity
Redraw
map of Europe:
• Poland, Czechoslovakia,
• Germany chopped-up (Danzig)
• Yugoslavia: Mix of Serbs, Croats,
Slovenes
Allies
propose ‘trusteeships’
• US opposition to colonization
Colonies
divided: Three
classes of mandates
Divide Germany’s African
colonies, Ottoman territories in
SW Asia
Arabs outraged
Weakens
Europe
Economic, social crises
United States’ economic
preeminence
Loss of prestige for Europe
• End of colonies
Revolutionary
ideas
End of Old Europe
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River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.
 The
peace violated some idealistic
principles.
 It left many minorities outside the
borders of their national homelands.
 By excluding Germany and Russia, the
settlement ignored the reality of their
European influence.
 Germany felt cheated.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved.