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WORLD WAR ONE

WAR CLOUDS GATHER


CONTENTS

The path to world war

Tsar Nicholas II's Russia

Ottoman Turkey

The Balkan Wars as prelude to the
        coming "Great War"

Growing tensions among the majo
        European powers

War fever refuses to cool down

The textual material on page below is drawn directly from my work A Moral History of Western Society © 2024, Volume Two, pages 67-78.


THE PATH TO WORLD WAR

By the opening days of the twentieth century the Europeans and Americans had clearly put the political-cultural stamp of the Christian West on most of the rest of the world.  This would mark the peak of Western glory.  It would also mark the beginning of its political-cultural decline ... at least with respect to Europe’s part in the Western political-cultural dynamic.
 
Ironically it was the very sense of Western "progressivism" that would be its undoing.  The rising theory of the "sovereignty of the people" – as opposed to the sovereignty of their traditional lords (kings and emperors) – sounded so noble, so progressive.  But it contained a set of social dynamics that no one seemed able either to understand or manage when set loose.   Thus the first half of the twentieth century would be marked by not only levels of violence not seen in centuries, it would also bring the decline in global influence of those very groups who thought themselves to be the teachers of "good citizenship" and "proper civilization" to the rest of the world.

In the earlier days of the recognized importance of kings and emperors as the glue bonding numerous societies into a single whole, offering stability and peace for the common people in the process, kingdoms and empires made a great deal of political sense.  They could unite the most varied of people ... even ones who otherwise would be at each other’s throats because of more local hatreds possessing deep historical roots.  Thus just as the Austro-Hungarian Empire held together Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Bohemians (Czechs), Moravians, Ruthenians, etc. with Lutheran, Calvinist, Catholic, Orthodox religious self-identities as well ... the Ottoman Empire united Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, etc., also of a wide religious variety as Sunni, Shi’ite, Druze and Alawi Muslims and Catholic, Orthodox and Coptic Christians.

The problems of tribal "group-think" or "nationalism." Now with the arrival of the "Age of Nationalism," each of these smaller ethnic/religious sub-groups was expected to define, defend and promote its own "national" identity … a task muddied greatly by the fact that there were no clear geographic borders separating these sub-groups into distinct national packages.  While there were certainly points of concentration on the map for one or another of these sub-groups, they found themselves scattered amidst other sub-groups as you moved outward from these central points.  Just trying to draw national boundaries among these subgroups was guaranteed to pit one group violently against another (or even several others!)

Furthermore, a kind of nationalist "Romanticism" had turned the very idea of the nation itself into a highly revered, even worshiped, object of social affection ("group think") … something not really allowable during the previous centuries of dynastic rule in the West.  But with the rise of the political urges of the masses – birthed by Napoleon and his "nationalist" armies in the early 1800s – dynastic governments now found themselves on a steady political retreat in Europe.  The dynasties that continued in place no longer represented merely their own family interests … but were there to cultivate this larger group-think, to bring the people they presided over to ever-grander political purpose.  But these dynasties – untrained in the ways of popular democracy – possessed very little understanding, and in some cases no understanding at all, of the forces they were unleashing in their efforts to govern their increasingly nationalistic societies.  Thus it was that the forces of nationalism constituted a powder keg waiting to explode.

Tragically the utopian idealists and nationalist dreamers were completely self-blinded on this subject (as they still are today).   The theory of "the self-determination of peoples everywhere" sounded so noble … especially to intellectuals far removed from the practical difficulties found in the realm of political actuality.

The basic requirements of social success.  Self-government of a people is a great idea … provided that the people themselves have a well-practiced habit of moral self-discipline, a habit built on the foundations of a well-supported system of laws and social boundaries … ones that have proven themselves through the test of time.  Trendy, and thus untested, political ideas and ideals must always be viewed with much caution.
 
The people must also possess a spirit of social compromise based on the understanding that they must first look to the larger challenges facing them collectively as a people … rather than get caught up with more immediate local matters, ones that so much more easily draw their attention and arouse their emotions.
  
And political wisdom demands that this sense of collective challenge must not just stop at the national border … but extend to other people groups, other societies, other tribes and nations besides their own.  Working with others not only amplifies the social power available to a people to work with, it also tends to broaden a people's sense of political self-interest to a much higher realm – the lofty but complex realm of international politics
.  
The massive tragedy that was about to hit Europe – and bring its days as the world's power center into rapid decline – happened because this same wisdom, this vital realism, was lacking in Europe's various nations … and especially in their leadership.

Indeed, excellent leadership is critical to a society trying to live to higher social standards.  But finding such leadership is always a serious challenge facing any society.
 
To be a great leader, a person must possess not only a great intellect but also a deep wisdom … a wisdom achieved through excellent early education, through the careful attention paid to earlier generations of a life of proven success, and then through considerable personal experience in seeing all those learned lessons of life put to the test.
  
But also to be a great leader, a person must possess a high degree of personal ambition, one able to keep a person going in the not-uncommon face of grand disappointments – even failures – in the early effort to find success … and then in success, the ability not to give in to a reactive opposition that success naturally provokes in the hearts of other equally-ambitious competitors.

Thus importantly, it requires both wisdom and ambition to produce a great leader.  But on the one hand, there are always wise ones in society who (maybe most wisely itself!) choose not to get involved in the rough-and-tumble game of politics.  And on the other hand, there are always the very ambitious – but not so wise – ones … ones who are so caught up in their own personal success that they possess none of the greater wisdom that society will need in facing its challenges.  Tragically it is exactly this latter group that can actually bring a society to defeat, even to collapse.
 
So … coming up with a great leader is not a matter easily secured for a society.

The challenges facing Western society at this point.   As it enters the twentieth century, the Western world will find itself facing exactly this very challenge.  Indeed, lacking tested leadership in the newly rising world of "democracy," the move to self-government will become a formula for a savage breakdown in the European social order – in which thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of ordinary people will get sacrificed to the gods of rising nationalism.
 
But it was not just dreamy "Progressivists" who were guilty of shaping this terrible social disaster.  It was also kings and emperors themselves who did not understand what was going on right under their noses, and so managed to do the worst of things at the worst of moments, activity well designed to make a complicated situation virtually unmanageable, and ultimately catastrophic.

Some leaders seemed particularly expert in this regard.  Chief among them was Nicholas II of Russia (r. 1894-1917), who had virtually no understanding of the mentality of the Russian peasants he was reigning over.
 
There was also Franz Joseph, the Austro-Hungarian emperor, who though a man of some intelligence, was nonetheless in over his head leading an empire made up of a multitude of contending national groups, groups that had few political interests in common.  And sadly, Franz Joseph’s Austria-Hungary was not content in possessing this unmanageable bag of contending nationalities.  Austria-Hungary seemed determined to acquire even additional national groups, such as the Serbs, just to the south of the Austrian-Hungarian border.  Serbs, of course, had other thoughts on this matter, especially the hyper-nationalists among them.

In fact it would be this very problem brewing between the Austrians and the Serbs that would finally set off the fires of war, which once ignited, seemingly could not be put out.  And so a pointless bloodletting ensued, dragging itself out for four whole years.
 
Finally America brought new blood into the exhausted mix, breaking the deadlock and tipping the balance of power in favor of one side over the other, bringing the war finally to an equally pointless end.

Tragically the war would cripple the participants so badly that Europe, even in the period of post-war "peace," would be unable to reclaim its former position of world influence.  The decline of Europe thus got itself underway.

TSAR NICHOLAS II'S RUSSIA

The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)

In its push to acquire additional territory, Russia had been reaching eastward across Asia for decades and had arrived at the Pacific Ocean by the mid-1600s.  Over the next two centuries migrating into Siberia were Russian fur traders, Cossacks, exiled criminals and farmers escaping serfdom and looking for inexpensive land.  Resistance of the previous inhabitants, small nomadic communities mostly, was problematic but not unsurmountable.  So was the resistance this Russian expansion drew from the Chinese emperor (who at the time was hard pressed by the Taiping Rebellion and the Opium War with Britain) resulting in the 1860 Treaty of Aigun, which favored Russian claims in Manchuria.
 
But the biggest difficulty facing Russia would come from the Japanese, who also had imperial interests in the same area.  Under the direction of the Japanese emperor, Japan had been both industrializing and militarizing, using the very latest technology (acquired mostly from Bismarck’s Germany) in the process.  Their achievements were stupendous ... very unexpected of a people who were not "White."  The Europeans would be startled by the readiness of the Japanese to join them in putting down the Chinese Boxer Rebellion ... the Japanese showing themselves to be as capable as any of the European powers in their own imperial conduct.

Since the Vladivostok port on the Pacific was usable only during the summer, the Russians had contracted with the Chinese the use of a port (Port Arthur) further to the south in the Liaodong Province.  This brought them up against the Japanese who were interested in the same region.  The Japanese proposed an agreement in which Russia would recognize Japanese control of Korea in return for Japan recognizing Russian dominance in Manchuria.  But discussions went nowhere (meanwhile the Russians were building up their forces in the region).

Finally, in May of 1904 the Japanese conducted a surprise attack on – and a blockade of – the Russian position at Port Arthur – and also moved troops into Korea, taking that land for their own Japanese empire.  Bombardment of the Russians at Port Arthur continued through the rest of the year, the Russians unable to break the siege.  Then much to the surprise of everyone (including the Russians) at the beginning of January 1905, the Russian commander at Port Arthur simply surrendered to the Japanese.  Then in February both sides (a total of 500 thousand men) met at Mukden, and after three weeks of fighting the Russians abandoned their position there.  Finally, the Russian Baltic Fleet arrived in the area and at the straits of Tsushima (the narrows between Korea and Japan) the two navies met in late May ... again with disastrous results for the exhausted Russian navy.  The Russians were now ready to quit.
 
American President Teddy Roosevelt hosted a peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (September 1905), in which the Russians got off with only the loss of their positions at Port Arthur and on the southern half of the Sakhalin Island.  But the Russian humiliation cut deeply nonetheless.

The Russo-Japanese War (1904 - 1905)
A modernized Japan challenged Russia to battle and Russia lost

Japanese troops marching through Seoul Korea - 1904

Japanese troops in Manchuria - 1904

Japanese cannon during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905
National Archives

Russians moving artillery during the Russo-Japanese War

Japanese entering Port Arthur

Russian trenches at the Battle of Mukden (February 20 - March 10, 1905)

Japanese warships steaming toward Tsushima to intercept the Russian fleet

Russian ships sunk at Tsushima


Roosevelt meeting with the Russian and Japanese envoys
to negotiate the Portsmouth Treaty - 1905

The Russian Revolution of 1905

The timing of the conflict with the Japanese could not have come at a worse time.  Social agitation back in Russia had been building since even before the war over the sense of gross mistreatment of the Russian industrial worker by the new industrial lords.  At the same time these new industrial owners had been agitating for liberal constitutional reforms.  Thus labor unions had been organizing as fast as liberal revolutionary societies ... all pressing for serious overhaul of the Russian social and political system.
 
The Tsar however seemed unable to gauge the seriousness of this agitation ... presuming that simple police action would suffice to keep such radical tendencies in check.  When in early 1905 a peaceful demonstration led by a Russian priest and involving about 50 thousand men and women in St. Petersburg was met by the Tsar’s soldiers who killed hundreds and wounded over a thousand demonstrators (Bloody Sunday) Russia exploded. Russia seemed to be spinning out of control.

Workers’ councils (soviets) appeared everywhere and liberals grew louder in their demand for reform.  In October (after the humiliating Portsmouth Treaty was signed with the Japanese) a general strike was held across the country ... virtually shutting down the entire Russian economy. The army had to be called out and was put to work crushing brutally the protest movement.  The Tsar ultimately responded (the October Manifesto) by promising a number of civil rights reforms ... and by offering a new Constitution and creating a Duma (legislature), so eagerly sought by the liberal reformers.  For the time being things settled down.

But pro-labor agitators
(this included Lenin, who returned from Geneva for the occasion)  saw this backing down of the Tsar as a great opportunity to push for Socialist reforms ... and scheduled a massive revolt for early December.  But despite the huge turnout of workers and their soviet leaders to build street barricades in protest against the government, they were met by soldiers who blasted the positions of the protestors.  Ultimately the workers' uprising failed ... and the organizers decided to call off the protest.  But feelings still ran deep.

In 1906 the First Duma met in St. Petersburg ... but found the Tsar highly reactive to pleas for deeper reform.  To protect the almost sacred legacy of "autocracy," he instead reduced the few rights of the Duma even further ... and then simply dismissed the body.  The next year (1907) the Duma again met, proving to be even more hostile to the Tsar.  It too was soon dissolved.  But before a Third Duma could meet the Tsar reshaped it so that it represented only the more conservative members of the upper middle class.

Serious reform would have to wait.  As for the Tsar’s promised civil rights reforms, those simply got dropped.  Police repression continued as it had before.
  

Bloody Sunday - January 1905 starts the rebellion



Soldiers firing on a huge crowd of Russians who had come to deliver a petiton to the Tsar.  Hundreds are killed (no one is sure of the actual number). This action merely inspired more protesting throughout Russia

"Comrades, Workers and Soldiers - Support Our Demands"
Women marching for governmental reform as the protest movement gains strength


Russians celebrating Nicholas's October Manifesto (1905), leading to a new Constitution (1906)


Sergei Witte - by Ilya Repin, the Emperor's prime minister (1903-1906) who helped shape the 1906 constitution. Also Finance Minister (1892-1903) - helping design Russia's entry into the industrial world
Tretyakov Gallery - Moscow

An industrial workers' street barricade in Moscow - December 1905

Russian protest in Moscow in early December of 1905

Nicholas II and the Russian Duma - April 1906

The Rasputin scandal

Clearly, the imperial family was losing touch with reality.  Tragedy stalked the halls of the Tsar’s Winter Palace.  Adding to the tragedy was the scandal created by the presence of the mysterious Russian holy-man Grigori Efimovich Rasputin, who in 1907 had worked his way into the imperial household on the claim that he had mystical powers to heal the young prince Alexei, who suffered from the incurable illness hemophilia (no ability to stop bleeding when injured).  Soon Rasputin became a regular celebrity within the imperial circle, complements of the Tsarina, who was completely convinced of his divine powers.  Being a very hard-headed woman, she would also hear of none of the rising complaints about how Rasputin’s frequent presence in the imperial court was causing highly damaging rumors to spread wildly among the Russian people.
 
Little by little opposition to him began to brew within the imperial court.  Yet as time went on, Rasputin – with the support of the Tsarina Alexandra – seemed to grow in influence in the matters of state ... especially with the departure in August of 1915 of the Tsar for the front during the "Great War" (World War One, which had been underway since August of 1914).
 
Resentment among the men of the imperial court grew so great that finally in January 1916 a small group of them plotted his murder ... which proved not to be as easy as they had hoped (or so the legend goes).  But indeed finally he was gone.  But by this time the Great War was giving Russia even bigger issues than Rasputin.
 


Nicholas and Alexandra

Grigori Rasputin - mystical adviser to the Tsarina
(the seedier side of imperial culture)


OTTOMAN TURKEY

The Young Turks

With the power of the Turkish sultanate fading away, the Young Ottomans formed and reformed their secret political organizations, adding medical students and military officers to their rolls.  They eventually created a political union, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) which in 1902 and 1907 held its first and second congresses (in France).
 
Then in 1908 the military wing, beginning to be termed the "Young Turks" – under the leadership of "the three pashas" (Talaat Pasha, Enver Pasha, and Djemal Pasha) – marched on the capital at Constantinople (Istanbul) and forced the sultan to restore the Constitution of 1876.  While he agreed, he seemed to be encouraging reactionary elements in the military, who in 1909 attempted a counter-revolution against the Young Turks.  The effort failed, and Abdül Hamid was forced to abdicate and go into exile.  His brother, Mehmed V, was installed as sultan in his place.  But Mehmed had no real power of his own.  At this point the Young Turks were the actual governors of the decaying Ottoman Empire.

The one ugly spot in the cultural picture is the decaying Ottoman dynasty in Turkey. But a group of "Young Turks" (mostly military) are planning to take control and bring Turkey up-to-date through a process of "modernization" (mostly following Prussian Germany's lead)

Abdul Hamid II - Ottoman (Turkish) Sultan - 1876-1909

An elderly Abdul Hamid II

Mohammed (Mehmed) V - Ottoman Sultan 1909-1918


The Young Turks

Mehmed Talaat Pasha - Minister of the Interior (1909-1917)
Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (1917-1918)

Ismail Enver Pasha - Turkish General and Minister of War (1913-1918)

Ahmed Djemal (or Cemal) Pasha,
Commander of Constantinople,
Minister of Public Works, Minister of the Navy and General (1913-1918).

Prominent Young Turk:
One of the "Three Pashas" ruling the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1918

Ahmed Djemal and Arab leaders at the completion of a dam
on the Euphrates River south of Baghdad


THE BALKAN WARS AS PRELUDE TO THE COMING "GREAT WAR"

Rumania (after 1975 "Romania")

In close cooperation the Greeks, the Wallachians also rose up in revolt against the Turks in 1821, demanding number of political reforms ... though expressing continuing loyalty to the Sultan.  Here too infighting among the Wallachians made it relatively easy for the Ottomans to restore Turkish order.  Another attempt occurred in 1848, along with the general liberal upheavals that shook Europe that year.  This united the province of Moldavia with Wallachia to form the idea of a united "Rumania."  But the effort came to nothing ... until after the Crimean War when in 1859 electors from both provinces voted for a single leader as Rumanian prince (within the Ottoman Empire).  In 1866 he was forced out and replaced by prince Carol I of Rumania (of the Prussian house of Hohenzollern). 

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878

In 1875 peasants in Herzegovina (just to the west of Serbia) rose up in revolt against the heavy Turkish taxes ... and the revolt soon spread around the Balkans.  The Turks reacted violently, their slaughter being especially heavy among the Bulgarians living just north of the Constantinople region.  This not only shocked the Europeans, it drew the Russians into the melee as a champion of the persecuted Bulgarians.  Russian intervention no doubt was also motivated not only by the desire to recover territories on the Black Sea lost during the Crimean War, it was also inspired by the eternal Russian dream of securing a foothold on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Turks were soundly defeated.  As a result, in the Treaty of San Stefano (1878), the Turks lost sovereignty over considerable sections of Balkan territory.  Not only was Turkey forced to acknowledge the full independence of Rumania, but also Serbia and Montenegro.

Bulgaria

To the Russian mind, even more important was the fact that the Slavic principality of Bulgaria (under the Bulgarian prince Ferdinand I) also was founded as a result, stretching across the southern reaches of the Balkan Peninsula just above Greece.  But the British and the Austro-Hungarians were afraid of such an extensive client state of Russia and forced the replacement of the San Stefano treaty with the Treaty of Berlin, which recognized only a smaller Bulgarian Principality.  This was designed to prevent the creation of a strong Slavic state in the Balkans, presumably playing to the interests of Russia ... which the other European states wanted to avoid at all costs.  The Bulgarians living in Macedonia were thus left out of the new Bulgarian state ... a matter that would soon become the cause of serious strife among the emerging Balkan nations.

At the same time the British were accorded the right to occupy the strategic island of Cyprus (protecting the sea route passing nearby on its way to the Suez Canal in Egypt) and Austria-Hungary was given the right to "administer" the Ottoman territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
 
In theory Bulgaria was still under Ottoman authority, but it acted rather like an independent nation.  Finally in 1908 Bulgaria declared its independence as the Kingdom of Bulgaria with Ferdinand now designated as Bulgarian Tsar.

The Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913

There were two conflicts that broke out in the Balkans, the first (1912)  between Turkey and a coalition of newly independent Balkan states (the Balkan League of Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia), the second (1913) a war within the community of Balkan states, pitting Greece and Serbia against Bulgaria in a dispute about the dividing of Macedonia as a result of the first war.  Bulgaria was unhappy about the way Greece and Serbia took the largest portions of Macedonia ... and decided to invade the area to incorporate Macedonia into Bulgaria.  Seeing Bulgaria thus distracted, Rumania – which had stayed out of the first war – decided to launch its own offensive against Bulgaria.  And Turkey struck back at Bulgaria as well.  The end result was the dividing up of Macedonia between Serbia and Greece, and the loss of Bulgarian territory to the Greeks, the Turks and the Rumanians.

The major European powers had decided to stay out of the first war, fearing that their intervention would only complicate further a diplomatic standoff that was building among the larger powers themselves. In the second war the major powers got indirectly involved, though not necessarily out of a desire to do so.  The net result of this second war was the delivery of a huge blow to Russia, because of the Russian support of Serbia – which in turn had driven its former Bulgarian "protectorate" into the waiting hands of the Germans.  This war also further deepened the divide between Serbia and its neighbor to the north, Austria-Hungary, which – with Germany – saw Serbia as a new Russian dependency and a possible ally in Russia’s quest for a forward position in the Balkans.

Tensions were building fast.  It would take only a small spark to set off a huge military conflagration.  That spark was about to occur.
 

1912 - The Balkans before the Balkan War

April 1913 The Balkans after the First Balkan War

>Greek Artillery during the Balkan Wars – 1912

Turks captured by Greeks at the Battle of Giannitsa – October 1912

King George I of Greece visits the Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand in the headquarters of the Bulgarian army in the city of Thessaloniki during the latter's visit there during the First Balkan War (December 1912).

March 1913 - Bulgarian soldiers (and Turkish dead)
at the Awaz Baba Fort outside Adrianople (Edirne)

More soldiers died of disease than through military action

Territorial changes in the Balkans due to the 2nd Balkans War (April-July 1913)


GROWING TENSIONS AMONG THE MAJOR EUROPEAN POWERS

The age of imperialism had conveniently served to direct rising national ambitions infecting the European continent away from Europe itself.  But with the near completion of the global land grab by the end of the 1800s it was perhaps inevitable that these European ambitions would turn to a question closer to home: the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the territories it would free up for the taking.  This matter was too close to home to keep it rather abstract in principle.  With this contest right in its back yard the danger of this turning into a brawl within Europe itself was great.  It would require great diplomatic skill to prevent this contest from getting out of hand.  But sadly, such skill was largely missing among those who led these European major powers.

The growing system of opposing alliances

The nationalist passions were heating up.  The French had been unrelentingly bitter about their loss to Germany of Alsace and Lorraine in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.  To the French it was a matter of huge principle to get these lands back.  Sensing the danger, in 1872 Bismarck promoted the creation of the Dreikaiserbund (Alliance of Three Emperors) made up of Germany, Russia and Austria as a counter to French ambitions.  But when Russia and Austria-Hungary found themselves in opposition over the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, Bismarck decided to drop Russia and stay with his fellow German Austria.  Thus in 1879 he formed the Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary ... and in 1882 he extended this alliance to include Italy, giving the alliance now the designation as the Triple Alliance.  Italy was not a particularly enthusiastic partner.  But necessity (Italy was fuming over the French seizure of Tunisia) seem to dictate the relationship.

In the meantime relations between France and Russia were warming up ... mostly out of concern over the buildup of German military power and the growth of Austria-Hungary’s interests in the Balkans.  By the 1890s this French-Russian relationship had turned itself into a basic understanding or entente, including the plans for military cooperation.  Basically the entente was an agreement that if either France or Russia were attacked by a member of the Triple Alliance, the other would come to the aid of its partner.

At first the British found themselves caught in the middle of this growing split.  Britain approached the alliance matter cautiously.  But concern by both Britain and Japan over Russian involvement in Asia brought Britain to sign an alliance with Japan in 1902.  Then as Wilhelm grew bolder in his development of the German navy, British nerves began to fray ... and the British decided to enter into an anti-German entente with their long-time former opponent, the French, resulting in the Entente Cordiale of 1904.  Finally, with Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the British concern for Russian activities in Asia dwindled to the point that Britain was willing to enter yet another entente, this time with Russia.  Thus in 1907 the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia entered into effect.  Three years later the Japanese and Russians came to an agreement ... and Japan thus decided to ally with the Triple Entente.

The first Moroccan crisis (1905-1906)

Rising tensions among the European players of the nationalist game nearly turned to blows exchanged between Germany on the one hand and France and Spain (backed by Britain) on the other over the status of still-independent Morocco.  Actually, Morocco's independence came in the form of "protection" offered by France and Spain to Morocco in 1905 … done without any "consultation" with Germany … ignoring an earlier 1881 agreement which had included Germany as one of the guarantors of the Moroccan status quo.  Wilhelm was not only insulted that Germany had been left out of the new arrangement … but was seeing all this as simply another effort of France and its ally Britain to keep Germany from its natural "place in the sun."  Thus in 1905, Wilhelm personally sailed to Morocco to offer the Moroccan sultan the same "protection."
 
A huge diplomatic crisis thus resulted.  To avoid a mounting confrontation, it was finally decided to bring the matter early the next year (1906) to an international conference held at Algeciras in Spain (attended also by the U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt).  The conference confirmed the sovereignty of Morocco, but in fact allowed for both Spain and France (not Germany) to serve as the protectors of that sovereignty.  Germany was still excluded from a role there.

Bosnia-Herzegovina (1908)

As tensions built in the Mediterranean, without any warning things exploded over on the other side of Europe … when in 1908 Austria-Hungary simply announced the annexation of the former Turkish territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina.  But land-locked Serbia had also been contemplating the same action … in order to extend its own borders all the way to the Adriatic Sea (part of the Mediterranean Sea).  Serbia was furious.
 
But this land grab also widened the divide between Austria and Russia (the latter being a strong supporter of Serbia), caused some consternation with Austria’s ally Germany (which had not been consulted prior to the event), and forced France and Britain (both neither in a position to help Serbia nor willing yet to help Russia) to stand off, very unhappy over the event.  And as for Turkey, it was rather content to receive monetary compensation from Austria for its loss of these two distant provinces.

The second Moroccan crisis (1911)

Morocco was not doing well under French and Spanish protection.  The sultan’s finances were in crisis mode and unrest among the Moroccans was building.  When rebellion broke out in Fez against the Sultan in April of 1911, the French moved troops to Morocco to "protect its citizens in Morocco" and to support the Sultan.  This upset Wilhelm greatly, who saw this as simply a ploy for the French to add Morocco to their North African empire.  Wilhelm countered the French move by sending the German gunboat Panther to Morocco "to protect German citizens."
 
This in turn angered deeply the French and Spanish ... and also the British who were lining up more closely with France (the "Entente Cordiale").  Consequently, France (with British backing) refused to be intimidated.  Ultimately, Wilhelm backed down.
 
Part of the dynamic in this incident was that Germany had been challenging British supremacy with its rapid own development of a German navy, increasing British nervousness about Wilhelm's intentions.  Britain, being an island, was always very sensitive about international naval matters.
 
On the other hand, Wilhelm, in being forced to back down from his ambitions in the Mediterranean, chose to see this episode as simply more German "encirclement" ... and began looking to expand Germany's own diplomatic alignments to counter the close relationship of Britain, France and Spain.
 
Thus it was that things were pushing quickly toward the horrible events of 1914.  Nationalists of all the major European countries seemed to want a street fight of some kind to finally settle the matter of Europe’s power alignment.  But what they failed to realize was that such a fight was not destined to be merely an afternoon sporting event.  The powers seemed so evenly balanced at this point that once underway such a conflict would simply stalemate itself into a long, unrelenting bloodletting – the kind that could result only in a huge loss of political strength by all parties, the kind that would in the end (should there ever be an end) resolve nothing.  But passions at this point had greatly overridden cool logic.

A war now seemed inevitable. 

The First Moroccan Crisis 1905


Kaiser Wilhelm on parade in Tangier - 1905

El-Hadj el-Mokri, Moroccan Ambassador to Spain, signs the treaty at the Algeciras Conference allowing France to patrol the border with Algeria and Spain to police Morocco (April 7, 1906).


The Agadir (or Second Moroccan) Crisis - 1911

Loading of French artillery at Rabat, Morocco - 1911
Grébert, photographer, Casablanca

The battlements at Agadir Morocco - with a German gunboat Panther in the harbor (July 1911)


WAR FEVER REFUSES TO COOL DOWN

War fever seemed to be intensifying everywhere.  Nationalists of all the major European countries seemed to want a street fight of some kind to finally settle the matter of Europe’s power alignment.

But what they failed to realize was that such a fight was not destined to be merely an afternoon sporting event.  The powers seemed so evenly balanced at this point that once underway such a conflict would simply stalemate itself into a long, unrelenting bloodletting – the kind that could result only in a huge loss of political strength by all parties ... the kind that would in the end (should there ever be an end) resolve nothing.  But passions at this point had greatly overridden cool logic.

A war now seemed inevitable.
  





  Miles H. Hodges