Transcript Europe and the World

Europe and the World
1870-1914
The Politics of Mapmaking
1885 only 11% of world’s surface surveyed
Great leap forward 1890-1900 but no uniform map
of the world
Issues of debate
Units of measurement
Location of the prime meridian
Advantages of uniformity
standardized timekeeping in an age of railroads
Appropriate that Great Britain the geopolitical
power the starting point for the measure of time
and space
Britain’s Geopolitical Domination
1914
European Balance of Power
1870-1914
THE BIG FIVE
Balance of Power:
Bismarck’s Plan to Keep the Peace
Three Emperor’s League (1873, renewed 1881)
Germany
Austria Hungary
Russia
Dual Alliance (1879)
Germany
Austria Hungary
Triple Alliance (1882)
Germany
Austria Hungary
Italy
Reinsurance Treaty with Russia (1887)
Problems:
Three Emperor’s League (1883)
Three most conservative powers in Europe
Purpose: neutrality and consultation
Geographic imperative for German Empire: avoidance
of a two front war
Geographic weaknesses
• Germany – North Sea ports and encirclement
• Austria Hungary – size and diversity; agricultural
backwardness
• Russia – still Catherine's Greek project-access to the
Mediterranean and warm water ports
Eastern Question and the
Problem with Russia’s Answer
Russo Turkish Wars of the 19th Century
1828-1829 Alexander Ypsilanti’s Greek Revolt
• Russian ambitions provoke England to support Greek
independence movement – Romantic poets
• Treaty of Edirne (Adrianople)
1853-1856 Crimean War
• Russia destroys Ottoman fleet and western Europe, leery of
Russian expansion plans, intervenes to prop up sick man of
Europe
• Importance of western technology highlighted
1877-1878 Russo Turkish War
• Treaty of San Stefano
• Congress of Berlin
Additional Approaches
Great Britain
Acquires Sudan, Egypt, Cyprus, Aden
Protects the entrance to the Suez Canal completed
in 1869 and UK majority stockholder 1875) and
route to India
Germany
Berlin to Baghdad Railroad (the Orient Express)
Balkans
Various bids for independence by host of ethnic
groups
Catherine’s Greek Project
Control the Bosporous to prevent blockade
Create dependent Slavic states in the Balkan
Peninsula
Russo-Turkish War 1876 a pretext for intervention
Serb revolt in Bosnia Herzegovina 1874 forces internal
Turkish reform
Serbia declares war on Turkey 1876
Britain supports Ottomans for geopolitical reasons
despite atrocities in Bulgaria (Tsveti’s connection to
these)
Russia supports Romania; captures Armenia
Abdul Hamid II sues for peace 1878
Treaty of San Stefano March 1878
Gave Russia territory in the Caucasus,
control of Kars
Control of the mouth of the Danube
Declared the straits leading from the Black
Sea to the Mediterranean neutral and open
to shipping in time of war
Treaty of Berlin Summer 1878
Revised Treaty of San Stefano more in line with western
demands
Bismarck afraid that Germany was losing status as a Great
Power hosted the Conference as “honest broker”
UK, France, Austria Hungary, Italy, Germany, Russia,
Ottoman Empire the signatories
Recognized independence of Romania, Serbia and
Montenegro and the autonomy of Bulgaria under Ottomans
Bosnia Herzegovina placed under Austro-Hungarian
occupation
Consequences
Estrangement among Great Powers
Russia leaves Three Emperor’s League but renews
agreement several years later after an agreement is
reached regarding spoils of Ottoman Empire
Alliance system revamped
Bismarck signs series of treaties with Italy and
Russia as well
Further problems in the Balkans (1885) contribute
to increased tension between Austria Hungary and
Russia
French Geopolitical Reality
Tension with Germany as a result of loss of
Franco-Prussian War
Loss of status on the continent
Humiliating loss of Alsace Lorraine
Industrially, militarily, demographically Germany
provides threat
Isolated by Bismarck’s diplomacy until 1894 when
Germany’s Reinsurance Treaty lapses with Russia
and French investment in Russia begins
Alliance System prior to War
Triple Alliance
Triple Entente
France
Germany
Austria Hungary
1894
1902
Italy
A military alliance
UK
1907
Russia
A series of independent diplomatic agreements
New Imperialism
Acquisition of territories on an intense and
unprecedented scale
Industrialization
Transportation
Communication
Advantages of industrial nation-states in marshalling
resources
New level of domination
New level of inequality
Destabilizing impact of rivalry
Motivation: Technology’s Impact
Steamships replace sailing ships
• Carry more people and goods, more reliably and with predictability of
railroad timetables
• Navigation of rivers like the Congo now possible
Engineering feats
• Suez Canal - de Lesseps 1869; Britain has controlling interest 1875
• Panama Canal
New types of firearms
• Breech-loading rifles, repeating rifles, machine guns
• Accurate aim, rapid fire from distances reaching ½ mile
Communication
• 2 years to 2 months to hours thanks to telegraph lines and cables
Medical advances
Motivation: Economic
Profit for industry often predicated on risk
Can’t simply assess balance sheet
World wide network for investment and markets
Krupp armaments thrives
Investment opportunities in diamonds in South Africa and railroads in China
equally attractive
Search for “sheltered markets” at the heart of Britain’s system of imperial
preference
Pursuit of individual fortunes
Protection of the standard of living of the working class
Joseph Chamberlain, mayor of Birmingham and foreign secretary 1895-1903
Need for new raw materials
Cotton from Egypt and Asia
Jute from India for twine, burlap, millions of jute bags
Rubber and petroleum newly important
Motivation: Geopolitics
Certain geographical areas valuable for political reasons
Strategic imperative
Sahara occupied by France to protect Algeria
Proximity to sea routes
Suez controlled financially by British shareholders 1875
Egypt occupied 1882
Mediterranean islands, Indian Ocean islands
Fueling bases and protection of colonies
Djibouti by France in Red Sea
Singapore and Hong Kong by UK
Increase in naval budgets
increase in military budgets
Military/industrial complex
Influence of military in political decision making increases
Motivation: Nationalism
Prestige for large and small nations
Impact of newspapers
Expansion as entertainment for otherwise dull and dreary lives
Imperial adventurers – teams to root for
Daily report of square miles gained and peoples captured
Public opinion
Shaping policy - Public outcry in France to offset British advances
in Egypt results in Brazza planting flags in the Congo basin
Manipulated by government – bread and circuses deflect attention
from social problems in Germany
Jingoism – willingness to risk war for national glory
Motivation: Other
Missionaries
Science – National Geographic Society, scientific
expeditions to take meteorological, astronomical
readings, collect specimens
Wealthy persons – the beginnings of eco tourism –
hunting tigers, see sights need and expect their
government’s protection when they travel abroad
Outthrust of white man’s civilization
“White Man’s Burden” - UK
Civilizing mission – France
Diffusion of Kultur – Germany
Buttressed by Social Darminism
The varieties of control
Direct
Military conquest and direct imperial control
Take over of the economic/productive life of the
country, transforming large sectins of the population
into wage earners
Inequity heightened by racial differences
Indirect
Lend money to native rulers khedive of Egypt, shah of
Persia to prop up thrones or live better
European advisors to protect the financial stake
Extra-territorial rights and privileges
The Scramble for Africa
The Scramble for Africa
French military men seeking to carve out military
careers in French West Africa
Valuable minerals in Zimbabwe and Zambia
Missionaries – Malawi and Uganda
Strategic reasons – French Djibouti, British Egypt
Take so others can’t – Tanzania, Namibia, Botswana
Pseudo scientific racial theories prominent after 1870
– blacks the least developed in the evolutionary
sequence – imperial expansion in Africa “natural”
Economic downturn after 1873 – grab land “in case”
economically useful
Leopold II: The Catalyst
King of Belgium motivated by sheer greed
1876 established International African
Association ostensibly to “stamp out” slavery
Trading stations established; ivory and rubber
plantations
Lobbies for formal European recognition of
rights in the Congo Basin
1884 International Conference held in Berlin
Congo Free State established and rules for
colonial acquisitions in Africa established
“Effective occupation” involving real
presence and the plan of economic
development
Nature of the Scramble
European - Conflict minimal
Fashoda 1898 Kitchener heads south along Nile; Marchand
heads east for the Red Sea
results in the Entente Cordiale - Africa not worth going to
war over
Moroccan crises
Africans – like shooting ducks in a barrel
Ethiopia the exception
The importance of modern weaponry
Menelik II – concessions to France and Italy (Russia and
Britain) in return for guns
General Oreste Baratieri and PM Francesco Crispi
Battle of Adowa 1896
South Africa
Afrikaners – the original Dutch settlers
Great Trek (1837-1844)
Orange Free State and Transvaal established
British Cape Colony
German annexation of Namibia (1884)
1886 gold deposits found in Witwatersrand
Need for capital investment
Cecil Rhodes politician and financier – problems with
Transvaal policies – Jameson raid
Alfred Milner’s policies to force unification
Boer War
350,000 British troops
Guerilla warfare
Scorched earth
Concentration camps
Deaths 1902 – 25,000 Afrikaners, 22,000 British
troops, 12,000 Africans
Cost to Britain – “splendid isolation” no longer so
splendid; segregation the model promised to
Afrikaners