The Congress of Berlin (1878):Bismarck sought to keep the peace in Europe after 1871

“The Triple Alliance” (German

cartoon, 1883):Germany,

Austria, & Italy have left France and Russia out

in the cold

Serbs & Romanians gained national

self-determinationin 1878, but other peoples remained

“prisoners”

The revival of fierce

competition for overseas

colonies also undermined the peace of Europe

EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM: THE FIRST WAVE, 1500-1750

The English fort at Bombay [Mumbai], 1672(headquarters of the British East India Company)

Sepoy Grenadiers, ca. 1800. The Company recruited them from both Muslim warrior families and high-caste Hindu Brahmins and Rajputs

The European Presence in Asia, 1914

Vegetation Zones of Africa:

Quinine was introduced in the 1850s to

control malaria

Dr. David Livingstone

(1813-1873), who sought to open Africa to “Christianity,

Commerce, and Civilization”

Livingstone’s horrifying discovery:Slaves in central Africa, 1861,

captured by Arab-African raiders from Zanzibar

“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” (Henry Stanley “finds” Livingstone in November 1871)

Stanley’s 999-day Congo expedition, 1874-1877, commissioned by King Leopold II of Belgium

The Berlin “Congo Conference” of 1884, where Leopold II won

recognition of his “Congo Free State”

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869:Engineered by Ferdinand de Lesseps but financed by

the Khedive of Egypt

The Khedive of Egypt, crippled by debt, ignores European offers of assistance (Punch, 1879)

British troops in Egypt establish a protectorate in 1882

and seize the Suez Canal

“The Partition of the DarkContinent” (Berlin, 1884)

“Captain Marchand, Crossing Africa” (Paris,

1898)

The Partition of Africa:

The Marginal European presence

in 1878 and the colonial empires of

1914 (p. 742 of your

textbook)

The brash young Kaiser Wilhelm II

dismissed Bismarck in 1890, cancelled his secret nonaggression pact with Russia, and

then launched a naval arms race with

Great Britainin 1898

Franco-Russian Military Convention of 1894

If France is attacked by Germany or by Italy supported by Germany, Russia will employ all its available forces to attack Germany. If Russia is attacked by Germany or by Austria supported by Germany, France will employ all its available forces to combat Germany. In case the forces of the Triple Alliance or of one of its members begin to mobilize, France and Russia will immediately and simultaneously mobilize all of their forces and deploy them as close to their borders as possible, as soon as the enemy mobilization is announced….The forces available for deployment against Germany will amount to 1,300,000 men on the part of France, and 700-800,000 men on the part of Russia. These forces are dedicated to combating Germany simultaneously from the East and West in the most effective manner possible.The military general staffs of the two countries will deliberate together to prepare and execute the measures outlined above….France and Russia will not conclude a separate peace. This convention will have the same duration as the Triple Alliance.

“Official Visit by the Russian Monarchs to France in 1901”

(Nicholas II seeks to popularize the Franco-Russian alliance of 1894)

The “Schlieffen Plan” of 1905 vs. the French “Plan XVII”

In 1898 Germany announced a plan to build battleships until its navy was as large as Britain’s. Wilhelm

II: “Germany must wield Neptune’s trident as well as Jupiter’s scepter.”

In response Britain launched the H.M.S.

Dreadnought in 1906, which made

every existing battleship obsolete

THE BALANCE OF INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH BETWEEN

GERMANY AND BRITAIN SWUNG SHARPLY IN THE 1890s:

Annual steel production (1000s of metric tons)

YEAR United Kingdom

Germany France Russia

1880 1,317 690 389 307

1900 4,980 6,461 1,565 2,216

1913 7,787 17,609 4,687 4,918

BUT GREAT BRITAIN REMAINED THE WORLD LEADER IN COMMERCE AND

FINANCE:Shares of World Foreign Trade

YEAR U.K. Germany France USA

1880 23% 10% 11% 10%

1900 20% 13% 9% 11%

1913 17% 13% 8% 11%

GERMANY’S ONLY RELIABLE ALLY SUFFERED FROM GRAVE

ETHNIC TENSIONS:

Proportion of Germans in

Austria: 33%.

Proportion of Magyars in

Hungary: 54%.

The Second Pan-Slav Congress, Moscow, 1867:Czechs, Bulgars, Serbs, & Croats gravitate to

Russia

Russia forged the closest ties with Serbia

The borders drawn after the Second Balkan

War in 1913

Rival nationalisms in the Balkans

Franz Ferdinand and his wife leave for the hospital to visit their wounded aide, Sarajevo, June 28, 1914

The chauffeur made a

wrong turn on the way to the hospital and stopped

to turn around, next

to Gavrilo Princip

CHRONOLOGY OF THE JULY CRISIS OF 1914

June 28 Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo

July 5/6 Germany issues a “blank check” to Austria

July 9/12 Austria resolves to attack Serbia but waits for its wheat harvest

July 23 Austrian ultimatum to Serbia

July 28/29

Austria declares war on Serbia and then bombards Belgrade

July 30 Russia orders general mobilization

July 31 Germany issues 12-hour ultimatum to Russia

Aug 1 Schlieffen Plan implemented

The actual German

advance by September

5, 1914, when the French

counter-attacked on the Marne

THE CENTRAL POWERS VS. THE ALLIES IN WORLD WAR I

But the German punch landed short, and four years of

trench warfare ensued…