UNIT EIGHT
WORLD WAR I
Introduction-Causes
Events do not just happen. This is true whether it is our own lives or history. The things we do and say have an effect on our lives; the things other people do and say have an effect on our lives; all of us affect each other by our actions and our words every day. When something happens in our lives, there are reasons why it happened. We may not understand those reasons at the time, but the reasons are still there. Nations can be compared to people in that nations are just groups of people; they cannot be any better or worse than the people in them. Nations say and do things, too, that have long term effects. All together all these actions and words may be enough to cause, say, a war to happen.
One of our limitations as humans is that most of us were not given the gift of seeing into the future to see how a course of action we are taking now may turn out later. It is hard for many of you right now, for example, to see why you must learn certain study habits; you can't foresee a time when you will really need them. Your parents and teachers can tell you do, but it's because we have lived longer, not because we knew at the time any better than you do. If we could foresee the results of our actions we might change our behavior. Again, the same is true of nations as of people; if the South had foreseen the outcome of the Civil War, it certainly would not have wanted to pursue a policy of provoking the North, and vice versa. Because we can't foresee the future for sure, we tend to deny that our behaviors will have any effect on others or ourselves and, if we are nations, we deny that our policies will have any effect.
European nations at the beginning of the 1900's had not fought a major war since 1815. They sort of thought they were through with that sort of thing. They set up what they called a "balance of power" and that was going to prevent wars. Then the situation changed and they reacted to this in ways that would eventually lead to war. Had they been able to see into the future, they would have known that that war when it came was going to be the most horrible war the world had ever seen to that date, and they might have modified their policies; but they could not see into the future and they denied to themselves that they were doing anything that might cause a war; so what if a war happened? it would be short and sweet and everyone would go home in 6 months, trailing clouds of glory!
Certain feelings were very powerful in Europe in 1914. One was nationalism. Nationalism is a feeling of belonging and pride in your nation. Nationalism has positive aspects and negative ones. One of the negative ones is that nations who feel very nationalistic may believe that they should have all the "good stuff"; the problem is that all the nationalistic nations think they should have the "good stuff" and war is likely to ensue to see who is powerful enough to have the "good stuff". Wars fought by nationalistic nations tend to be total wars-that is, you fight to the finish using all the means available to defeat the enemy. This is because nothing less than winning is acceptable. The second very strong feeling was imperialism. Nationalistic nations often want to extend their borders, power and influence by taking land, colonies or trade away from other nations. In Europe, which is a very small continent for its population-most of its countries are the size of our states-land is at a premium. You take someone's land and you're going to cause real problems! Most European countries in 1900 had colonies. Each country wanted more colonies or better colonies; again, you take somebody’s colony and you will cause real problems. Plus the fact that all the nationalistic nations want to extend their borders, get more colonies, have more trade-sooner or later they bumped into each other!
The technology created by the Industrial Revolution complicated the issue. Man was now able to create weapons of such accuracy and power that the amount of killing that would occur in a war would be unbelievable(to people in those times). Yet nationalistic nations wanted the best and the latest weapons available, and they wanted more of those weapons than anyone else. They raced to see which nation could produce ever more horrible things to kill people with. The temptation to use these weapons to see if they would work was almost intolerable. Certainly it would have taken very stable and sensible leaders of government to handle this situation. The technology of the Industrial Revolution also made the modern newspaper a possibility. Politicians and government leaders learned to use the newspaper as a way to influence people through the use of propaganda-that is, stories written which used the facts of a matter to only present one side of the story-yours. This type of writing got people worked up emotionally. It took sensible and stable leaders to use this new power responsibly, too.
Unfortunately for Europe, during those years preceding World War I, such stable and responsible leaders were in short supply. We will study these people in depth later in this chapter but suffice it to say the principal players in this drama of World War I were, as a whole, not spectacular men. Two were definitely unstable personalities, one was too old to care much anymore, two were rabid German-haters and one had been raised by his family to believe that no good could come out of his "cousin Willy".
The Governments of Europe-1870-1914
The Hapsburg Empire
The Hapsburg Empire was large and disorganized. It had been built by marriages in the Hapsburg family. Inside the Hapsburg Empire lived about 15 ethnic groups who did not like each other and who did not want to be there. Nationalism made them want to have their own independent countries, even though some of the groups were so small that that wouldn't have really been possible. Since it matters in today's world who these groups were, here they are: Germans,who lived in Austria proper; Magyars, who lived in Hungary; Czechs, who lived in Bohemia and Moravia-that's today’s Czech Republic; Slovaks, who lived in Slovakia-the eastern part of Czechoslovakia; Poles, who lived in Poland, Slovenes, who lived in Slovenia, Serbs, who lived in Serbia; Croats, who lived in Croatia, Bosnians who lived in Bosnia-Herzegovina; Italians, who lived in the northern parts of Italy, Ruthenians, who lived in Russia (today's Russia, not then), Rumanians, some Bulgarians and some Greeks and Macedonians. The only thing that kept the Hapsburg Empire together was the fact that the ethnic groups hated each other as badly as they did the Hapsburgs. The one biggest fear the Hapsburgs had was that somebody or something would unite these nationalities against them and it would be all over! as there were more of them then there were of the German Austrians. In 1867, the Magyars of Hungary had bullied the ruler of Austria, Fzanz Joseph, to give them special privileges and add their name to the country, so it became Austria-Hungary. This naturally infuriated all the other nationalities, who didn't see why Hungary was so favored. We'll see that Franz Joseph will make an alliance with Germany, and one reason he did this is that he thought he might need German help to hold the nationalities down.
In addition to its problems with the nationalities, the Hapsburg Empire was old and weak and falling apart. It was backward. People didn't have these huge multinational empires anymore. It was so big it would have taken a genius to run it, and Franz Joseph was not that. Its government was backward; it had an absolute monarchy which is a government where the ruler has no limits on his power. Franz Joseph could be advised if he asked to be, but he didn't have to do anything he was advised to do. He controlled the money and what it got spent on. Franz Joseph had had a hard and not too happy life, and in the years we'll be talking about, he was getting on in years. Franz Josef had become emperor in 1848 when he was still quite young. His mother was a stubborn and domineering type who had "ruled" dad and she intended quite definitely to "rule" her son, too. The first thing she decided had to be done was to find a girl for Franz Josef to marry. That she did. She wrote her sister to send her oldest daughter Helene for Franz Josef to meet. The plan did not go as well as mom had hoped; her sister brought two of her daughters to visit. The oldest, Helene, was not very pretty; she was tall and too thin and she had straight hair that refused to cooperate. Her little sister, Elisabeth, whom everyone called Sisi, was beautiful; she had curly auburn hair, beautiful skin and a nice figure; and she wasn't at all vain about her appearance, which made her even more attractive. Unfortunately for his mom, Franz Josef saw Sisi first and got his first "crush". It was Sisi or nobody for him! Sisi was only 15 years old and not at all interested in marriage. She was still a tomboy and liked horses a whole lot better than boys. However, Franz Josef was an emperor, and it was a "good" marriage, so she ended up married to him. Franz Josef's mom made the newly-weds' lives miserable. She couldn't stand it that her son had actually stood up to her over something, and she was afraid she'd lose him to Sisi. The couple had three children in a very short time: two little girls and a boy. When the boy was about 12, they had their last child, a little girl. The couple was not allowed to raise their kids alone. Franz Josef's mom took the kids away, one by one, saying that Sisi wasn't a fit mother for her children. The first tragedy of Franz Josef's adult life was the loss of the oldest child to diphtheria, a childhood disease that kids got in those days. The second tragedy was that Sisi was not happy in the marriage and nothing Franz Josef did seemed to help. She took to taking long trips abroad, and on one of these trips she was assassinated. The third tragedy was the loss of Rudolf, his only son. Rudolf committed suicide because he was not allowed to marry the girl he really loved. She was a commoner; that means she wasn't royal, and that won't do in a royal marriage. The last tragedy will be the incident that begins World War I, the assassination of his nephew Franz Ferdinand. Franz Joseph was depressed and sad; he didn't much care anymore.
In spite of the problems the Hapsburgs had, they still wanted more land. To get this land, Austria-Hungary wanted to expand into the Balkans. The only trouble with that was that she wasn't the only country that wanted to do this , and there were other countries invested in keeping the Balkans the way they were.
Russia
Russia was a huge, old fashioned and backward country. Russia's problems at the time are a little easier to understand if you know something about its geography. As I said, it is huge. You could fit five of the United States in it, and we're by no means a small country. You could fit 15 Europes in it. In spite of its huge size, however, most of Russia's land cannot be used as living space because of its climate. It is COLD in some parts of Russia-so cold that a warm summer temperature would still be below zero. As a consequence the land is continually frozen, and the water around the northern parts of Russia is also frozen most of the year. Most Russians live in what is known as "European Russia", that part of Russia found west of the Ural Mountains. Even there it is cold a good part of the year, but it's bearable. In spite of its huge size, Russia has few seaports. The reason for this is that Russia has little usable coastline. On the western side of Russia, there is a little coastline on the Baltic Sea. However, it is only usable in the summer; the rest of the time the water is frozen. The Pacific coastline is too far away from where the main activity of Russia goes on , and it also is frozen much of the year. Russia has some seaports on the Black Sea; however, the Black Sea is land-locked. The only way out is through the Straits of Dardanelles, the Sea of Mamara, and the Aegean Sea. Russia has not ever owned those places, and she probably never will. Because of these facts about her geography, Russia has had difficulties with trade by sea; because of her size and climate, she has had trouble with communication with the outside world. Europeans knew little about Russia and she knew little about them This was one reason she was so backward-it is hard to learn from others when we can't get to them.
In the years we'll be studying, Russia was ruled by an absolute monarchy. However, the ruler of Russia (called the tsar, or czar-it means caesar, for you Latin students) had more power than any Western absolute ruler ever had. The tsar of Russia was also head of the Russian Orthodox Church, which gave him religious power as well as political power. There was no representative body of any kind. This marked Russia as backward because most other countries did have one, even if the king ignored it.
Russia was backward in other ways, too. The Industrial Revolution had not come to Russia. Russia was still feudal and agricultural. Most of its people were poor peasant farmers. In the few factories, people made things the old fashioned way-by hand or with simple machines. Most Russians were illiterate, and many of them had never traveled even twenty-five miles away from home. They knew little of the outside world. If they were upset about their poverty or lack of freedom, it was too bad; they knew they couldn't do anything about it. They felt helpless.
Like Austria-Hungary, Russia had many ethnic groups living in it. She had Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Cossacks(from Kazakhistan), Armenians, Moldavians, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians to name just a few. Like Austria-Hungary, she also feared they might revolt, And like Austria-Hungary, in spite of not being able to take care of or control what she had, Russia wanted more! She also wanted to expand into the Balkans. Russia wanted the Balkans so that she could have access to the sea without having to deal with the fact that the Turks owned the outlet that went through Constantinople and the Straits of Dardanelles. When Russia messed around in the Balkans, she ran head on into Austria-Hungary. Therefore, Austria-Hungary and Russia were rivals and didn't like each other very much.
Russia was ruled by the Romanov family. Romanovs had ruled Russia for about as long as Hapsburgs had ruled Austria. It was an old dynasty. The ruler for most of the time we'll be talking about was Tsar Nicholas II, who was called Nicky by his friends and family. He was married to Alexandra, called Alix by the family. Alexandra was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Nicky was indecisive, insecure, easily led by other people, and not too bright. The main person who led him around was his wife. The couple had had four girl children and they wanted a son; on the last go round, they got one. They named him Alexis and he was their pride and joy. Then they discovered that Alexis had a fatal blood disease called hemophilia; this is a disease which is inherited from the mother. Queen Victoria carried the gene that causes hemophilia and she passed it on to her daughter Alice who was Alix's mother, and Alice had passed it on to her. Now Alix and Nicky were distant cousins and that multiplied the chances that a son would have the disease. Girls don't get it; it's a sex linked gene. You can imagine the sorrow that the news caused Nicky and Alix; there was no treatment for hemophilia then; Alexis could bleed to death internally from the slightest bruise, and all they could do was sit and watch. One evening at a party the couple was introduced to a starets, a holy man, named Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin was said to be able to heal people. Nicky wasn't too impressed, but Alix was taken with Rasputin, whom she truly believed could keep Alexis from bleeding, and stop the bleeding once it started. Rasputin was not really a starets; he was faking it to get fame, attention and money. He was a greedy, grasping and ambitious man. He was also a drunk and a womanizer; his exploits were all the gossip! However, Alix refused to believe the truth when she was told, and Rasputin hung around the court far too much, enough to cause scandal, and to hurt Nicky's credibility as he tried to govern his country. When Nicky finally sent Rasputin away, Alexis had a bleeding episode and Alix cried and whined until Nicky brought him back. We'll see that Rasputin had a lot to do with the fall of the Romanovs during World War I. Needless to say, Nicky's mind was not fully on governing his country; things got by him that shouldn't have.
The Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire was old, weak , and falling apart. It was known as "the sick man of Europe". It had been built by conquest over a period of time. It was owned by the Turks. They had come to power in the Middle East by the 11th century and had begun conquering land then and they were not effectively stopped until 1683. They owned the Crimea, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, western Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algiers. In Europe they owned many countries in the Balkans-Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, and parts of Yugoslavia. After the defeat at Vienna in 1683, it was all downhill for the Turks. They began to lose little parts of their empire here and there. Gradually they also lost their strength. Militarily, by 1900, they couldn't have kept Russia and Austria out. They were saved by the fact that Britain and France wanted them there because having them there preserved a "balance of power" that would have been destroyed if any one nation had taken the Balkan Peninsula. The fact that Britain and France propped up the ailing Ottoman Empire was extremely frustrating to both Austria-Hungary and Russia. What to do about the ailing Ottoman Empire in its weakness was a problem called the Eastern Question. This mainly concerned keeping Austria-Hungary and Russia from taking land in the Balkans-the Turks' land that they were too weak to defend.
The Balkans
This was the term used to talk about the Balkan Peninsula and its mix of ethnic groups, some of which were free and had their own countries, and some of whom belonged to either Austria, Russia or the Turks. There are many ethnic groups in the Balkans; this is as true today as it was then. These ethnic groups don't like each other very much and there's always been a lot of fighting between them. Any area where this type of thing goes on, and where there is unpredictable change is called "unstable". Unstable areas are dangerous in terms of world peace. This is because larger nations are tempted to interfere in the local fighting to further their own ends, and this may upset the balance of power. In the case of the Balkans, as we have already said, Austria-Hungary and Russia were interested in moving in, Britain and France don't want them to, and the Turks couldn't do anything about any of it. The Balkan peoples themselves all wanted their own country, no matter how small it might be, which was not a practical solution to the problem either. They hated all the "foreigners"-whether it was Austrians, Russians, British, French or Turks. If they had to make a choice, however, they preferred Russia whom they saw as being like them ethnically, at least.
One Balkan nation posed particular problems. It was called Serbia. Serbia had won its independence from the Turks. However, Austria-Hungary had Serbs living inside it, and Austria-Hungary didn't like it that Serbia was free. To her mind, it set a real bad example. Austria-Hungary wanted Serbia out of the way. To this end, Austria-Hungary showed a great deal of interest in Bosnia, its next door neighbor , which was still owned by the Turks. If she could have Bosnia, then she would be next door to Serbia, and you can probably imagine what would happen next! Russia did not want Austria-Hungary to get any further into the Balkans, so she let Serbia know that she had Russia's support. We'll see what happens!
Germany
Germany, which was finally united by force on the part of Prussia in 1871, changed the balance of power in Europe. Germany had tremendous industrial, technological and military potential. She had the resources for the industry, and her people were good at the technological sorts of things, and they had a bent for inventing military technology. The Germans were hard-working and well-organized and it was a sure thing that, in time, Germany would outstrip all her neighboring countries in industrial production and wealth. They might even threaten Britain, the number one country in those things. For this reason, the other countries regarded Germany with awe and more than a little fear.
After Germany's unification, Bismarck, the chancellor who had overseen and directed the unification, continued to control most of its policies. This would continue until he was fired by young Kaiser Wilhelm. Bismarck knew about Germany's potential , and he wanted time for Germany to develop it. This meant no more wars for the time being. Bismarck's foreign policy, then, will be one which will seek to prevent war. This was not easy, because the French were still seething about the Franco-Prussian War in which they had been soundly defeated by the Germans. Therefore, the most important part of Bismarck's policy dealt with France. Here are the things Bismarck planned to do to carry out his policy of preventing war:
To accomplish these things required a little finesse, but Bismarck was up to it! (unfortunately his successors weren't) The first thing he did was to try to get Austria-Hungary, Russia , and Germany together in an alliance called the Dreikaiserbund, or in English, Three Emperors' League. This was supposed to be all the countries with emperors together, all nice and cozy; the idea was that the three emperors had the common interest of keeping the absolute monarchy idea alive. It didn't work out too well because two of the emperors didn't want to get together. Bismarck was very frustrated. He commented that "It was like holding two snarling dogs apart"; the problem was that Russia and Austria-Hungary could not get along because of the Balkans, so Bismarck gave that idea up. Since he had to choose one or the other of them for an alliance partner, he chose Austria-Hungary. He did this because he figured he could manipulate Austria-Hungary more easily than he could Russia; Austria-Hungary was closer to him and more dependent on him in a military sense. He signed the Dual Alliance with Austria. He wasn't giving up on Russia either, however. He talked Russia into signing a "Reinsurance Treaty" which guaranteed that Russia would remain neutral (that is, out of it) should Germany go to war with somebody. The Reinsurance Treaty did not last past Bismarck's firing.
Bismarck knew that it would never do to irritate the British and get them on his case, and he knew they were upset about the way Germany had made hash of France. If there was anyone that might be a threat to him, it was the British. Therefore, he was careful in his dealings with them. First, he was careful not to pursue any overseas expansion in the form of colony-hunting. He knew the British would consider that a threat to their empire. Second, knowing that the British navy was the British pride and joy, as well as their chief security, he did not challenge the British on the seas by building a navy.
Bismarck also figured that Austria-Hungary had the potential to drag him into war because of the alliance he had signed with her. The way Austria-Hungary would probably do that is by getting herself involved in some conflict with the Russians or the Turks in the Balkans , which she would do by trying to take some land there. Therefore he let Austria-Hungary know that she had better cool it, and that he wasn't going to support her taking anything that she wasn't supposed to have.
Bismarck knew the British would be majorly irritated if he went messing around in the Balkans. The British would see it as a threat to their trade interests in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Therefore he played down any interest the Germans might have in the Balkans.
Bismarck's policies lasted until he was fired. In 1888, the old king-William I- died. His son, Frederick III, became Kaiser, but he ruled only 3 months; he was dying of cancer of the throat when he became Kaiser. That meant that his son, Wilhelm (Willy for short) became Kaiser. Willy. who had been born in 1859, was 29 years old. Willy was an interesting character study. Since he played such a large part in the story of World War I, we need to spend a few words on him here. Willy's parents were Queen Victoria's oldest daughter Vicky and Kaiser Wilhelm's son Friedrich. Vicky was her father's favorite child and he taught her all he knew; the only problem with that was that it made Vicky much too educated in a day when a woman were supposed to be a decoration in her husband's house and to give him pleasure. Women were supposed to have kids, cook, keep house and do church work. Vicky made the men around her feel stupid, and that just didn't go over in the late 1800's. When she was fifteen years old, her mom and dad decided she needed to get married, and they decided she should marry Friedrich-Fritz for short. Vicky went to Germany to live and her knowledge did her even less good there-the Germans didn't want to hear her English views on their government. They called her "die Englanderin" - the Englishwoman-in an unpleasant manner. Then she and Friedrich had Willy. Willy was born with a birth defect-one arm was injured as he was born, and it never developed or grew to the right length. In those days, kids weren't cut any slack for having any disabilities, and Willy was expected to do all the things he was supposed to do as a young boy in Germany in those days-ride a horse, naturally; everybody rode horses; fence, dance-ballroom, not ballet, guys; shoot geese, hunt, etc.-the trouble was, a lot of these things aren't too easy when you only have one working arm to do them with. His parents never let up on him , and he did learn after awhile, but not before he developed a complex about them. He developed a bad case of low self esteem, and he unfortunately (for everyone around him) compensated for this by showing off and being obnoxious. He acted out, we'd say today. He also became extremely vain-he was stuck on Willy! His poor weak ego could, of course, not tolerate any criticism, so he and Bismarck were going to be on collision course from day one-Bismarck saw no particular reason to defer to a "kid" half his age, even if he was Kaiser! Willy had no respect for his mother; everybody told him she was sort of weird and not to listen to her, so none of Vicky's liberal ideas got passed on to Willy. Willy thought he was far smarter than Bismarck, too. It wasn't too long until there was a fight and Bismarck was fired. Bismarck went down to his country estate and never looked back.
Meantime, Willy, convinced he knew ever so much more than Bismarck, set about undoing all Bismarck's hard work to make Germany less vulnerable. The first thing he did was to let the Reinsurance Treaty expire. He just didn't quite see the importance of the treaty, so when the time came to renew it, he didn't. What he had not understood was that his failure to renew the treaty freed Russia to go make deals with some other country! Russia did just that. France was eager to make a treaty with Russia, so it wasn't long before the Dual Entente was signed! This said that if either France or Russia was attacked by Germany, the other country would come to the rescue! This made France feel ever so much better-she was not so alone and isolated anymore. For Germany, the Dual Entente spelled disaster. For now she was in the middle, like the meat in a sandwich! The enemies could come for her on both sides-two-front war! Bismarck had been trying so hard to prevent this........
Then Willy decided he had to have a navy! Willy was related to the British royal family through his mother; his grandmother was Queen Victoria (she thought he was a spoiled little brat) and his uncle would one day be Edward 7th (Uncle Ed thought Willy was mal eleve-badly brought up!) Willy feared, envied, admired and hated his British relatives (if you think that sounds mixed up, well, Willy was mixed up!). His British relatives had the strongest and largest navy on earth, and Willy just couldn't deal with it. He'd seen the navy first hand, of course, on visits to Britain to see the family. He also really liked the sea and ships. So Willy built a navy. He went at it with all the passion in his soul. Soon Willy had lots of ships, all new, and all the latest technology! Germany was producing them so quickly that the British had to sit up and take notice (Willy was so pleased about this-figured he'd really got to those British this time-he felt they scorned him and looked down on him) The German navy was a problem for the British for many reasons. One was that the British navy wasn't all new-some of the ships were old and outdated. Another was that the British king did not have unlimited money to spend on ships like Willy did. Defense was only part of the budget, and Parliament decided how much it wanted to spend on the navy. This meant that it would be hard for Britain to keep up with the Germans. Now keeping up had always been very important to the British; they liked to keep a 2:1 ratio of ships with the country that had the next largest navy. This means that if Germany had 20 ships, Britain wanted 40. If Germany kept producing ships at the rate she was producing them, there was no way Britain could keep up the 2:1 ratio; for the first time in a long time, (since Napoleon, actually) Britain felt a little threatened. For this, she decided she cordially hated Willy and Germany. This was too bad, because she'd been willing to be neutral on the subject of united Germany as long as it didn't threaten her.
Willy didn't stop with the navy. He decided Germany should have some colonies. There weren't many places left, and that made Willy mad. He found some not-so-hot ones in eastern Africa, which he took, but he never stopped complaining that he'd had to take all the "left-overs" and that his colonies weren't any good! He also decided it would be fun to get involved in Britain's troubles in her colony in South Africa. What he did was to help the Boers against the British. To understand who the Boers were, you need a little South African history.
South Africa was first found by the Portuguese and they used it as a pit stop on the way to the Far East-to rest and repair their ships. The Dutch made the first settlements there. The Dutch that came to South Africa were members of the Calvinist faith-the Dutch Reformed Church. Some Calvinists settled in our country, too; in America, they were English Calvinists, and they were called Pilgrims and Puritans, so you should have some vague idea what the Dutch Calvinists were like. Calvinism was a very strict religion; you wouldn't want to be one for a day; most of the things we do for fun they disapproved of heartily! Calvinists believed your life should be devoted to religion, work, and finding God! Calvinists dressed very plainly, never danced, never drank, never played card games, never had parties-unless it was a work party, like a quilting bee! Central to their belief was the idea that God had decided if you were saved or not before you were conceived, and there was nothing you could do about it . Obviously the "saved" were better than the "unsaved" so equality was no part of this belief. To Calvinists, if you were not one of them, there was, of course, no hope for you, so the African natives they found in Africa they considered to be "unsaved" and the Calvinists made slaves of them. The Dutch created a society and a way of life for themselves in South Africa. They called themselves Afrikaners and they spoke a variation on Dutch called Afrikaans. (Another name sometimes used for them was Voor; when the English tried to say this later, it came out ‘Boer’) The last thing the Afrikaners wanted was to be conquered by the British; but that's what happened. The two groups did not get along and relationships were strained, but they managed. They did not mix; the Dutch kept themselves separate from the English. In 1834, the British passed a law that forbade slavery in all lands owned by them; this would include South Africa, of course. This was the last straw for the Afrikaners. They decided to move away-so far away that they would not be subject to British law. In their history, this was called the "Great Trek" and those who made it were the "Voortrekkers". When they thought they were far enough away, they founded two new states, the Transvaal and Orange Free State. Unfortunately, they weren't far enough away to escape British jurisdiction, but Britain let them alone for the moment. The people of the Transvaal elected Paul Kruger president of their country. Then, gold was found in the Transvaal, and people came by the thousands to get rich! Mr. Kruger and the other Afrikaners didn't like the "Uitlanders" (Outlanders) as he called them. They passed discriminatory laws against the Outlanders. At this point Mr. Cecil Rhodes entered the scene. Mr. Rhodes was a millionaire; he'd made his fortune in diamonds; he was British and he wanted all Africa to belong to the British because that would help him get richer-easier to trade. Mr. Rhodes was so wealthy that he had his own private army. He tried to encourage the Outlanders to revolt against Mr. Kruger, but they didn't do it. Mr. Rhodes decided that he would take care of the situation , then, and he sent one of his men, a Mr. Jamison, to raid the Transvaal. All this was done without the knowledge of the British government. Mr. Rhodes expected to whip the Afrikaners easily but he did not! In fact, he was whipped! This is where Willy comes in. It seems that Willy had decided to help the Afrikaners against the British just for the joke of it; he had given them money and arms, and that is one reason they had whipped Mr. Rhodes so easily. To top it all off, Willy sent a telegram congratulating Mr. Kruger on winning! When the British government first heard of the incident, they were embarrassed because they hadn't known about it; but their embarrassment turned to anger when they heard of the Germans' involvement. At this point, grandmother Victoria wrote a letter to Willy in which she demanded an apology from her grandson. She never got one.
Next, Willy could not control Austria-Hungary. She just did whatever she wanted. Some of the things Austria-Hungary did Willy could have used pressure to stop but he did not. Instead he saw himself as the "savior" of poor Austria-Hungary.
Finally, Willy let it be known he was as anxious as the next person to have a piece of the Balkans. He had ideas about building a railroad through there to the Middle East to get oil. He began to act very friendly with the Turks.
Britain
Britain was the world's oldest, richest , and strongest constitutional monarchy in the years 1870-1914. She had the largest number of colonies of any of the nations; they said, truthfully enough, that the "sun never set on the British Empire"-that it was always day somewhere on British territories. She had possessions in North America, the islands off the coast of North America , islands off the coast of South America, Australia, New Zealand, India, some of China, and some of Africa. She had the largest and strongest navy, even though it was being threatened by the German one. Her industry was strong and production was high; it was fed by resources from all over the world-that's what Britain kept the colonies for. She was the envy of all of the nations. You thought twice before messing with Britain.
She had a form of government known as limited monarchy. This means that she had a monarch, but that monarch had no real power. Parliament governed the country; but the British liked the idea of the monarch; it lent stability to the situation. The ruler for most of the 1800's was Queen Victoria. She ruled for a long, long time-from 1837-1901. She ruled so long her name was given to the times-the Victorian Age. You need to know a little about Victoria because she was so influential.
Victoria became queen sort of by accident. She was not first in the line of succession, but both of her uncles on her father's side died childless-that is, of legitimate children who could inherit. Victoria was 18 when she became queen. She had an overprotective mother, and it's said that Victoria's first order as queen was that her mother was to get out of Victoria's bedroom-her mom slept in her daughter's bedroom to make sure there was never any male company there! Victoria had a fine old time as a young queen-she loved the parties and fun times. It was decided she needed to get married to settle her down. Her two cousins, Albert and Ernst, were invited to Britain to see Victoria. Victoria fell head over heels in love with Albert, and she remained that way the rest of her life. She and Albert were married and together had 9 children: Victoria, Albert Edward, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold, and Beatrice. Albert was from a place in Germany called Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, so Victoria's name, now that she was married, was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, since that was Albert's name. (During World War I, the royal family thought the name sounded too German, so they changed it to Windsor, which it remains) Albert thought his wife belonged to be doing useful things, like having kids and doing service and learning instead of partying all the time (actually, this was because Albert was kind of shy and didn't like parties). Victoria loved him so much that she gave up her parties and dances and became a model wife, setting an example for all the women in Britain. Albert was very strait-laced and moralistic and Victoria became that way, too. She retained, however, her domineering nature and her stubbornness, and she ruled her family with an iron hand. She decided it would be a good idea to be very selective in choosing her children's marriage partners, and that that way she could have some control over Europe-through telling her children how to manipulate their mates! Things didn't turn out that neatly, however. She forgot that sometimes kids have minds of their own, and she forgot that families often fight. The results of her efforts were that of the generation of rulers that were ruling at the time of World War I, three were related to each other because of Victoria! Willy, Nicholas, the tsar of Russia, and George, the king of England, were all cousins! George and Nicky looked enough alike to be brothers! Nicky's wife, Alix, was also their cousin.
Britain's standard policy toward Europe(and the rest of the world that didn't belong to her) was "splendid isolation"-that is, that Britain really didn't care and she definitely DID NOT want to be involved. In fact, she would be MOST annoyed if any obnoxious country were to make her HAVE to pay attention to Europe. She felt that if a balance of power were kept in Europe, there would be no wars there, and wouldn't that be nice, because all Britain wanted to do was to keep feathering her nest-getting richer, that is.
The advent of united Germany was to change all this. As you know, Bismarck realized it wasn't the thing to do to irritate the British. Willy, however, had had no such good sense, and he irritated the British majorly. He irritated and threatened them so much that they abandoned the policy of "splendid isolation". They looked around for allies; they eventually made a treaty with Japan, and they made up their differences with the United States-neither she nor we were ready to commit to alliances at this point-and in Europe, she sought out an old enemy-France. For Britain to seek out this country whom she had fought tooth and nail for centuries showed how threatened she felt. Eventually France and Britain made an alliance-the Entente Cordiale.
When Victoria died, Edward became king. Edward could not stand his nephew Willy, whom he thought was rude and obnoxious and had been badly raised. Edward also was very fond of the French; he was part of the reason France had been willing to sign a treaty with her old enemy Britain. He ruled until 1913. He had such a short reign because his mother lived so long. His son George became king. George had been brought up to dislike Germans, and especially to dislike Cousin Willy.....
France
France during the years 1870-1914 had one thing on her mind-getting revenge against the Germans for the Franco-Prussian War. During the Franco-Prussian War, the French people in Paris overthrew the government of Napoleon III. For a short time, radical leftists in Paris tried to set up a commune-a Marxist-style city government. It didn't last long, and a republic was set up called the Third French Republic. This republic lasted from 1870-1940. France, like Britain, had a large overseas empire, and she was interested in acquiring more colonies . France had colonies in Africa and the Far East. France spent a lot of time during the years 1870-1914 planning for the time when she would get revenge on Germany. She could not do this alone, she knew. She also knew that if Germany should attack her again for some reason, that she could not defend herself by herself. Therefore, she was interested in allies. She got one in Russia after Bismarck was fired-the Dual Entente- and she finally got a half-heated promise from Britain in the Entente Cordiale.
The United States
The United States in these years was a sleeping giant. We were unaware of our strength and we were uninterested in the outside world. Had anyone told an American living in 1870 that in 1917 the U.S. would be fighting with a bunch of European countries in a world war, that American would have laughed heartily. We had left Europe behind; who would want to get involved with that again?
In 1870, the Civil War had been over for five years. The South was undergoing a period of military occupation called "Reconstruction". The North was busy recovering from war and getting back to building American industry. People were still moving west, but land was getting scarcer. Gold was found in Alaska!
America had its problems- as time went on, the South reluctantly met the conditions of military occupation and the Southern states were readmitted to the Union-but the whole experience caused the Southerners to seek a scapegoat for it . The Southerners chose the African Americans who had been their slaves before the war. Groups that had been formed during Reconstruction such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camellia grew stronger now that there were no Northern troops to stop them. They harassed and intimidated African Americans that tried to exercise their civil rights; they even went so far as to kill African Americans they thought were too "uppity" by lynching, which is a horrible and painful way to die. Laws were passed in Southern states to legally separate whites from African Americans-these laws were known as "Jim Crow" laws. Unfortunately, these laws were upheld by a Supreme Court decision called Plessy v. Ferguson. This said that as long as the facilities for whites and African Americans were of equal quality, it was o.k. to segregate them. However, the facilities for African Americans were never equal. The blacks would have a long, hard, and often frustrating time getting back the rights that had been taken from them. In the industrial areas of this country, the problems were mainly caused by the incredible growth of "big business". This was the time when many of the well-known rich businessmen made their fortunes-there was little if any government regulation of business so as a businessmen you could pretty much do as you pleased. There were incredible numbers of poor factory workers living in slums and "company towns". There seemed to be no way out. "Big business" controlled not only the industry of this country, they controlled the Congress as well since big business voted for men they knew would pass laws they wanted, and these laws were not going to help the poor. It would be a long time before the poor workers had any help at all. America was also becoming "nativist"-that is, they didn't want more "foreigners" to come here-the reason being that the "foreigners" were often willing to work for even less money than the American poor person.
As America got closer to the 20th century, it became imperialistic. We did not have far to go to find an area to dominate! There was all of South America, which had gradually won its independence, for us to play around in. We used our old "Monroe Doctrine", which had been originally created to keep greedy European countries away from us, to state that this hemisphere was our "sphere of influence" and they better stay out. Because they weren't interested in South America now that all the gold was gone, they did. We picked up some "territories" during this time-the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. In 1898, we fought a war with Spain and picked up Cuba in the process. In the early 1900's, we built the Panama Canal across the isthmus of Panama. Our behavior in South America did not make us that popular with them, which is something you will need to remember.
IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF WORLD WAR I