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EUROPE 1871-1914
1
...
In Britain, the working classes that had given the country the greatest successes
in the industrial revolution clamored to be heard by the ruling elite
...
A similar development took place in Germany, where the Social
Democratic party emerged as a political force despite the numerous attempts by the ruling elite to
destroy its power
...
The entire population,
receiving the same information and the same interpretation of the news, was galvanized by various
events, such as the Dreyfus Affair, which cut right to the heart of French society
...

Foreign policy throughout this era was generally dominated by the imperial game
...
The ancient states of Asia (i
...
China
and southeast Asian societies) also generally succumbed to European invasion
...

By the end of the nineteenth century, the political balance of power that had kept Europe at a
moderate level of peace since 1815 began to unravel
...

The balance of power degenerated into the bipolarization of the European world--namely, the
separation of alliances into two groups, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente
...


2
...
Initiated at
the Congress of Vienna, the conservative powers led by Metternich in Austria developed a
European geopolitical system based on the maintenance of the status quo and designed to avoid war
through a balance of powers that eliminated the threat of any one nation gaining extreme strength
by ensuring the relative strength of that nation's adversaries
...
The revolts of 1830 and 1848 were also generated by
the clash of ideologies present through the mid-nineteenth century
...
Though the 1830 and 1848
revolts were quickly suppressed by the conservative powers, they did demonstrate a general trend
toward an increasingly active working class desirous of economic and political power
...

The years between 1871 and 1914 brought liberal progress in England, social welfare in Germany,
imperial expansion throughout the world, the spread of European civilization, and economic

strengthening of England, Germany, the United States, and Japan
...
Without war or major conflict in
sight, Europe set out to perfect its home and spread its perfection throughout the world
...

Unfortunately, certain paternalistic policies developed out of such a perspective
...
Further, though no major war seemed to threaten, the forty years
after 1871 erupted in World War I, a catastrophic war that tore through Europe with a brutality
unanticipated by any of its combatants
...


3
...

The system originated after the defeat of Napoleon, continued throughout the nineteenth century in
Europe and succeeded at promoting peace
...

Scramble for Africa - · 1875-1912; the term used to describe Europe's rush to colonize and divide
up the African continent in the latter part of the nineteenth century; this coincided with imperialism
throughout Asia
...
Each nation pledged to consult the others on matters of mutual interest and guaranteed that
in case one went to war with a nation in western Europe, the other two would remain neutral
...

Labour Party - · A British political party that first gained prominence in 1892 with the election if
its first representative to the House of Commons; represented the interests of British workers and
called for the beginnings of socialist platform, and generally advocated the welfare state,
government intervention in the economy, protection to workers, a short work day, et cetera
...
Bosnia
and Herzegovina were turned over to Austria-Hungary and Russia pledged to abandon its support of
Serbia nationalism--all in the name of the balance of power
...
Eventually the policy caused such concern from the general population
that the Catholic Center party gained a substantial showing in the Reichstag, forcing the
government to back down from its repression
...

Triple Entente - · 1907; informal alliance between France, Russia, and Great Britain; France and
Russia had maintained an alliance since 1895
...

Social Democratic Party - · By 1914, the largest single party in the German Reichstag; represented
the left of the political spectrum, held a Marxist political and economic philosophy, and adapted to
cooperation within the democratic system
...
Unlike the violent revolutionaries, this party supported a gradual development from
capitalism to socialism by making changes beneficial to the worker within the capitalist
government
...
Virulently racist, with strong
notions of racial superiority, they came into conflict with the British when gold deposits were
discovered in the Afrikaner province of Transvaal
...
An utter humiliation to the Chinese, the treaty forced the Chinese to pay huge indemnities to
the British and grant large spheres of influence to its conquerors
...

Extraterritoriality - · The policy that foreigners were exempt from Chinese law enforcement and
that, though on Chinese land, they could only be judged and tried by officials of their own nation
who generally looked the other way when profit was the goal; contributed to considerable
indignation on the part of the Chinese
...

Otto von Bismarck - Chancellor of the German Empire; a keen political operative who understood
the geopolitics of modern Europe and worked to change the balance of power to Germany's favor;
his main goal was to isolate his strongest enemy, i
...
France, from any other state on the Continent,
thus his alliances with Austria-Hungary and Russia prior to 1895
...

Menelik II - Emperor of Ethiopia and a skillful politician; realized that his country could only
defeat the European imperialists by playing them off one another, therefore, he made small
concessions to each in return for weapons
...
When Italy did invade Ethiopia to take control
on 1 March 1896, Menelik II used all the modern weaponry he had obtained to defeat the
Europeans
...
He was the major investor who,
after the discovery of gold in Transvaal, brought the British in to mine the mineral, sparking conflict
with the Afrikaner government
...


Events
Boulanger Affair - 1889; the attempt by General Georges Boulanger to orchestrate his election to
the presidency of France and establish a military dictatorship
...
Still, the coup attempt failed when he did not receive enough
votes
...
Russia, based on its foreign policy of
pan-Slavism, declared war on the Ottomans in due course
...
Sultan Hamid II of Turkey sought peace in January 1878
...

Third Balkan Crisis - 1912-1913; Italy in conflict with the Ottoman Empire over holdings around
the Adriatic Sea; Serbia takes advantage of weakened Ottoman Empire to attack Bulgarian lands for
her own sea port; Russia supports Serbia and Austria-Hungary supports Bulgaria, while Britain and
Germany urged peace; this crisis enraged Serbs against Austria-Hungary for its support of Bulgaria
and its continued occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina
Dreyfus Affair - 1894; Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jew, was tried and convicted of treason for
selling French military secrets to the Germans
...
Conservatives generally supported his conviction in the name
of national unity and anti-Semitism, while liberals and supporters of the government demanded his
exoneration in the name of liberty and truth; he was eventually exonerated
...
The conference granted him recognition and set out formal requirements
for future international recognition: "effective occupation" designed for economic development
would be required, meaning that no longer did plunging a flag into the ground mean it was
occupied
...
The war progressed rather poorly
for the better-equipped, better-trained, and larger British army
...
In
1902, the British accepted the conditional surrender of the Afrikaners in which the entire colony
was united under British rule; however, the British promised the Afrikaners that no decision to
include the black majority in government would be made before rule was returned to the Afrikaners
...
The British blockaded Chinese ports, besieged Canton, and occupied
Shanghai before the Chinese sought peace in the Treaty of Nanking
...
Reacting immediately, an international expeditionary force of
Japanese, Russian, British, American, German, French, Austrian and Italian troops sacked Beijing to
protect the interests of their respective countries
...


4
...

1879 ·Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary
...

1884 ·Berlin Conference held to regulate imperialism in Africa
...

1886 ·Gold discovered in the Transvaal territory in South Africa, heightening British interests in
controlling this area
...

1890 ·Kasier Wilhelm II dismisses Otto von Bismarck
...

1894 ·"Dreyfus Affair" in France begins and captures the attention of the entire nation for some
time
...

1899-1902 ·Boer War in South Africa between the British and the Afrikaners
...

1907 ·Triple Entente between Great Britain, France, and Russia
...

1912 ·Third Balkan Crisis: Italy versus Turkey
...


5
...
Supporters of Britain claimed that this
success derived from a tradition of vibrant parliamentary democracy
...
A second reform
bill passed in 1867 vertically expanded voting rights, but power remained in the hands of a
minority--property-owning elites with a common background, a common education, and an
essentially common outlook on domestic and foreign policy
...
Though the Liberals and
Conservatives did advance different philosophy on the economy and government in its most basic
sense, the common brotherhood on all representatives in parliament assured a relatively stable
policy-making history
...
By 1900, wages were stagnating while prices
continued to rise throughout the country
...
Workers
responded to their problems by putting their faith not in the Liberal Party, the group that
traditionally received the worker vote since industrialization, but in the oft-militant trade unions,
organizations that advanced worker demands in Parliament, cared for disabled workers, and assisted
in pension, retirement, and contract matters
...
He represented the Labour Party and built upon trade union
support to craft a workers' party dedicated to advancing the cause of working Englishmen
...
By 1906, twenty-nine seats in Parliament went to Labour
...
The so-called New Liberals, led by Chancellor of the Exchequer
David Lloyd George, supported legislation to strengthen the right of unions to picket peacefully
...
In addition, heeding Labour's call for a more
democratic House, Lloyd George pushed the Parliament Bill of 1911 that reduced the House of
Lords (the upper house of Parliament that had always been dominated by conservatives averse to
worker legislation) to a position lower than the House of Commons
...

Finally, in 1913, the powerful Labour movement, about to eclipse the Liberals as the Conservative's
opposition, pushed through the Trade Unions Act
...

Commentary
The extension of the voting franchise that began in England in 1832 with the Great Reform Bill
initiated, albeit slowly, a process of liberalization unseen in the history of the British Parliament
...
Yet while the lowering of the
wealth prerequisite provided an easy target for modern liberals when arguing for the
democratization of Parliament, this democratization at first did not extend to the working class
...
These views, though subject
to some slight degree differences between Liberals and Conservatives, remained common through
most of the House
...

However, though it took more than half a century, the British system did gradually change to meet
the problems associated with the industrial age
...
The political system was malleable enough that pressure from a small minority party in
Parliament pushed the traditionally uninterested Liberal and Conservative majority to seriously
modify their political goals and actions
...


6
...
An empire in
name, Germany was actually administered by its chancellor Otto von Bismarck, a landed aristocrat
(or, Junker) from east Prussia
...
Most power remained with Bismarck himself
...
These alliances allowed
Bismarck to maintain power and thereby establish the main elements of national administration:
legal codes, railroad and banking systems, a judicial apparatus, and the civil service structure
...
Known as the Kulturkampf, or "struggle for civilization", the
anti-Church campaign aimed to eliminate Catholics who, Bismarck thought, could never maintain
true loyalty to the state because of their higher loyalty to Rome
...
Bismarck's attack on the Church was not
altogether successful, since it inspired widespread concern over the social fabric of the new state,
allowing the Catholic Center party to rally the Catholic vote and other supporters to oppose
Bismarck's policies
...
The Kulturkampf ended and Catholic toleration became law
...
Led by Eduard Bernstein, the
Social Democrats were Marxists who called for a gradual development of the capitalist system into
a state socialist system
...
Bismarck, recognizing the appeal
to Germany's growing working classes, initiated a "carrot and stick" approach of simultaneous
repression and an overt effort to acquire popular support
...
Police could now arrest any suspected socialist under only a
minimum of suspicion
...
The state provided accident insurance,
sickness benefits, old age pensions, disability payments, et cetera
...
By 1890, the year Kaiser Wilhelm II fired Bismarck, the Social Democrats controlled
over twenty percent of the electorate and thirty-five seats in the Reichstag; by 1914, the Social
Democrats were the largest single party in German politics
...
Wilhelm found that such a
coalition could best be built and maintained through the manipulation of nationalist and militaristic
sentiments in the name of an aggressive foreign policy that called for colonial expansion, military
development, and espoused German superiority in Europe
...

Commentary
In 1871, Germany was a new nation; by 1890, Germany was arguably the strongest power on the
Continent
...
If this was
all true, what was Germany's problem? Put less colloquially, why was Germany itching to prosecute
a dangerously aggressive foreign policy when its domestic situation was strong and its position in
Europe was unrivaled? Let us consider a few possible answers
...
This is entirely possible, though it seems unlikely that Germany
would have gone to the lengths that it did--namely, World War I--for political reasons alone
...
The nineteenth century had been one of great
peace--no major conflicts like those of the Napoleonic Era
...
In this context, Wilhelm's policies do not
seem so risky
...
France, the loser in the Franco-Prussian War, may have been out of
picture, and Russia, the backward giant, may not have had too much credibility; however, Great
Britain was the great question mark
...
Germany may have felt it ruled the Continent, but it could not rival England
...


6
...
The Third Republic was a parliamentary republic, often unstable and
constantly seeking legitimacy
...
The government enacted legislation
aimed at solidifying the common identity of all Frenchmen: compulsory schooling, centralized
curricula, civics education, mandatory military service, and the central control of all media and
government information from Paris
...

General Georges Boulanger was a popular figure who captured the imagination of the French press
...
Most importantly, the agrarian poor were
enchanted with this horseback riding hero as the preeminent French patriot
...

Through skillful manipulation of the media and popular symbols, Boulanger's campaign associated
the would-be military dictator with patriotism, military victory, honor, constitutional reform,
democracy, social welfare, and a whole litany of policies that gave each constituent group
something to look forward to in a Boulanger administration
...
His effort failed when
he lost the election
...
In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jewish army officer accused of passing French military
secrets to the Germans, was convicted of treason
...
Sentenced to exile to Devil's Island, Dreyfus maintained his
innocence in the face of a French public captivated by scare tactics from the radical right
...
When the illegal activities and forged evidence came to be known in the mass press,
the entire country divided into two camps: the pro-Dreyfusards (usually political allied of the left
and the Third Republic) who supported Dreyfus's innocence; and the anti-Dreyfusards (usually
allies of traditionally conservative institutions such as the Church and the army, alongside rabid
anti-Semites) who maintained his guilt in the name of French honor, national integrity, and racial
purity
...
Dreyfus was eventually

exonerated in the press and in the court after conclusive evidence unearthed by the media
determined that it was one of Dreyfus's colleagues on the General Staff who leaked the secrets and
framed the Jewish scapegoat
...
Just as Napoleon III could have been considered
the first real modern politician because of his skillful manipulation of pictures, photo-ops, and the
media, the French Third Republic can be considered the first fully modern political society
...
Due to the Third Republic's tendencies
toward centralization, farmers in the most remote areas read Parisian newspapers, centralized
railroads made communication of news easy and quick, and central education requirements made
the French nation into one solid entity and, thus, into a mass culture
...
Nothing in particular saved democracy and justice from
its conservative enemies--in Boulanger's case, he simply did not receive enough support, and in
Dreyfus's case, had conclusive evidence not turned up, who knows what would have happened
...


7
...
In 1860, the Habsburg monarchs were forced to accept constitutional
government with a parliamentary system based on a very limited suffrage
...
As testament to their rights as inheritors of Austria's great
western and cultural tradition, the Germanic bourgeois leaders in Vienna rebuilt the city as a virtual
fortification of grand structures
...

By 1900, liberal bourgeois politicians who favored free trade and little government involvement in
economic affairs were being eliminated by mass politics movements from the right that were based
on charisma, fantasy, and mere appearances
...
These groups used
demagoguery and scapegoating policies to rouse opposition to Jews (who were associated with
capitalists and Germanic peoples for irrational reasons--and thus sweep themselves to political
victory throughout the empire
...
In Britain and Germany, we refer to the
workers; in France, we refer to the agrarian poor and non-Parisians; in Austria, we refer to everyone

save the elite, Germanic bourgeoisie
...

So, what does this mean? The growth of popular power in Europe at this time suggests that the forty
years before World War I can be seen as the beginning of "late modernity", setting the stage for a
twentieth century in which the western democracies dedicated themselves to the expansion of
democratic civil and individual rights
...


8:The Scramble for Africa (1876-1914):
Summary
Historians generally agree that the Scramble for Africa, the rushed imperial conquest of the Africa
by the major powers of Europe, began with King Leopold II of Belgium
...
When Leopold asked for international recognition of his personal
property in the Congo, Europe gathered at the Berlin Conference, called to create policy on imperial
claims
...
The conference further decreed that for future imperialist claims to garner international
recognition, "effective occupation" would be required
...
The conference also created some definition for
"effective occupation," noting that significant "economic development" was required
...
Within forty years,
by 1914 and the end of the scramble for Africa, Great Britain dominated the breadth of the African
continent from Egypt to South Africa, as well as Nigeria and the Gold Coast; the French occupied
vast expanses of west Africa; the Germans boasted control over modern-day Tanzania and Namibia;
the Portuguese exerted full control over Angola and Mozambique
...
Conquest was relatively easy for the European
states: because of previous agreements not to sell modern weapons to Africans in potential colonial
areas, Europe easily held the technological and armament advantage
...

The only notable exception to this was Ethiopia, a strategically (especially after the opening of the
Suez Canal) placed state at the horn of Africa
...
With Britain occupying Egypt in 1882, France
taking Djibouti in 1884, and Italy dominating Eritrea in 1885, Ethiopia's Emperor Menelik II
hatched a daring plan: he would exploit European rivalries and competing interests for the benefit
of his country by playing one European power against the other to obtain the modern weapons he
needed to protect the boundaries of his state
...
Soon, Britain and even Russia joined in the game
...
However,
by the early 1890s, Menelik's plans began to unravel as war seemed imminent
...
When Menelik objected, Italy moved against the
emperor all of Europe had armed for over a decade
...
Outnumbered and outequipped, the Italians lost over eight
thousand men in the Battle of Adowa on 1 March 1896
...


Commentary
Why empire? What were the motives for empire in general, and in Africa specifically? We can
speak of this in general and specific terms
...
Others claimed lands so their enemies would not
...
Various specific reasons dominate any discussion of
the specifics of the scramble for Africa; however, what were the motives for empire in general? Let
us take a few possibilities in turn
...
Empire could insulate the mother country from dangerous booms and busts in
the economic cycle by keeping markets open and exclusive
...

Geopolitics: Some of these areas were strategically important for maintaining trade routes to Asia or
maintaining refueling station for a world- wide navy
...
Inside the
continent, territory was important for its location
...

Nationalism: To report back home and throughout Europe that one nation acquired thousands of
square miles of territory and millions of captive populations enhanced the prestige of that state
throughout the world and for its own people
...

Liberalism: Many students tend to overlook or not understand this element, and its counterintuitive
nature forces it out of many history textbooks
...
This belief, combined
with Charles Darwin's New Science and the warping of the statement "survival of the fittest" by
social Darwinism, encouraged the view that Europe was going down into the so-called Dark
Continent to raise up and civilize the savage natives
...

While much of Europe enthusiastically participated in and looked upon the colonization of Africa, it
would be simplistic to claim that imperialist policies were everywhere admired
...
Conrad's personal distaste for colonialism should not be taken as a
compendium of all the criticisms of the imperial game, but in addition to the themes and issues it
does deal with, it can be seen as an indication that a lively debate did exist as to the motives and
affects of imperial actions
...
Conflict in Africa: the Boer War (1895-1902):
Summary
For generations, South Africa witnessed conflict between Europeans and white settlers, both of
whom wanted political and economic control of the region
...
Britain wanted total dominion over
the region of South Africa, and the Afrikaners constituted a significant roadblock
...
From 1837 to 1844 the British forced the Afrikaner population onto

the Great Trek, a resettlement plan that moved the Afrikaners from the coastal colonial settlement to
the interior lands of Transvaal and Orange Free State
...
Then, in 1886, huge gold deposits were found in
the Transvaal territory of South Africa
...

Very quickly, the British came to the conclusion that their interests were not fully served under the
political regime of the Afrikaner government in Transvaal
...
In 1895, Rhodes and his chief lieutenant, Dr
...
S
...
Jamesone himself led a contingent of British South African police
into Transvaal
...
Jameson was captured,
turned over to the British and imprisoned for his unauthorized attack
...

New British leadership did nothing to ease tensions
...
In October 1899, the Afrikaner
President Paul Kruger demanded the withdrawal of these troops and threatened war if his demands
went unmet
...

The war progressed rather poorly for the better-equipped, better-trained, and larger British army
...
By the time the war was over--a war, by the way, that saw the
British introduce and effectively use concentration camps as a means of controlling captured
populations--over sixty thousand people had died
...
More than 20,000 Afrikaner civilians died in the
concentration camps
...
In 1902, after massive effort and expense,
and the brutal tactics of the English commander Herbert Horatio Kitchener, the British exhausted
the Boer's into submission
...
The Transvaal and Orange Free State were promised limited
future autonomy as British colonies
...
This, unfortunately, made twentieth-century
apartheid an eventuality
...
Concentration camps were havens for disease, malnutrition, and
persecution
...
No one knows the extent of the abuse,
though it is clear they did not compare to those perpetrated by Hitler or Stalin in scope or atrocity
...

Also illustrated by the Boer War is that while European states were quite unwilling to go to war
against each other over African territories--the French and British seemed near to blows over the
Fashoda Incident in 1898--the powers had no difficulties slaughtering African populations for their
own national benefit
...
How is it that Britain could not
conceive of war against France in Africa--as if Africa was not worth a war--but it was quite easy for
Cecil Rhodes to demand the conquering of the South African population already in place even
before England officially came to Cape Colony?

10
...
Beginning in the
seventeenth century, Great Britain formed and maintained an economic relationship with India
...
This view guided its foreign policy
...
By the end of the eighteenth century, Indo-British economic
ties were so entrenched in a neo-mercantile system that India provided a stepping stone for British
trade with China
...

By the 1830s, Britain realized it could make up the trade deficit with China by selling Indian opium
into the Chinese market, making opium Britain's most profitable and important crop in world
markets
...

Concerned with the sharp rise in opium addiction and the associated social costs and rise in criminal
acts, the Chinese government, led by the aging Manchu dynasty, took action against the British
...
Easily dominating the backward Chinese forces, the British expeditionary force
blockaded Chinese ports, occupied Shanghai, and took complete control of Canton
...
By the end of the
century, after five wars between China and various European powers, France, Britain, Germany,
Japan, and Russia held territorial and commercial advantages in their respective spheres of
influence
...
In 1899, the United States, freshly
anointed as an inernational force by its crushing victory over Spain in the 1898Spanish-American
War, objected to the prevalence of spheres of influence
...

In addition, and most irritating to the Chinese, Europeans maintained extraterritoriality inside
thousands of Chinese port cities
...
The resulting
lawlessness on the part of the Europeans, combined with the actuality of European economic,
political, and military domination of the Chinese, contributed to a virulent anti-imperial sentiment
...
With
secret encouragement from the Chinese empress, the Boxers, dedicated to ending foreign
exploitation in north China, killed scores of European and seized the large foreign legation in
Beijing
...
Afterward, the European powers propped up a
weak central government for their own economic benefit
...
Britain moved into Hong Kong in
1842, into Burma in 1886, and into Kowloon in 1898
...

Commentary
What were the effects of the European imperial adventure? Some look at the world today through
an economic lens and see both great successes and great disasters that emerged from the imperial
era: some primitive nations received the necessary infrastructure to develop, as the successful
capitalist states in east Asia seem to suggest, while others were destroyed by economic and social
exploitation, as the countries of Africa seem to suggest
...
Let us consider a few contemporaneous consequences of imperialism for European and world
society
...
Colonies provided
necessary raw materials for the advanced industrial production in European factory centers such as
London, Manchester, and Berlin
...
London became the
financial center of the world, serving as a clearing-house for billions of dollars worth of world-wide
investment
...

Barely a handful of countries, outside of the western hemisphere, remained independent
...
Europe was at the epicenter of political domination of the world due to its imperial successes
...

The dark side of imperialism, the arguments for cultural and racial superiority of the European
peoples, were common throughout the imperial world
...

The ecological effects of imperialism were mixed throughout the world
...
Industrial development disturbed the pristine
environment of previously undamaged territories, the traditional societies were replaced by
European businessmen and investors
...

On an intellectual level, the rapid proliferation of empire in the late nineteenth century contributed
to a growing critique of capitalism from the Marxist left
...
Lenin, the
revolutionary communist leader in Russia, argued in his pamphlet Imperialism, the Highest Stage of
Capitalism that capitalist states required vast empires to maintain enough markets with whom to
trade
...
With workers of the world--from Europe to the farthest

reaches of the empire--then united against capitalism, socialism will follow after imperialism
...
The Balance of Power in Europe (1871-1914):
This summary and commentary is almost identical to a section in the World War I SparkNote
...
Try to link the history we have discussed in this SparkNote with the buildup of
tensions leading to World War I
...

Summary
As the imperial game raged throughout the world, the map of Europe was changing as well
...
The aptly-named balance of power in Europe
was a system that aimed to maintain international order and peace by following any increase in
strength of one nation-state with an increase in strength of his geographic or political enemy
...
The years 1870
and 1871 marked the consolidation of Italy and Germany, respectively, into viable and strong
nation-states in the heart of Europe, changing the structure of the balance of power
...
Under the
leadership of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Germany forged ahead in 1873 by joining the two
most conservative powers in Europe--Austria-Hungary and Russia-to form the Three Emperors'
League
...

This balance of power program is best illustrated in Europe's relations with the so-called "sick man
of Europe", or the Ottoman Empire
...
Since the Ottomans held
dominion over the Balkans, most of Europe preferred to maintain the Ottoman Empire, no matter
how weak, in order to prevent any one European state from imposing its own dominion over the
Balkan peninsula
...
However, it was the volatile Balkan Peninsula that threatened the very foundation of
the European balance of power
...
(The following explains its origins and seeks to
address the validity of the logic, but digresses from the strong focus on World War I
...
The main goal: to
prevent another instance of French aggression
...
The manifestation of this theory was the strengthening of
all of France's neighbors in an attempt to plug up a previously porous border
...
The Italian province of Piedmont--bordering Switzerland and France--was
joined with Sardinia into the Kingdom of Sardinia under a new monarchy to contain France to the
southeast
...

The logic was quite simple: if the countries around France are strong enough, their strength will
balance out the potential military might of Paris and prevent further French aggression
...
Yet it eventually collapsed into World War One for three
main reasons
...
With all of Europe united against France, the creation of a balance
against one enemy was quite simple; however, as time passed and French aggression
seemed less and less likely, a more complex Europe emerged in place of the simple All
versus France
...
The consolidation of Germany and Italy as strong nation-states upset the balance
completely
...

3
...
Whereas in
Napoleonic times population and infantry forces made a great power, the dawn of the
twentieth century saw the increased importance of battleships, submarines, troop
mobility via trains, et cetera, that could not be balanced by the fortification of a
neighbor, but rather only by a dangerous arms race
...
Crises in the Balkans and the Road to Destruction:
Summary
The Balkan crises began in 1874
...
When Turkey refused to reform its governing structure, Serbia
declared war on the Ottoman Empire on 30 June 1876
...
Britain, interested in maintaining the balance of power and protecting its
Mediterranean holdings that depended upon the status quo, nominally supported the Turkish sultan
...

Otto von Bismarck hosted the peace conference, known as the Congress of Berlin
...

Bosnia and Herzegovina were turned over to Austria-Hungary and Russia pledged to abandon its
support of Serbia nationalism--all in the name of the balance of power
...

As a result of Russia's obvious political losses at the Congress of Berlin, Russia abandoned its
alliance with Germany in the Three Emperors' League
...
In 1882, Italy was asked to join the Dual
Alliance, thus converting it into a Triple Alliance that lasted until the beginning of World War I in
1914
...

When, in 1885, the Second Balkan Crisis erupted between Bulgaria and Serbia, Russia threatened to
occupy Bulgaria, but Austria stepped in to prevent Russian dominance of the Balkans
...
France, previously allied with Great Britain,
cemented the Triple Entente when it encouraged the signing of an Anglo-Russian understanding in

1907
...

In 1908, however, despite Russian objections, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia- Herzegovina
outright
...
Eventually, Russia was forced to back down in the face of German
pressure
...
Russia backed Serbia; Austria-Hungary backed Bulgaria
...
Regardless, Serbia was livid over both Austro-Hungarian support of
Bulgaria and its continued dominance in Bosnia-Herzegovina, setting the stage for the spark that
ignited World War I
...
The first is an unlikely culprit, but nevertheless important--namely,
liberalism
...
Liberalism
served to justify imperial conquest with the latter's potential to "civilize" the native populations;
liberalism also recognized war, limited and quick, as a legitimate form of foreign policy
...
If that could be true of all war, the argument continued, war could
serve both national and international good when fought properly
...

However, as we have already argued, the balance of power of 1914 differed greatly from the
balance of power of 1870
...
These permanent partnerships locked policymakers into
"blank- checks" of support for their allies in the name of preserving the precarious balance of
power
...
This moral hazard problem explains the Balkan crises
of 1874-1913
...




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