Lecture 2 Flashcards
Agadir crisis
1911
France and Germany supposed to protect the other’s economic interests in Morocco
Agadir is a coastal city in the southwest of Morocco. The Agadir Crisis of 1911 demonstrated the fragility of diplomatic relations in Europe. It is seen as one of the medium-term causes of WWI because of its effect in destabilising the relationships between the major European powers.
Germany had been preoccupied with building up its navy and as result France had far more influence in Morocco. Meanwhile, the German government wanted a better share of Morocco’s economic potential. Germany and France signed an agreement in February 1909 that acknowledged France’s special interest in Morocco. In return, France promised not to interfere with Germany’s commercial interests there. However, it soon became clear that France wouldn’t allow Germany to have an input on the building of a new railway in Morocco.
France expanded, Germany got annoyed, sent the SMS Panther to Agadir.
Lloyd George denounces Germany in a speech.
Germany backs down.
What part did the Agadir Crisis play in the outbreak of WWI?
For Britain, the episode illustrated the full extent of Germany’s imperialist ambitions. These concerns over Germany’s agenda increased distrust within Europe.
The crisis also stoked up feelings of nationalism and fuelled militarism in Germany.
Bosnian crisis
1908-1909
Austria Hungary annexation of Bosnia, under AH admin since 1808
On 6 October 1908, Austria-Hungary announced its decision to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Ottoman Empire decried the move and Britain, Russia, Italy, Montenegro, Serbia, Germany and France saw this as a violation of the Treaty of Berlin and became entwined in the crisis.
Following Austria-Hungary’s announcement, Bulgaria declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire.
The Turks, who had ruled Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina for centuries, were unsurprisingly displeased with the annexation and declaration of independence.
The Ottoman Empire’s military and domestic power had declined in the past decades. Thus, the Turks could not do much more than demand a financial settlement in exchange for Austria’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The annexation caused international tension, particularly in Russia and Serbia. A strong popular opposition to the annexation developed in Russia. Additionally, Serbia was angered by the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which she had hoped to unite into one Serbian nation. She demanded Austria to give a portion of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia, and Izvolsky (the Russian Foreign Minister), pressured by anti-Austrian opinion in Russia, had no choice but to support the Serbian claims.
Austria reacted by threatening to invade Serbia. With Germany as an Austrian ally, Russia could not risk a war for Serbia’s sake. In March 1909 Izvolsky notified Germany that Russia accepted Austria’s annexation.
Although a war was avoided, the Bosnian Crisis embittered relations between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. It contributed to the underlying tensions that were ignited when Franz Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo.
Blank Cheque
Austria Hungary hopes to use opportunity to punish Serbia and solidify and stabilise its position. AH presents an ultimatum to Serbia Ultimatum
On 5 July 1914, Alexander Hoyos, a leading hawk in the Austrian Foreign Ministry, and Count Ladislaus von Szogyeny, the Habsburg ambassador to Berlin, met Wilhelm II, German Emperor and Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, the German chancellor. Later that day, Bethmann Hollweg assured Szögyény that Germany would support her ally, whatever measures the Austro-Hungarian leaders decided to take against Serbia.
In issuing the blank cheque, German leaders made a number of faulty assumptions. They believed that Austria-Hungary was ready to initiate war against Serbia immediately and that a rapid strike would present Europe with a fait accompli. They reckoned that the Tsarist regime was not militarily ready to risk a general European war. Moreover, they thought that monarchical solidarity would trump pan-Slav sentiment, that the Tsar would not support a state that had allegedly harboured the assassins of the heir to the Habsburg throne. In other words, the “blank cheque” was designed first and foremost to secure a triumph, either political or military, for the Central Powers in the Balkans. The “blank cheque” was vital in bolstering Austro-Hungarian leaders in their decision to embark on war against Serbia.
The kaiser’s pledge, which historians have referred to as the carte blanche or “blank check” assurance, marked a decisive moment in the chain of events leading up to the outbreak of the First World War in Europe during the summer of 1914. Without Germany’s backing, the conflict in the Balkans might have remained localized. With Germany promising to support Austria-Hungary’s punitive actions towards Serbia, even at the cost of war with Russia, whose own powerful allies included France and Great Britain, the possible Balkan War threatened to explode into a general European one.
Chain-ganging
Multipolar systems with powers of relatively similar sizes. Alliances pull themselves into conflict, once one domino tips, all the others follow. Is this a persuasive explanation for the cause of WW1? Explains WW1 for realists.
In multipolarity, the approximate equality of alliance partners leads to a high degree of security interdependence within an alliance. Given the anarchic setting and this relative equality, each state feels its own security is integrally intertwined with the security of its alliance partners. As a result, any nation that marches to war inexorably drags its alliance partners with it.
This, Waltz argues, was the pattern of behaviour that led to World War I. If Austria-Hungary marched, Germany had to follow: the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have left Germany alone in the middle of Europe. If France marched, Russia had to follow; a German victory over France would be a defeat for Russia. And so it was all around the vicious circle. Because the defeat or the defection of a major ally would have shaken the balance, each state was constrained to adjust its strategy and the use of its forces to the aims and fears of its partners.
Chain-ganging expanded scope of the war.
Alsace-Lorraine
Industrialised, coal and steel - strategic territory to control. Psychologically significant to France.
The modern history of Alsace–Lorraine was largely influenced by the rivalry between French and German nationalism.
French resentment about the loss of the territory was one of the contributing factors to WWI. Alsace–Lorraine was formally ceded back to France in 1920 as part of the Treaty of Versailles following Germany’s defeat in the war, but already annexed in practice at the war’s end in 1918.
Geographically, Alsace–Lorraine encompassed most of Alsace and the Moselle department of Lorraine.
Two powerful states going head-to-head for territory in Europe.
Stab in the back
Germany lost WWI suddenly, after a near victory. The ‘stab in the back’ myth maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose WWI on the battlefield, but was instead betrayed by certain citizens on the home front – especially Jews, revolutionary socialists who fomented strikes and labour unrest, and republican politicians. The myth perpetuated the idea that pressure from Bolsheviks and Jews encouraged weak political leadership in Germany and denounced the German government leaders who had signed the Armistice on 11 November 1918.
Historians inside and outside of Germany, whilst recognising that economic and morale collapse on the home front was a factor in German defeat, unanimously reject the myth. Historians and military theorists point to lack of further Imperial German Army reserves, the danger of invasion from the south, the overwhelming of German forces on the western front by more numerous Allied forces particularly after the entrance of the US into the war, as evidence that Germany had already lost the war militarily by late 1918.
When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power in 1933, they made the conspiracy theory an integral part of their official history of the 1920s, portraying the Weimar Republic as the work of the “November criminals” who had “stabbed the nation in the back” in order to seize power.
