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European Diplomacy
DURING THE PERIOD 1871-1914 WHICH WERE
THE MAJOR POWERS IN
EUROPE AND WHY?
Germany, England, France, Russia
and the Austrian Empire were the
major powers in Europe.
 Germany, in particular, once united,
had the resources and population to
become the greatest European
power.

Europe before 1871
Franco- Prussian War 1870-71
France defeated and had to sign the
Treaty of Frankfurt
 Terms:
 Alsace and Lorraine –rich iron ore
deposits, textile industries, good
agricultural land
 Indemnity-5000 million francs, german
troops occupied parts of France till it was
paid.
 A victory march through France

Consequences of the War
Led to unification of Germany
 King of Prussia declared German
Emperor
 Conscription was necessary to pprovide
adequate trained reserves.

Europe 1871-1914
Parliamentary
monarchy
Trade
Industry
Sea-power
Empire
Democratic
republic slow
economic and
population
growth
colonial
expansion
Authoritarian state, Kaiser and
Chancellor Military power,
industrialisation and population
growth, Battle Fleet 1900
Dual
monarchy
Separate
Govt. and
parliaments
nationalities
Conflicts
Balkan
interests
Autocratic Tsar, Duma
1905, Rapid
industrialisation
(1890’s) and
population growth
Foreign loans, panSlavism
Sultan rules
1876-1909,
Balkan unrest
decline young
Turks 1909
Otto van Bismarck
WHAT WERE BISMARCK'S MAJOR FOREIGN POLICY
OBJECTIVES AFTER GERMAN UNIFICATION?

The Prussian military influence caused
Germany to emphasize military power and
to maintain the highest state of military
readiness.
Bismarck continued to serve as the
chancellor of Germany for two decades
after unification. Having accomplished
unification, he directed policy towards the
goal of maintaining what had been
achieved. Germany had no further
expansionist designs in Europe.

France was seen as the most likely
threat.Therefore, Bismarck presided
over a military build-up that would
always exceed the French. Although,
this was for defensive purposes, the
French were fearful that Germany
was planning further military
aggression. France, therefore, built
its military capabilities.

An armaments race went on for
more than forty years.Together, they
amassed the largest standing armies
in history with conscription and
millions of men under arms. Only
the resources of industrialized
nation-states could sustain such an
effort.The new technology added to
the potential of military power.

Bismarck also sought to keep France
diplomatically isolated so that they
would never be tempted to go to
war to recoup their losses. He
negotiated a series of alliances with
other European powers.These
efforts were complicated and
eventually frustrated by the unstable
situation in the Balkans.
3. WHAT WERE ENGLAND'S MAJOR FOREIGN
POLICY OBJECTIVES?
England continued to enjoy a predominant
position of power throughout the 19th
century because of its leadership in
industrialization and the benefits of
overseas trade.

English foreign policy was described as
"splendid isolationism", a policy of
remaining aloof from alliances with other
powers while exercising its influence to
encourage a balance of power on the
continent. So long as the continental
powers checked each other, England was
secure on the other side of the Channel.

Britain feared Russia’s design on
Constantinople and India, therefore
British Ministers supported the decline of
the ottoman empire. The Crimean war
1854-56 was fought to checkRussian
influence over Turkey.
 1870-1914- Britain became the greatest
imperial power in the world.-”the empire
on which the sun never set.’


England had a small volunteer,
professional army, well-trained and
disciplined, but relied mainly upon a
powerful navy which protected the
island nation and its far-flung
overseas network of trade.
Throughout much of the century, Russia
seemed to pose the greatest challenge to
English imperial interests. Periodic Russian
expansion towards the Balkans and the
Straits of the Dardanelles (the Ottoman
Empire) posed a potential threat to the
English trade route to India.

English and Russian imperial interests
also clashed in Persia, in Afghanistan and in
northern China. There were also conflicting
imperialistic goals between England and
France in Africa.

Immense importance was given to
safeguarding the routes to India- Suez
Canal and southern Africa were regarded
as areas of strategic importance
 1860-1900 – it was a period of ‘Splendid
isolation’ when britain stood aside from
alliances but later British statesmen
realised that britain’s resources were
overstretched and she needed allies.

France
After Napolean’s defeat in 1815, France
was regarded as a threat to peace due to
her size of population, the home of
revolutionary ideas
 1815-52- pursued a peaceful foreign
policy.
 She made a rapid recovery from defeat of
1870’s and regained her status as a Great
power.






Reorganized army
Developed a powerful navy
1914- industrialisation slower than Germany
A wealthy nation as vast amounts of capital
invested abroad, especially in
Russia.
1900’s- French Left (Sicialist and radicals) largely
pacifist and French Right very nationalistic and
committed to take revenge.
WHAT WERE FRANCE'S MAJOR
FOREIGN POLICY OBJECTIVES?
In France, the Third Republic was
established after the Franco-Prussian War.
This was a multi-party democracy which
endured, in spite of frequent elections and
changes in leadership, until the Nazi
conquest in 1940.

A minority faction in France agitated to
regain Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, but
the French were always outpaced by
German power and this was not a realistic
hope until after World War I.The main preoccupation of French foreign policy was the
potential threat of Germany.

Russia
Aim- to defend monarchial authority
 Defeated in the Crimean War- forbidden
to maintain a navy in the Black Sea
 Internally- modernise local govt.,the army
and educational system, abolished serfdon

1904-5:
 Russian economy did not generate
enough taxable wealth to meet the
increasing needs of the state.
 Russian agriculture- unproductive and
grains from richer regions were exported
to pay for imported machinery for her
industries
 Industrialisation was financed by massive
foreign loans

Pan- Slavists: believed in solidarity of all Slavs
whether in Russia or Balkans
 Russia’s mission was to liberate the Balkan
Christians from Turkish oppression: and they
wished to create independent Slav states under
the protection of Mother Russia and the
orthodox church.
 1890’s- growth of German influence in TurkeyBalkans – tinderbox or powder-keg

WHAT WERE RUSSIA'S MAJOR FOREIGN
POLICY OBJECTIVES?

A consistent goal of Russian
foreign policy was to achieve warm
water access to the Mediterranean
and the high seas through the
Straits of the Dardanelles.This
coincided with a pan-Slavic drive to
expand Russian interest into the
Balkans as the self-appointed
protectors of the many Slavic
nationalities there.

There was also a Russian expansion
across the sparsely-populated Siberian
land mass.This brought the Russians
into Manchuria (northeastern China),
where they gained access to the
Pacific. There was also a significant
migration of Russians into Siberia.
The Balkans was the greatest area of
instability.There, the interests of
Austria and Russia clashed and
threatened the peace of Europe.
Austria - Hungary
Austria-Hungary
1815-48- the Austrian Chancellor , Metternich
had exercised great influence in Europe,
working closely with Russia and Prussia
opposing revolutionary movements.
 Foreign Policy- gave diplomatic support to
britain and France in the Crimjean Wars
 She was a property of the Habsburg dynasty
and contained many different national groups.
 1867- Habsburgs compromised with the
Hungarians (Magyars) by granting them selfgovt.







Austria became Austria-Hungary called Dual
monarchy
Austria’s capital- Vienna
Hungary- government and parliament at
Budapest
A common foreign policy, uniform army
Two master races- Germans in the West and
the Magyars in the East
Other races- Czechs, Slovaks, poles, Italians,
Serbs, Croats and others which were
discriminated by the master races.
To check Russian influence, Austrian
policy was directed towards creating
client states in the Balkans
 1900- Serbia posed a threat as it was
backed by Russia

WHAT WERE THE REASONS FOR INSTABILITY IN
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE?

The Austrian Empire and the
Ottoman Empire ruled over six
Slavic nationalities as well as the
Hungarians, the Romanians, the
Albanians, and the Macedonians.
There were also Greek and Italian
minorities.Three major religions,
Roman Catholic, Christian
Orthodox, and Muslim also divided
the people of the Balkans.


War erupted in 1877 when the
Bulgars rose up against their Turkish
rulers and Russia intervened on their
side.The Russians defeated the Turks,
and would have driven them almost
entirely out of Europe had the other
great powers not intervened.
England threatened war against
Russia, and Bismarck, concerned that
Austria and Germany might be drawn
in, convened a peace conference.
Ottoman Empire
Sultan rule
 Balkan unrest
 Decline

Research
The Congress of Berlin
 The Dual Alliance 1879, the Three
Emperor’s Alliance 1881
 The Reinsurance Treaty 1887
 The Mediterranean Agreements, 1887

Part II

In 1878, at the Congress of Berlin, the
Russians were coerced into relinquishing
their gains in the recent war with Turkey.
Bulgaria's independence was recognized
and the Austrian government made a claim
for Bosnia.
Bosnia was a source of concern for the
Austrian Empire. Slavic minorities,
agitating for independence from Austria,
found refuge among their compatriots
across the border in Bosnia.

The Austrians demanded to annex
Bosnia, but the Russians rallied to
their
Serbian (Slavic) allies there and
refused to accept the annexation. A
compromise arranged that Austria
should occupy Bosnia but not be
allowed to annex it.This was an
unsatisfactory agreement imposed
upon the parties at the insistence of
Germany.
WHAT CHANGES IN EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY
OCCURRED AFTER THE RETIREMENT OF BISMARCK IN
1890?

Bismarck's policy was designed to
prevent war .The first alliance he
had formed was the Three
Emperor's League, an agreement
between the 3 monarchs of
Germany, Russia and Austria to
stand against threats to the status
quo.This agreement had been
annulled by the Balkan conflict.

In 1879, Bismarck formed an alliance
with the Austrians in order to restrain the
Russians who were furious over the
outcome of the Congress of Berlin. In 1882,
Bismarck persuaded the Italians to join in a
Triple Alliance. At the same time, working
to contain Russo-Austrian hostility, he
constructed a second alliance of the Three
Emperors (1881-1887), which involved a
pledge of friendly neutrality in the event
that any of the
three powers became involved in war with
a fourth power.

Tension in the Balkans led the
Russians to withdraw from the
agreement in 1887. Bismarck
continued his efforts by negotiating
a Russian-German Reinsurance
Treaty, again pledging neutrality if
the other were attacked.
The circumstances changed dramatically
in the 1890's. Bismarck was forcibly retired
by the new and young emperor, William II,
and German foreign policy became less
cautious and more bellicose. The
Reinsurance Treaty was allowed to lapse.

The Russians, looking for western
investment, and the French, seeking to
break out of their diplomatic isolation,
began negotiations which led by 1894 to
the Franco-Russian alliance.


Germany commenced a naval buildup which threatened England's
primacy on the high seas. A naval
armaments race between England
and Germany began.
England shifted its foreign policy from
avoiding alliances to actively seeking ways
to protect themselves from the rising
power of Germany.

The English improved their relationship
with the United States by consenting to
accept settlement of a number of
differences through arbitration. Upon
demand by the United States, they
withdrew a naval squadron from the waters
of Venezuela where there had been a
dispute concerning debt payments to
English creditors.




They resolved a potential colonial
conflict with the French (the Fashoda
Crisis) by agreeing to support each others
claims to Egypt and to Morocco. England
was given support in Egypt by the French,
and France was given support in Morocco
by the English.
A difficult war to repress a rebellion in
South Africa (the Boer War, 1899-1902) had
awakened the English to their overextended imperial commitments.

In 1902, England signed the AngloJapanese naval agreement which gave
the British reassurance that Japan
would check Russian expansion in Asia
so that the British felt secure in
withdrawing some of their Pacific fleet
to the Atlantic to face the German
threat. For the Japanese, it meant
reassurance that England would not
intervene against them if conflict
developed with Russia.

In 1904, England and France
signed the Entente
Cordiale (friendly agreement)
which settled remaining colonial
differences between the two powers.
It was accompanied by a secret
military protocol to coordinate their
navies to meet a potential threat
from Germany.

In 1905, the Germans created a
crisis by challenging French claims
to Morroco.Tensions there led to
the Algeciras Conference, presided
over by Theodore Roosevelt, an
activist President in the United
States. Germany had tested the
newly signed Entente, and failed to
divide the two allies.

In 1907, the Russians, after
suffering a defeat at the hands of
Japan (the Russo-Japanese War,
1904-5), settled some outstanding
differences with the British, setting
the stage for the Triple Entente, a
"friendly agreement" between
England, France and Russia.

Now, it was Germany that was
isolated, except for its alliance with
Austria-Hungary. Because of the
weakness of Austria-Hungary, this
was more of a burden than an asset.

The Germans responded to the potential of a two-front
war (with France and Russia) with the Schlieffen Plan.This
involved the strategy of attacking France first, defeating it
quickly in four weeks), and then turning to fight the
Russians. It was considered highly likely that the German
army could defeat the French quickly, as they had in 1870,
while the Russians, with their inadequate industrial base,
would take time to be a threat to Germany in the east.
The plan hinged upon time.The Germany military had to
attack France the moment the Russians ordered
mobilization of their army. Furthermore, to defeat France
quickly, the best way to do it, from a military point-of-view
was to attack through neutral Belgium.The diplomatic
costs of violating the 1839 treaty, which guaranteed the
neutrality of Belgium, were discounted in the interest of
military expediency.


Thus, Europe had become divided
into two armed camps with the great
military and economic power of
Germany arrayed against the Triple
Entente. However, none of the great
powers wanted war.Their preparations
for war, their armaments build-up,
their system of alliances had all been
defensive in purpose.

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