The Concept of Interdependency in the World
1. INTERDEPENDENCE OF EUROPEAN IMPERIAL AND COLONIAL POWERS BEFORE THE FIRST WORLD WAR (THE CO-OPERATION OF COLONIAL AND POWER-SHARING INTERESTS)
The Vienna Congress
The Congress of Vienna (1814-15) can be cited as the first application of international interdependence in Europe-albeit in a limited sphere of the world- in modern history. This congress was intended to establish a new order after Napolean’s conquests in Europe and in the world. The main actors were the four great powers of that period, namely Britain, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Prussia. France, the "fifth" power, was represented by its foreign minister, Talleyrand.
The congress, with participating governments represented by their ambassadors, was chaired by the Austrian statesman, Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, opened in September, 1814, and ended in June, 1815. Its main objective was to establish long-term peace in Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary.
Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. This peace would be based on a balance of power, with traditional rulers being restored to Napoleon's puppet states.
During the congress, the concept of a “Concert of Europe” became a synonym for a future if apparently utopian “European Federation.” The Concert of Europe (also called the Vienna system of international relations) symbolised the balance of power in Europe which lasted from the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) to the outbreak of World War I (1914).
The Congress of Berlin ( 1878)
The second major conference of the imperial European powers was the Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July
1878), by which the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy and Russia revised the Treaty of San Stefano, signed on 3 March and ending the Ottoman-Russian war fought since the previous year. The Ottoman Empire was represented but had little influence over the outcome.
The most important task of the Congress was to decide the fate of the Principality of Bulgaria established in the Treaty of San Stefano, even though Bulgaria itself was excluded from participation in the talks at Russian insistence.
The treaty recognized the independence of the de facto sovereign principalities of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, together with the autonomy of Bulgaria, which was divided into three parts: the Principality of Bulgaria, the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia, and Macedonia, which was given back to the Ottomans, thus undoing Russian plans for an independent—and Russophile—"Greater Bulgaria". The Kosovo vilayet (province) remained part of the Ottoman Empire. The former sanjak (sub province) of Novi Pazar was placed under Austro-Hungarian occupation, though formally remaining a part of the Ottoman Empire.
The three newly independent states subsequently proclaimed themselves kingdoms: Romania in 1881, Serbia in 1882 and Montenegro in 1910, while Bulgaria proclaimed full independence in 1908 after annexing Eastern Rumelia in 1885,which was then technically still an Ottoman possession. The
Kingdom of Bulgaria, was a
constitutional monarchy, created on 22 September 1908 (
old style), as а result of an elevation of the Bulgarian state to
kingdom from
principality. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia in 1908, sparking a major European crisis. Thessaly was removed from the Ottoman Empire and transferred to Greece after protracted negotiations in 1881.
The Treaty of Berlin accorded special legal status to some religious groups and served as a model for the minorities system – in the Ottoman Empire- that was subsequently established within the framework of the League of Nations. Overall, the outcome of the Congress of Berlin represented the most serious blow to the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire in its history but the partitioning of Ottoman lands was not over yet. The Balkan wars of 1912-13 resulted in the loss of most of the remaining Ottoman territories in Europe, mostly to Greece. The two Balkan Wars can be regarded as a consequence of this Treaty of Berlin
During the First World War Britain and France took the lead in signing secret agreements - the best known being the Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916 – carving up Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire’s Arab provinces. Very little would have been left for a Turkish state had all these plans reached fruition.
The Congress of Berlin (1884-85)
Also known as the Congo Conference , and convened shortly after Germany's emergence as an imperial power in 1871, this second Congress of Berlin regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period. It was called for by Portugal and organized by Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor of Germany. Bismarck appreciated the opportunity to expand Germany's sphere of influence over Africa and desired to force Germany's rivals to struggle with one another for territory Its outcome, the “General Act of the Berlin Conference”, can be seen as the formalization of the 'Scramble for Africa'. The conference ushered in a period of heightened colonial activity by European powers, while simultaneously eliminating most existing forms of African autonomy and self-governance.
The initial task of the conference was to agree that the Congo River and Niger River mouths and basins would be considered neutral and open to trade. Despite its neutrality, part of the Kongo Basin became a personal Kingdom (private property) for Belgium's King Leopold II and under his rule, over half of the region's population died.
At the time of the conference, only the coastal areas of Africa were colonized by the European powers. At the Berlin Conference the European colonial powers scrambled to gain control over the Interior of the Continent.
The Balkan Wars
The two Balkan Wars which took place in early 20th century, can be considered a proxy war of the Great Powers using the conflicts among the newly independent Balkan State, to their different aims.
The background to the wars lies in the incomplete emergence of
nation-states on the European territory of the Ottoman Empire during the second half of the 19th century. Serbia had gained substantial territory during the
Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878, while Greece acquired
Thessaly in 1881 (although it lost a small area back to the Ottoman Empire in 1897) and Bulgaria (an autonomous
principality since 1878) incorporated the formerly distinct province of
Eastern Rumelia (1885). All three as well as Montenegro sought additional territories within the large Ottoman-ruled region known as
Rumelia, comprising Eastern Rumelia,
Albania, Macedonia, and
Thrace .
Policies of the Great Powers and “The Eastern Question”
Throughout the 19th century, the
Great Powers shared different aims over the "
Eastern Question" and the integrity of the Ottoman Empire .
Russia wanted access to the "warm waters" of the
Mediterranean; it pursued a
panSlavic foreign policy and therefore supported Bulgaria and Serbia. Britain wished to deny Russia access to the "warm waters" and supported the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, although it also supported a limited expansion of Greece as a backup plan in case integrity of the Empire was no longer possible.
This only went as far as it suited British interests. The invasion and occupation of Egypt in 1882 by the British Empire was a severe blow to the Ottoman Sultan. France wished to strengthen its position in the region, especially in the
Levant (today's
Lebanon,
Syria, the
Palestinian territories and
Israel).
Habsburg-ruled
Austria-Hungary wished for a continuation of the existence of the Ottoman Empire, since both were troubled multinational entities and thus the collapse of the one might weaken the other. The Habsburgs also saw a strong Ottoman presence in the area as a counterweight to the Serbian nationalistic call to their own Serb subjects in
Bosnia.
The German Empire, in turn, under the "
Drang nach Osten" policy, aspired to turn the Ottoman Empire into its own de facto colony, and thus supported its integrity.
Alliances before the First World War
The First World War erupted because of the competition of the European empires over sharing of the world’s riches. During the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20
th, the British Empire had reached settlements with France -sometime amicably sometime after warfare confrontations (like the Fashoda incident of 1898)- in over colonial territories in Africa and Asia; and with Russia over colonial possessions in Asia(Afghanistan being the border of compromise between Russia and England). However, with the rise of a German Empire under the leadership of Prussia in 1871, a new actor appeared at the dinner table of the colonial club. This late-comer actor was vying not only for the unchartered lands of Africa but also for a position in the Middle East.
German-French rivalry in Morocco should also be mentioned as an area of contention. When the German cruiser PANTHER visited Agadir in 1912, started a crisis but which was later contained, after territory in West Africa had been awarded to Germany by way ofm'compensation', -applied within the imperial club when a power felt left out- Germany’s thrusts in the Middle East world was named the
drang nach osten – drive towards the east. To block the territorial and strategic aspirations of this newcomer, three former member s of the Colonial Club, namely Britain, France and Russia, formed a Triple Alliance based on the Entente Cordiale signed between England and France.
Later Italy and Japan joined this Alliance. This Triple Entente , growing by such new adherences , was later to be shortly called "The Entente Powers"They all attended the so called "Peace Conferences" after the war ended as the Victor Powers, also at THE "LAUSANNE CONFERENCE" with the new Turkey. The Lausanne Treaty itself was unique, as compared with the other conferences held seperately with Germany, Austria and Hungary.Italy wanted to regain its lost former territory to Austria in northern Italy and to gain some foothold in Anatolia and the Aegean Sea, in a par with England and France after an imminent future war against the Ottomans.
Japan participated in World War I from 1914 to 1918 in an alliance with the
Entente Powers and played an important role in securing the sea lanes in the
South Pacific and Indian Oceans against the German
Kaiserliche Marine. Politically, Japan seized the opportunity to expand its
sphere of influence in China, and to gain recognition as a
great power in postwar
geopolitics.
Italy: Another emerging colonialist
Italian unification (Italian:
Risorgimento [risordʒiˈmento], meaning
the Resurgence) was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the
Italian peninsula into the single state of the
Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century
,Many scholars agree that the process began in 1815 with the
Congress of Vienna and the end of
Napoleonic rule, and ended in 1871 and
Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.After unification, following Germany’s steps, Italy also wanted a place at the colonial partition table of Afrcia. Her two targets were Abyssinia and Libya
Italo -Ethiopian War was fought between
Italy and
Ethiopia from 1895 to 1896.Ethiopia was supported primarily by
Russia, that provided weapons, military officers, and medical supplies, that assisted Ethiopian forces during the war. Italy was not successful this time but later invaded Abyssinia during Mussolini’s reign in 1935-36.Abyssinian ruler Menelik secured a treaty with the Italians which strictly delineated the borders of Eritrea and forced Italy to recognize the independence of Ethiopia.
Delegations from the United Kingdom and France—European powers whose colonial possessions lay next to Ethiopia—soon arrived in the Ethiopian capital to negotiate their own treaties with this newly proven power.
The
Italo-Turkish War (also known in Italy as the
Guerra di Libia, "
Libyan war", and in Turkey as the
Trablusgarp Savaşı, ,was fought between the
Ottoman Empire and the
Kingdom of Italy from September 29, 1911 to October 18, 1912.As a result of this conflict, Italy captured the Ottoman provinces of
Tripolitania,
Fezzan, and
Cyrenaica. These provinces together formed what became known as
Libya.
During the conflict, Italian forces also occupied the
Dodecanese Islands in the
Aegean Sea. Italy had agreed to return the Dodecanese Islands to the Ottoman Empire according to the Treaty of Ouchy in 1912 (also known as the First Treaty of Lausanne (1912), However, the vagueness of the text allowed a provisional Italian administration of the islands, and Turkey eventually renounced all claims on these islands in Article 15 of the
Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
The Ottomans had to withdraw all their military forces and administra...
The congress, with participating governments represented by their ambassadors, was chaired by the Austrian statesman, Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, opened in September, 1814, and ended in June, 1815. Its main objective was to establish long-term peace in Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary.
Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. This peace would be based on a balance of power, with traditional rulers being restored to Napoleon's puppet states.
During the congress, the concept of a “Concert of Europe” became a synonym for a future if apparently utopian “European Federation.” The Concert of Europe (also called the Vienna system of international relations) symbolised the balance of power in Europe which lasted from the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) to the outbreak of World War I (1914).
The Congress of Berlin ( 1878)
The second major conference of the imperial European powers was the Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July
1878), by which the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy and Russia revised the Treaty of San Stefano, signed on 3 March and ending the Ottoman-Russian war fought since the previous year. The Ottoman Empire was represented but had little influence over the outcome.
The most important task of the Congress was to decide the fate of the Principality of Bulgaria established in the Treaty of San Stefano, even though Bulgaria itself was excluded from participation in the talks at Russian insistence.
The treaty recognized the independence of the de facto sovereign principalities of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, together with the autonomy of Bulgaria, which was divided into three parts: the Principality of Bulgaria, the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia, and Macedonia, which was given back to the Ottomans, thus undoing Russian plans for an independent—and Russophile—"Greater Bulgaria". The Kosovo vilayet (province) remained part of the Ottoman Empire. The former sanjak (sub province) of Novi Pazar was placed under Austro-Hungarian occupation, though formally remaining a part of the Ottoman Empire.
The three newly independent states subsequently proclaimed themselves kingdoms: Romania in 1881, Serbia in 1882 and Montenegro in 1910, while Bulgaria proclaimed full independence in 1908 after annexing Eastern Rumelia in 1885,which was then technically still an Ottoman possession. The Kingdom of Bulgaria, was a constitutional monarchy, created on 22 September 1908 (old style), as а result of an elevation of the Bulgarian state to kingdom from principality. Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia in 1908, sparking a major European crisis. Thessaly was removed from the Ottoman Empire and transferred to Greece after protracted negotiations in 1881.
The Treaty of Berlin accorded special legal status to some religious groups and served as a model for the minorities system – in the Ottoman Empire- that was subsequently established within the framework of the League of Nations. Overall, the outcome of the Congress of Berlin represented the most serious blow to the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire in its history but the partitioning of Ottoman lands was not over yet. The Balkan wars of 1912-13 resulted in the loss of most of the remaining Ottoman territories in Europe, mostly to Greece. The two Balkan Wars can be regarded as a consequence of this Treaty of Berlin
During the First World War Britain and France took the lead in signing secret agreements - the best known being the Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916 – carving up Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire’s Arab provinces. Very little would have been left for a Turkish state had all these plans reached fruition.
Policies of the Great Powers and “The Eastern Question”
Throughout the 19th century, the Great Powers shared different aims over the "Eastern Question" and the integrity of the Ottoman Empire .Russia wanted access to the "warm waters" of the Mediterranean; it pursued a panSlavic foreign policy and therefore supported Bulgaria and Serbia. Britain wished to deny Russia access to the "warm waters" and supported the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, although it also supported a limited expansion of Greece as a backup plan in case integrity of the Empire was no longer possible.
This only went as far as it suited British interests. The invasion and occupation of Egypt in 1882 by the British Empire was a severe blow to the Ottoman Sultan. France wished to strengthen its position in the region, especially in the Levant (today's Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and Israel).
Habsburg-ruled Austria-Hungary wished for a continuation of the existence of the Ottoman Empire, since both were troubled multinational entities and thus the collapse of the one might weaken the other. The Habsburgs also saw a strong Ottoman presence in the area as a counterweight to the Serbian nationalistic call to their own Serb subjects in Bosnia. The German Empire, in turn, under the "Drang nach Osten" policy, aspired to turn the Ottoman Empire into its own de facto colony, and thus supported its integrity.
German-French rivalry in Morocco should also be mentioned as an area of contention. When the German cruiser PANTHER visited Agadir in 1912, started a crisis but which was later contained, after territory in West Africa had been awarded to Germany by way ofm'compensation', -applied within the imperial club when a power felt left out- Germany’s thrusts in the Middle East world was named the drang nach osten – drive towards the east. To block the territorial and strategic aspirations of this newcomer, three former member s of the Colonial Club, namely Britain, France and Russia, formed a Triple Alliance based on the Entente Cordiale signed between England and France.
Later Italy and Japan joined this Alliance. This Triple Entente , growing by such new adherences , was later to be shortly called "The Entente Powers"They all attended the so called "Peace Conferences" after the war ended as the Victor Powers, also at THE "LAUSANNE CONFERENCE" with the new Turkey. The Lausanne Treaty itself was unique, as compared with the other conferences held seperately with Germany, Austria and Hungary.Italy wanted to regain its lost former territory to Austria in northern Italy and to gain some foothold in Anatolia and the Aegean Sea, in a par with England and France after an imminent future war against the Ottomans.
Japan participated in World War I from 1914 to 1918 in an alliance with the Entente Powers and played an important role in securing the sea lanes in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans against the German Kaiserliche Marine. Politically, Japan seized the opportunity to expand its sphere of influence in China, and to gain recognition as a great power in postwar geopolitics.
Italy: Another emerging colonialist
Italian unification (Italian: Risorgimento [risordʒiˈmento], meaning the Resurgence) was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century
,Many scholars agree that the process began in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna and the end of Napoleonic rule, and ended in 1871 and Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.After unification, following Germany’s steps, Italy also wanted a place at the colonial partition table of Afrcia. Her two targets were Abyssinia and Libya
Italo -Ethiopian War was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from 1895 to 1896.Ethiopia was supported primarily by Russia, that provided weapons, military officers, and medical supplies, that assisted Ethiopian forces during the war. Italy was not successful this time but later invaded Abyssinia during Mussolini’s reign in 1935-36.Abyssinian ruler Menelik secured a treaty with the Italians which strictly delineated the borders of Eritrea and forced Italy to recognize the independence of Ethiopia.
Delegations from the United Kingdom and France—European powers whose colonial possessions lay next to Ethiopia—soon arrived in the Ethiopian capital to negotiate their own treaties with this newly proven power.
The Italo-Turkish War (also known in Italy as the Guerra di Libia, "Libyan war", and in Turkey as theTrablusgarp Savaşı, ,was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy from September 29, 1911 to October 18, 1912.As a result of this conflict, Italy captured the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica. These provinces together formed what became known as Libya.
During the conflict, Italian forces also occupied the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean Sea. Italy had agreed to return the Dodecanese Islands to the Ottoman Empire according to the Treaty of Ouchy in 1912 (also known as the First Treaty of Lausanne (1912), However, the vagueness of the text allowed a provisional Italian administration of the islands, and Turkey eventually renounced all claims on these islands in Article 15 of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
The Ottomans had to withdraw all their military forces and administra...
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