Discuss the nature of international rivalries in the 20th century.
The history of the 20th century was shaped by the changing
relations of the world’s great powers. the primary half the century, the age of
the planet Wars and therefore the start of the conflict , was dominated by the
rivalries of these powers. The last half saw the replacement, largely through
the agency of these wars, of the ecu state system by a world system with many
centres of both power and discord. this text provides one integrated narrative
of the changing context of world politics, from the outbreak of war I to the
1990s. Because domestic affairs figure heavily within the analysis of every
state’s foreign policies, the reader should consult the histories of the individual
countries for more detail.
For discussion of the military strategy, tactics, and
conduct of the planet Wars, see war I and war II.
Forty-three years of peace among the good powers of Europe
came to an end in 1914, when an act of political terrorism provoked two great
alliance systems into mortal combat. The South Slav campaign against Austrian
rule out Bosnia, culminating within the assassination of the Habsburg heir at
Sarajevo, was the spark. This local crisis rapidly engulfed all the powers of
Europe through the mechanisms of the Triple Alliance and therefore the Triple
Entente, diplomatic arrangements meant precisely to reinforce the safety of their
members and to discourage potential aggressors. The long-term causes of the war
can therefore be traced to the forces that impelled the formation of these
alliances, increased tensions among the good powers, and made a minimum of some
European leaders desperate enough to hunt their objectives even at the danger
of a general war. These forces included militarism and mass mobilization,
Discuss the nature of international rivalries in the 20th century. instability in domestic and international politics occasioned by rapid
industrial growth, global imperialism, popular nationalism, and therefore the
rise of a social Darwinist worldview. But the question of why war I broke out
should be considered along side the questions of why peace ended and why in 1914
instead of before or after.
The European map and world politics were less confused
within the decades after 1871 than at any time before or since. The
unifications of Italy and Germany removed the congeries of central European
principalities that dated back to the Holy Roman Empire , while the breakup of
eastern and southeastern Europe into small and quarreling states (a process
that might yield the term balkanization) wasn't far advanced. There the old
empires, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman (Turkish), still prevailed. The
lesser powers of Europe, including some that when had been great, just like the
Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain, played little or no role within the affairs of
the good powers unless their own interests were directly involved. Both
physical size and therefore the economies of scale important in an industrial
age rendered smaller and fewer developed countries impotent, while the residual
habits of diplomacy dating from the Congress of Vienna of 1815 made the good
powers the only arbiters of European politics.
In the wider world, a diplomatic system of the ecu variety
existed nowhere else. the result of the U.S. war and Anglo-American settlement
of the Canadian border ensured that North America wouldn't develop a
multilateral balance-of-power system. South and Central America had splintered
into 17 independent republics following the ultimate retreat of Spanish rule
out 1820, but the Neo-Latin American states were inward-looking, their centres
of population and resources isolated by mountains, jungle, and sheer distance,
and disputes among them were of mostly local interest. The Monroe Doctrine ,
promulgated by the us and enforced by British navy, sufficed to spare Latin
America new European adventures, the sole major exception—Napoleon III’s gambit
in Mexico—occurring while the us was preoccupied with war . When the us
purchased Alaska from the Russian tsar and Canada acquired dominion status,
both in 1867, European possessions on the American mainland were reduced to 3
small Guianan colonies in South America and Belize (Belize). North Africa east
of Algeria was still nominally under the aegis of the Ottoman sultan, while
Sub-Saharan Africa , aside from a couple of European ports on the coast, was
unknown . British had regularized their hold on the Indian subcontinent after
putting down the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58, while the Chinese and Japanese
empires remained xenophobic and isolationist. Discuss the nature of international rivalries in the 20th century. Thus, the cupboards of the ecu
great powers were at the zenith of their influence.
Europe itself, by 1871, appeared to be entering an age of
political and social progress. Britain’s Second Reform Act (1867), the French
Third Republic (1875), the triumph of nationalism in Italy and Germany (1871),
the establishment of universal manhood suffrage in Germany (1867), equality for
the Hungarians within the Habsburg monarchy (1867), emancipation of the serfs
in Russia (1861), and therefore the adoption of trade by the main European
states all appeared to justify faith within the peaceful evolution of Europe
toward liberal institutions and prosperity.
International peace also seemed assured once Otto Bismarck
declared the new German Empire a satisfied power and placed his considerable
talents at the service of stability. The chancellor knew Germany to be a
military match for any rival but feared the likelihood of a coalition. Since
France would never be reconciled to her reduced status and therefore the loss
of Alsace-Lorraine imposed by the treaty ending the Franco-German War, Bismarck
strove to stay France isolated. In 1873 he conjured up the ghost of monarchical
solidarity and formed a Dreikaiserbund (Three Emperors’ League) with
Austria-Hungary and Russia. Discuss the nature of international rivalries in the 20th century. Such a mixture was always susceptible to
Austro-Russian rivalry over the Eastern Question—the problem of the way to
organize the feuding Balkan nationalities gradually freeing themselves from the
decrepit Ottoman Empire .
After the Slavic provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina
rebelled against Ottoman rule out 1875 and Russia made war on the Ottoman
Empire two years later, the Dreikaiserbund collapsed. Bismarck achieved a compromise
at the Congress of Berlin (1878), but Austro-Russian amity wasn't restored. In
1879, therefore, Bismarck concluded a permanent peacetime military alliance
with Austria, whereupon the tsarist government, to court German favour, agreed
to a renewal of the Dreikaiserbund in 1881. Italy, seeking aid for her
Mediterranean ambitions, joined Germany and Austria-Hungary to make the Triple
Alliance in 1882.