The Prelude of the First World War and its Conclusion with Peace Treaties Creating a Pregnant Pause—A ‘Saga’ of Bravado, Revenge and Counter-revenge A-Prelude of the War True, the First World War was triggered by the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire (a doubtful one, being a nephew of the Emperor, Franz Josef) and his spouse Sophie, in Sarajevo, the capital of the Empire’s Bosnian province, by a Serbian nationalist. But, it was long seething in the minds of the rulers, the military men and the general public alike, getting expression in a series of secret treaties, alliances, ententes, conscription and arms race. Since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-7, no battle had been fought on the soil of Europe, and the military men were suffering from a sort of idle monotony. They were itching for another war, longing to create their tales of valour and medals and crosses. Sipping their drinks in the clubs and pubs and salons in their starched, decorated uniforms, they talked and talked of the coming war. In Germany, the victor of Franco-Prussian war, this militarist spirit was at the peak, with her persistent feeling that she had not been given her rightful ‘place in the sun’. German Professor Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896) had propounded a theory that war was a ‘biological necessity’ and that Germany had a ‘divinely ordained mission’. Bismarck, the Premier, made a secret ‘Dual Alliance’ with Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1879 and, before it was published to the world in 1888, Italy also joined it, making the famous ‘Triple Alliance’. [The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a condominium of two monarchies with one Emperor and two Kings, a remnant of the Austro-German Confederation of 39 German States under the chairmanship of Austria (an outsider), viz., whatever was left of the Confederation after the German States moved away to form the nation State of Germany as the result of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 fought against an obstructive Austria by the most prominent German State of Prussia under the charismatic leadership of Bismarck. The Confederation, in turn, had been created out of and at the demise of that enigmatic ghost called the Holy Roman Empire by the Congress of Vienna (1815) held in the aftermath of the Napoleonic volcano. A clumsy descendant of a clumsy ancestor!] In pursuit of his larger colonial ambition, German Emperor William II (1888-1918) visited Constantinople in 1889, declaring patronizingly that he had taken ‘the Mohammedans of the world under his protection’, and opened a railway across Asiatic Turkey through the Balkans to Austria. Anxious to direct the German affairs himself, the hawkish Emperor, dismissed Bismarck (‘dropped the pilot’) in 1890 and accelerated the pace of German militarism. An alarmed France joined hands with Russia to form the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1893. Britain, due to her insular position, could avoid the race of land armament under its policy of ‘Splendid Isolation’ with her naval superiority secured by keeping its strength greater than the combined strength of any two of the other European Powers as enjoined in her Naval Defence Act of 1889. But increasing German naval investment compelled her to negotiate for an Anglo-German alliance which, however, broke down owing to German indifference to a ‘non-military’ nation. This paved the way for Anglo-French Entente (bereft of military commitment) in 1904, which, in turn, led to Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907. In the course of war (by the end of October, 1914), in response to the overtures of the Emperor William II, Turkey will also join the Triple Alliance to declare war on Britain and her allies, a natural outcome of the Anglo-Russian Entente, Russia being Turkey’s arch enemy. In a matching development next year (May,1915), Italy will jump out of the Triple Alliance to join the Entente (hence called the Jackal of Europe) in order to secure her hold over the North African Turkish province of Tripoli (Libya) that she had seized in 1911 under the pretext of protecting her citizens living there. Setting their forces thus on the European chessboard, the nations of the Triple Alliance and the Entente (Allies) waited for the hour to come. The balance of power thus achieved, they could have continued waiting infinitely, had they been a little wiser and prudent, which unfortunately they were not. First came the prelude by way of the Balkan Wars. Serbian Slavs had fought for eleven years to gain independence from the Ottomans, which was formally recognized in the Berlin Congress of 1878. The same Congress had made the adjoining Balkan State of Bosnia-Herzegovina, also having predominantly Slav population, a Protectorate of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Without any provocation, Austro-hungary suddenly annexed it (1908) at great consternation of the Turks, but sick and feeble as she was, Turkey could do nothing. Then the alliance of the already freed Balkan States of Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria fought against the doddering Turkish Empire, driving the Turks away from what remained of their European possessions save the area around Constantinople (the First Balkan War of 1912). The victors, however, started fighting among themselves: Bulgaria attacking her allies and getting defeated (Second Balkan War of 1913). The Turks took advantage to retake Adrianople lost in the First Balkan War. When peace was made, Bulgarians had to surrender to Serbia some of the territory they had wrested from Turkey in the First Balkan War. Ten million Slavs of Bosnia-Herzegovina burned with patriotic fervour and wished to be united with their victorious brethren in the Kingdom of Serbia. Russia was helping them due to common ethnic and religious ties. The Archduke, along with his spouse, had gone to Sarajevo to pacify his Bosnian subjects. A Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Pricip, killed the couple on 28.06.1914. The killing was meticulously planned. First the motorcade of the Archduke was bombed by one Nedeljko Cabrinovic , wounding 20 people. The bomb-thrower took cyanide but that only sickened him. While the Archduke and his spouse were on their way to visit the wounded in the hospital, Princip shot them dead. He also took cyanide which had the same effect. The questioning established the linkage of the plot with the Serbian capital of Belgrade. It was no doubt a great human loss inflicted by a dastardly terrorist act but Austro-Hungary used the killing of its heir(not viewed with any great favour either by the Emperor or by his Government) to consolidate its questionable domain over Bosnia-Herzegovina by sending one of the harshest ultimatums, demanding a long list of assurances and commitments from Serbia, described by Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, as ‘never before seen one State address to another independent State a document of so formidable a character’. Serbia conceded all substantive demands save one or two, but the war was declared on her By Austro-Hungary on 28.7. 1914. Germany, with her bandwagon of Triple Alliance behind, came on the side of Austro-Hungary; and Russia, with her allies of Entente on its back, joined in the defence of Serbia. The war, most catastrophic the world had ever seen before, was on. It is that poor quality of common cyanide taken by the two culprits that enabled implication of Serbia and brought the havoc of the First World War and, as a sequel, the Second World War, a natural outcome of Versailles; the way it was drawn and imposed on Germany could not but produce only a ‘Hitler’. This is how human follies, uncontrolled emotions and false bravado work in disproportionate reaction, which goes on increasing in geometrical progression! The conduct of the war against Turkey in the Middle East fell on Britain-- it is the road to her Indian Empire that was at stake there. The British campaign in Palestine and Mesopotamia began in November, 1914. The Balfour Declaration came the same month when the British forces led by General Allenby were marching on Jerusalem. It proclaimed the intention to establish a ‘Jewish National Home’ in Palestine, which was naturally welcomed by the Jews but resented by the Muslims as also Christians living there. It was definitely aimed at winning the good will of the international Jewish community, which was important from the point of view of monetary help to a war-entangled Britain. Even within Palestine, the Jews, who were only one fourth of the Muslim population, were much better placed in their wealth and quality of life. They controlled business and, with their financial resources, could afford good schools and colleges for their children, whereas the Muslims were sunk in poverty, illiteracy and unemployment. The Zionist movement, a longing of the Jews, particularly of the poor among them, to return to their promised land, had started much earlier in the cities of the Eastern Europe, suffering from frequent persecutions and massacres at the hands of the Turkish Empire. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, it gradually took the shape of a colonizing movement, many Jews coming to settle in Palestine. Coming from the mouth of a Prime Minister of a great empire, the Balfour Declaration only served to alienate the rich of Palestine from another (Turkish) empire of which they happened to be the subjects , as also from other co-subjects, the Muslims of Palestine. At one stage of the war, Germany and her allies were supreme, occupying the whole of Western Europe including France, leaving only Italy which was of no consequence, so much so that, Lenin didn’t bother about the western allies while buying a very costly peace from Germany under the treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 03.03.1918. The tables were, however, turned due to the American intervention beginning April, 1917 on sinking of five ‘neutral’ ships of the US on their way to England by the German submarines, and fullest involvement after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (October, 1917) that declared the goal of world communism, which greatly alarmed the US. B-The Peace Treaties Creating a Pregnant Pause After signing of the armistice on 11.11.1918, peace treaties were concluded separately with each defeated nation. The basic principles were, however, laid down in the peace treaty with (?) Germany at the Palace of Versailles in Paris signed on 28.06.1919. The representatives of the new German Republic were not allowed to participate but only wait outside for just putting the signature when ready. Their protest was silenced by the threat that if not at Versailles, they will have to sign it in Berlin where the allies will reach overrunning the German territory all the way. The same old palace of Versailles was purposely chosen where, forty eight years ago, France had been forced to sign another humiliating ‘treaty’ with Bismarck after her crushing defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. And the date of signature (28.06.1919) was also chosen to coincide with the date of assassination of the Archduke at Sarajevo exactly five years back— such meanness and ‘insult for insult’ is practiced not only by individuals but also by great nations governed by great people. But the cost there was much, much bigger—yes, the Second World War twenty years later. The Book of the New Testament says—“Never take revenge, my friends, but instead let God’s anger do it….. I will take revenge, I will pay back, says the Lord” (Romans 13). But rarely a Christian ‘believer’ seems really to believe it though it is not a sermon but a simple, practical wisdom of life. I wonder what this Pope and the bishops and the Fathers and the lofty churches all over the world with their paraphernalia of the service and the mass and the sermons and the psalms and the hymns are doing and have all along been doing ! The Versailles Peace Conference was controlled by a ‘Council of Ten’, which was ultimately reduced to ‘Big Three’—President Woodrow Wilson of the USA; Lloyd George, the British P M; and Georges Clemenceau, the French Premier. President Wilson, an idealist with vast reputation and popularity, came with his famous ‘Fourteen Points’ based on the principles of self-determination, disarmament, no secret diplomacy, Russia ( then in the crisis of a bloody civil war) to be helped by the Powers , and a League of Nations. Lloyd George was a weaver of fine phrases but he had a reputation of being an opportunist that he was. And Clemenceau, the ‘Tiger’ as he was called, had no use for ideals and pious phrases; he was out to crush France’s old enemy Germany and humble her in every possible way so that she might not be able to raise her head again. These three struggled with each other and each pulled his own way pushed by many others, with the shadow of Soviet Russia all along lurking behind, which, like Germany, was not represented. When Wilson spoke of magnanimity, reasonableness, lasting world peace and a just international order, Clemenceau used to yawn and feign sleepiness. It is a matter of record that, at times, Wilson got so disgusted with the ‘barbarian’ attitude of the European leaders that he wished to leave them to themselves and go back with his old American policy of isolation; the USA had not yet assumed the status of super power with global liability attached thereto. In the end , Clemenceau had his way with the tilt of Lloyd George, the opportunist, towards him and Wilson got only one thing—a League of Nations. But ironically enough, his Senate at home, more pragmatic as it was, refused to entangle the US with European affairs by joining the League. The combined effect of the huge reparations (132 billion Marks equivalent to $ 442 billion in 1919 !), territorial exactions and disarmament was such that no space was left for Germany to survive—it could not produce and without producing how could it pay the reparations? Yes, Hitler was a villain, post-Second World War German generations also recognized it. But how can one forget he was fathered and mothered by Clemenceau, the Tiger, and Lloyd George, the opportunist? They left no stone unturned to prepare the most fertile ground for his birth and growth-- he had already wept as a corporal in the German army on the day of its surrender, he will have to kill himself before the next surrender twenty six years later. The Americans are not known for being moralists but they did have a practical wisdom and sound common sense. See the contrast with their treatment towards West Germany and Japan after the Second World War—instead of reparation, Marshall Aid for European recovery and ‘Special Procurement’ for Japan. It is to prevent the Marshall Aid from reaching West Berlin that Berlin Blockade was attempted but was thwarted by large-scale Allied airlift . The wheel of history had turned full circle in twenty six years—after so much misery, killings and destruction and Lloyd George’s Britain losing her empire and the World Power status, and Clemenceau’s France having sufferred under German occupation for more than four years! How slow is man’s mind to learn from the history of his own omissions and commissions ! By the way, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inflicted not for securing Japan’s surrender. With her supply line stretched too far and Germany gone, Japan was already on her way to defeat, it was only a matter of more time and more casualties. The timing of the bombing betrays the real intent—to check Soviet Russia, which nevertheless reached Korea to create a lasting conflict. The Cold war had already begun, much before the surrender of Germany ( See : D F Fleming, The Origin of the Cold War—two Volumes). C-Demise of the Turkish Empire and Creation of the Mandate of Palestine and Others Out of the Arab Area of the Turkish Empire-- Creation of Another Pregnant Pause Turkey collapsed a few days before Germany, her empire gone to pieces and the government machinery also broken down. She arranged a separate armistice with the Allies resulting in the Treaty of Sevres (1920). By this, the Sultan came under the thumb of a Commission of Allies at Constantinople, as a puppet, and England and France divided among themselves the greater part of the Arab areas of the empire under a novel system of ‘Mandate’ from the League of nations, a new way of acquiring territories by the imperialist powers with assets (oil etc.) but no enforceable liabilities. France Got Syria, later split into Syria and Lebanon; England Got Palestine, Jordan and Iraq—the theoretical premise being these nationalities had the potential of self-determination and autonomy but needed to be nurtured for the same to fructify into reality (in practice, however,they had to earn that state not with the help of Mandatories but despite their persistent obstruction). Who else than a History student knows better the perennial dichotomy of theory and practice! [ By the way, History as a discipline, rather all humanities are slowly ebbing away from our universities!] Had the principles of Wilson’s Fourteen Point been applied, these areas would have become independent States. Though the Arab parts of the Turkish Empire took more time to wake up than the European, nationalist feelings and aspirations of self-determination were in full swing by then. Beginning with Syria in the sixties of the nineteenth century, such feelings and aspirations spread among the Arabs; there was also a cultural awakening and a renaissance of Arabic language and literature. The Arabs also wanted the religious leadership of Islam by getting back the Caliphate which Ottoman Sultans had usurped from the Caliphs of Cairo. In fact, the Turks started claiming the title right from the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 but it was formally surrendered by the Cairo Caliph Al Mutawakkil to the Turk Sultan Selim I only in 1517. The British began playing with the Arab nationalist sentiments even before the war. During the war, the Arabs were promised ‘independent national governments deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous population’. It is after being swayed by such deceptively pious words that Mecca’s emir, Sherif Hussein, regarded as the descendant of Prophet Mohammad, joined the British for raising an Arab rebellion against the Turks. The Arab revolt was subsidized with the help of a secret service agent, Colonel T. E. Lawrence, who was, however, outsmarted by a shrewd Wahabi adventurist, Ibn Saud, with the help of another agent, Harry St. John Philby, who played double and later converted to Islam, adopting the name of Hajji Abdulla. Ibn Saud earned British support too and united the emirates of Nezd and Hijaz to found the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is still ruled by his descendants with the backing of the USA, that entered into the shoes of Britain under the ‘Truman Doctrine’. This is one side of the imperial deception. On the other side, during the war, the Allies had come to a secret understanding to divide amongst themselves the Asian Turkish Empire on its demise. Italy was promised western part of Asia Minor subject to consent of Russia. Russia was to take Constantinople to facilitate her free access to the warm waters of Mediterranean. But with the Russian revolution and the withdrawal of Russia from the war, both the proposals went awry. The Arab countries had to be divided between England and France but secret within secret was that England nourished the ambition of establishing her exclusive Middle East Empire which could connect her Indian Empire with the African Colonies. And she was in a position to do it with her armed forces stationed at several places busy disarming the Turkish contingents, except in Syria where the forces were French. It is the fear of revolt by the war-weary soldiers if asked to fight further, that deterred England from fulfiling her secret dream. A successful democratic, nationalist movement in Turkey in the course of the war led by a secular, rationalist and brave leader Mustafa Kemal Pasha also spoiled the game. With the advent of nationalist democratic Government, the Treaty of Sevres remained unimplemented and a fresh Treaty of Lausanne had to be concluded with the new Government in 1923, whereby Turkey was recognized as a free, sovereign Nation State. Kemal, having no territorial ambitions beyond the borders of the Turkish nation, conceded to Mandate system somehow. Have we learnt any lesson ? The Paris episode and the way the magazine has reacted ! And did the Jihadists really served Islam and were able to serve in the long run ?
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 04:05:58 +0000
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