Little did anyone realize how close this placid Victorian world was to the ultimate irrationality; World War I.
Machines
By 1900, machines ran the modern Western world. Machines took jobs and created jobs. Machines ruled nearly every aspect of work and life. From the factories to the fields, machines performed more and more work under the oversight of humans. Trains made hauling people and possessions faster and cheaper. Railroads were crisscrossing continents other than Europe by 1900. From England to India, trains were the center of modern urban life and the center of economic life everywhere in Europe, America, and the colonial empires. Ships began running on coal-fired engines, and a new product—the automobile—ran on gasoline (mostly). The automobile became the foundation of the machine age when Henry Ford (1863-1947) introduced the Model T Ford October 1, 1908. Using assembly line methods he cut the cost of production making the vehicle affordable. The price was $825 when it rolled off the assembly line in 1908, and the price fell as Ford improved his manufacturing methods. The first airplane flew in 1903 when, at Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers made the world’s first powered flight using a gasoline engine. The need to fuel the machines began dominating business and governmental decisions worldwide. Oil was the key to both fueling and maintaining the new mechanical world. Without a large supply of oil the machines would die. As electricity became more useful, ways to generate electricity became more valuable. Falling water runs electric generators, but not everyone lives near a big river. Once more, power from burning coal or oil became the answer. As machines came of age, coal and then oil became the gold of the machine era.
Politics
Figure 43 The British Empire in 1923
Britain ruled the sea and an exceptionally large part of the world. She was the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world long before 1800, and her position seemed unassailable. Britain desired free trade and, as a nation, committed herself to keeping the oceans open to shipping, and keeping trade barriers low. All in accordance with Adam Smith’s ideas as set forth in his book, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Britain believed the goods and raw materials flowing to England strengthened her as a nation, and strengthened the colonies producing the goods and raw materials. As a whole, Britain ran her colonies well and relatively free of corruption. India, the crown jewel of Britain’s colonial empire, attracted many English citizens to live in the comforts of the imperial possession.
England also advanced on the social front. Under Queen Victoria (1819 to 1901), the second and third Reform Acts passed giving more classes of people the vote, and better labor laws passed to protect working people. In the United States, amendments to the Constitution passed ensuring voting rights and citizenship for blacks and minorities, and social welfare programs expanded to help the poor, the uneducated, and the insane. Powerful business interests operating to the detriment of small enterprise, such as railroads, at last began to face serious regulatory threats from state governments.
France also possessed a great worldwide colonial empire, but it did not add as much to the economy of France as English colonies did for Britain. The French empire was rife with corruption and incompetence. France and England viewed their empires differently. England built schools, hospitals, railroads, and the like for its colonies. Overall, the English colonies received much from the mother country. France did build railroads and generally improved its colonies, but the British did more. France viewed the colonies as benefiting France and little else. Britain viewed the colonies as a two-way exchange where the mother country owed the colonies, and both benefited from the colonial system. While the French did not acutely oppress people in their colonies, they let them know about French superiority in all things.[154] Holland, Portugal, and Germany held colonial empires, but they were a shadow of the English empire. Germany was especially desirous of obtaining more colonies to equal England, its rival for world power. Germany’s numerous problems included coming very late to the colonial game, and being a land power in Central Europe—not a sea power. Sea power brought colonies, and Germany was nowhere near the equal of Britain at sea.
Germany’s ship building program pushed Britain’s policy of having a fleet twice the size of any other nation to the limit. Germany was making headway by building more ships than England. Nevertheless, England’s outstanding naval architects pulled a rabbit out of the hat, outperforming Germany in innovation. Britain’s navy under the First Sea Lord, Fisher, invented a new kind of battleship,[155] the HMS Dreadnought (1906). This revolutionary ship made all other battleships obsolete the instant it hit the waves, because it had more large guns and greater speed than anything else afloat. The Dreadnought’s new turbine engines made the ship amazingly quick. All those many ships Germany constructed to catch up with England became useless. As England constructed more Dreadnought type battleships Germany retreated into the doldrums of naval power, but Germany strained every muscle to keep up. The very costly Dreadnoughts resulted in England and Germany spending piles of money on an arms race that increased world tensions and damaged their economies in the process. By World War I Britain had 21 Dreadnoughts and Germany 13.
Large standing armies impoverish the people.—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
At a fundamental level, Germany was a land power. She beat France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871 rather easily and obtained Alsace Loraine from France as a result. Germany’s population was outpacing the population of France, and Germany’s industry out produced France in key economic areas. France recognized these facts, which were terrifying the French government and people.
Germany needed to rethink copying Great Britain as its strategy for gaining world power. Enjoying a central position so as to benefit from trade with France, England, Russia, Central Europe, and others, Germany could grow her economy without preparing for war at sea or an aggressive war on land. Germany could position herself to gain allies rather than cause others to seek treaties to isolate her. Germany’s aggressive Prussian military heritage impaired her in the international arena since Prussia’s renown was its formidable army.[156] Had Germany chosen to spend money on industrial infrastructure rather than warships it would end Britain’s worries about German sea power. Britain would have no pressing reason to ally with France. If Germany constructed defensive lines and reduced the size of her army France could have relaxed, and alliances with Russia would be unnecessary. By befriending the nations around her Germany’s economic power could grow immeasurably, and Europe—and the world—would benefit owing to no arms race and the positive influence of a good trading partner. All this is speculation, because Germany would challenge France and Britain for world power and prestige with appalling results for Western Europe and the world.
France decided its best protection against Germany was alliances, especially with England and Russia. Once France secured the alliance with Russia, Germany was facing a two-front war. Otto von Bismarck, Germany’s leader for years, made it a point to keep his nation from encirclement by co-joined enemies; however, by early 1900 Bismarck was gone, and the new German leader, Kaiser Wilhelm, was irresponsible in foreign policy. By allowing Bismarck’s alliances to ebb away he gave France the opening it needed to gain an alliance with Russia, proving again that heredity and competence are not synonymous.
England also became an informal ally of France. This was most unusual, in that Britain and France were consistently at war with one another for over four hundred years. From before Agincourt (1415) to Waterloo (1812), England and France fought over ownership of Europe and the world. Even in the late 1800s, the antagonism remained strong, particularly over colonial issues. Nonetheless, in 1900 French policy changed, as did English policy, and the two became informal allies. The man behind this change, and probably the man who saved France from conquest in WW I, was the Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, Theophile Déclassé. For years Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister of England, had been trying to hammer out an alliance with the Germans to forward England’s p
olicy of containing Russia. Failing at that endeavor, he managed to gain an alliance with Japan to limit Russian expansion in the far east. Déclassé saw his chance after Salisbury finally soured on his chances with Germany. The French Foreign Minister knew the major difficulty with an alliance was the colonial competition with the British, however, he saw that the real issue was the fate of only two areas, Morocco and Egypt. Déclassé negotiated a deal where Egypt went to England and Morocco went to France. The deal was cut and finalized on April 7, 1904. Germany objected because she had an interest in Morocco, and under pressure Déclassé resigned; nevertheless, Germany was not satisfied and called for a large conference of the major powers to work out the fate of Morocco. The conference did not go well for the Germans and their constant threats of war disturbed England and France. The net result was a stronger relationship between Britain and France, just the opposite of what the Germans wanted. The fear of Germany drove England and France to partnership. As the ancient enemies came together as friends, it was certain the world was a much-altered place in the era of 1900.
The European arms race not only produced new ships, it also produced new weapons of land warfare, terrible in their portent but untried on the battlefield. Machine guns, fast-firing breach loading cannons, howitzers (high-firing long-range cannons), fast-firing rifles (breech-loading bolt actions with magazines holding several rounds), and other innovations made the prospect of war chilling. Some even said the new weapons of mass destruction made war impossible or unthinkable (compare to the atomic bomb). However, thinking and planning future wars went on as if the new weapons might shorten the war. Worse, these new weapons had unknown effects. Some generals maintained that machine guns could not kill enough men to stop a determined assault. The French generals in particular decided men had to have a real spirit of the offensive (élan) to overcome machine guns and massed artillery fire, and with that spirit they would prevail. This kind of thinking did not bode well for French privates.
Russia was improving its military. Stung by the defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1904, Russia made great strides in training and equipping its military. Still, Russia lagged well behind England, Germany, and France in military firepower. The Russian army’s size, along with the ability of its troops to withstand hardships without complaint, frightened potential opponents. Germany watched the Russians closely since they were the major threat from the east and now allied with France. Economically, Russia was far behind Western Europe in both methods of farming and manufacture. Russian Tsarist traditions also failed to help its society to develop a proper concern for the individual. The result was appalling oppression of the peasant population.
Japan continued growing in power. After adopting Western ways and technology, Japan advanced as the only real industrial power in the Far East. Japan defeated Russia, a major Western military power, in 1904, and now believed she deserved honorable treatment as a world power. However, European powers still viewed Japan with condescension, angering Japan’s people and inadvertently handing power to the militarists who were demanding the forcible expansion of Japanese territory into Korea, Manchuria, China, and the Pacific.
On the fringes of Europe, the Ottoman Empire was imploding. Once stretching from Morocco to India’s borders it had steadily shrank to encompass what is now modern Turkey, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Greece. Contracting since 1800, the Ottoman Empire devolved into a threat to peace. Because of colonial competition each European colonial nation, including Russia, became highly interested in the Ottoman’s fate. While Britain and France gave aid to Greece in its revolt against the Ottoman Empire, they sent aid to the Ottomans to forestall their loss of Egypt. Eventually, the major powers of Europe decided to support the continuation of the Ottoman Empire because it helped maintain the balance of power in Europe. An Ottoman breakup could cause a scramble for colonies and confrontations leading to war. This shows the ticklish nature of the European situation. A weak nation on the fringe of Europe was warily dealt with to avoid a general war involving the great world powers of Europe.
America
The United States of America was a growing economic power by 1900, but its diminutive army and midsized navy were no threat to Europe.[157] Oil became a major industry in America after 1864, fitting right into the dawning machine age and giving its promoters excellent profits from the very first. Americans were strongly isolationist even though some elements of society wanted America to join the great powers, acquire colonies, and help rule the world. Most Americans wanted nothing to do with world power. The Spanish-American War was fomented by the press (Hurst mainly) allegedly to sell more newspapers. Hurst’s papers printed outright lies to whip up public opinion for war, and a strange explosion that sank the USS Maine in Havana harbor was enough to tip the Congress for war. For the average American, the purpose of the war involved revenge against Spain for dishonoring the USA. Americans on the street never expected colonies from the war with Spain. However, Spain lost, and America gained the Philippines, Cuba, and other small-island possessions formerly belonging to Spain. The United States gave Cuba its independence but kept Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and the Philippines in the Far East as virtual colonies. Many in America detested owning colonies because it was antagonistic to American principles of national sovereignty and individual liberty. To some extent, the split over world involvement revolved around an urban versus rural viewpoint. The urban dwellers often wanted the United States to become more involved in world events, while the rural citizen wanted to stay away from the world. In 1900, the United States was more rural than urban, so the rural ideology favoring isolation still ruled nationwide.
Since America was a democracy the Congress reflected the split mood of the nation, but overall, the nation was still isolationist, wanted to stay out of European affairs, and did not want to be like Europe—at least politically. The warnings of George Washington, American’s first president, to stay out of foreign entanglements still rang true with a majority of voters. Thus, while some leaders, such as President Theodore Roosevelt, loved to send the Great White Fleet (the American navy) around the world to show off American power, most Americans just wanted out of world politics.
From the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to 1933 and Roosevelt’s New Deal, neither Republicans nor Democrats had unfettered control of the Federal government. Even when one party controlled in name, divergent forces within the parties tended to reduce their power. Liberal and Conservative were often better labels to describe a politician’s position than Republican or Democrat. Meanwhile, blacks sunk into oblivion as the US courts helped the “Redeemers” [158] in the South recover the old southern political culture. In 1896, the US Supreme Court in Plessey vs. Ferguson upheld “separate but equal.” This allowed the South to segregate its society and relegate blacks to second-class status (again). In Washington, DC, Corruption ruled as men of money bought Congressmen and judges as easily as flapjacks. Reform movements, such as the Progressives, called for fundamental changes in government. The civil service system, introduced by the Progressive movement, required testing for government positions and prohibited firings for political reasons. Several states allowed proposed laws onto the ballot so the public could pass legislation, and state constitutional amendments, by popular vote. This cut into the ability of corrupt political bosses to prevent reform legislation from passing. All this was trying to end government corruption and influence peddling which deeply damaged the American political system. The results of their efforts were uneven.
Power of Women
In 1900, the role of women in the world was up for debate—at least in the Western Democracies. Women wanted to vote, become professionals (doctors, lawyers, university professors, etc.), and to work at the same jobs as men for the same pay.[159] For centuries, women were relegated to the home and rearing children, stuck with only household employment. Some exceptions were around, like textile manufacturing where women made up 50 percent of the workforce in 1870. Of co
urse, there already were women doctors, architects, university graduates, and the like; however, women wanted this to be commonplace rather than unusual. In 1893, New Zealand gave women the vote. By 1920, women in the United States obtained the right to vote. Britain, Germany, Austria and Poland gave the vote to women in 1918. France waited until 1944 to extend the vote to women, and Switzerland stalled until 1971. When women obtained the vote the size of the electorate effectively doubled.
Women prevailed, obtaining all of these things much faster than supposed in 1900. The Great War and World War II propelled women to equality with men in voting, the workplace, professional life, and a host of other realms; but in 1900 these changes were over the horizon. Women started exercising their feminine muscle and, as they gained the vote, began to win elections, work in factories, and do the things men alone used to do; they gained stature. Women balked at being the chattels of men as they began shaking off history’s cobwebs.
In the 1900s this movement confined itself to Europe, its colonies, and America. For much of the world, even in 2010, women do not have equality with men. Many religions require women to be inferior, and many traditions do the same. Women won in the Western Democracies and expanded the economic and intellectual power of those nations. In places where women are excluded from the benefits of society, society itself suffers. This is one seldom discussed reason the West dominated the world for so long. By opening its societies to women, they freed about one-half of their population to contribute to the growth and power of their nations. Other societies forfeited this intellectual and economic dynamic by suppressing women and radically limiting their role in society.
The Super Summary of World History Page 29