Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

The Treaty of Berlin of 1878 was a disaster from almost every point of view because it left every state, except Austria, with its appetite whetted and its hunger unsatisfied. The Pan-Slavs, the Romanians, the Bulgars, the South Slavs, the Greeks, and the Turks were all disgruntled with the settlement. The agreement turned the Balkans into an open powder keg from which the spark was kept away only with great difficulty and only for twenty years. It also opened up the prospect of the liquidation of the Turkish possessions in North Africa, thus inciting a rivalry between the Great Powers which was a constant danger to the peace in the period 1878-1912. The Romanian loss of Bessarabia, the Bulgarian loss of Eastern Rumelia, the South Slav loss of its hope of reaching the Adriatic or even of reaching Montenegro (because of the Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Novi-Bazar), the Greek failure to get Thessaly or Crete, and the complete discomfiture of the Turks created an atmosphere of general dissatisfaction. In the midst of this, the promise of reforms to Macedonia without any provision for enforcing this promise called forth hopes and agitations which could neither be satisfied nor quieted. Even Austria, which, on the face of it, had obtained more than she could really have expected, had obtained in Bosnia the instrument which was to lead eventually to the total destruction of the Habsburg Empire. This acquisition had been encouraged by Bismarck as a method of diverting Austrian ambitions southward to the Adriatic and out of Germany. But by placing Austria, in this way, in the position of being the chief obstacle in the path of the South Slav dreams of unity, Bismarck was also creating the occasion for the destruction of the Hohenzollern Empire. It is clear that European diplomatic history from 1878 to 1919 is little more than a commentary on the mistakes of the Congress of Berlin.

To Russia the events of 1878 were a bitter disappointment. Even the small Bulgarian state which emerged from the settlement gave them little satisfaction. With a constitution dictated by Russia and under a prince, Alexander of Battenberg, who was a nephew of the czar, the Bulgarians showed an uncooperative spirit which profoundly distressed the Russians. As a result, when Eastern Rumelia revolted in 1885 and demanded union with Bulgaria, the change was opposed by Russia and encouraged by Austria. Serbia, in its bitterness, went to war with Bulgaria but was defeated and forced to make peace by Austria. The union of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia was accepted, on face-saving terms, by the sultan. Russian objections were kept within limits by the power of Austria and England but were strong enough to force the abdication of Alexander of Battenberg. Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was elected to succeed Alexander, but was unacceptable to Russia and was recognized by none of the Powers until his reconciliation with Russia in 1896. The state was generally in turmoil during this period, plots and assassinations steadily following one another. A Macedonian revolutionary organization known as IMRO, working for independence for their area, adopted an increasingly terrorist policy, killing any Bulgarian or Romanian statesman who did not work wholeheartedly in cooperation with their efforts. Agitated Bulgarians formed insurgent bands which made raids into Macedonia, and insurrection became endemic in the province, bursting out in full force in 1902. By that date Serb and Greek bands had joined in the confusion. The Powers intervened at that point to inaugurate a program of reform in Macedonia under Austro-Russian supervision.

The Congress of Berlin began the liquidation of the Turkish position in North Africa. France, which had been occupying Algeria since 1830, established a French protectorate over Tunis as well in 1881. This led to the British occupation of Egypt the following year. Not to be outdone, Italy put in a claim for Tripoli but could get no more than an exchange of notes, known as the Mediterranean Agreement of 1887, by which England, Italy, Austria, Spain, and Germany promised to maintain the status quo in the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Aegean, and the Black seas, unless all parties agreed to changes. The only concrete advantage to Italy in this was a British promise of support in North Africa in return for Italian support of the British position in Egypt. This provided only tenuous satisfaction for the Italian ambitions in Tripoli, but it was reinforced in 1900 by a French-Italian agreement by which Italy gave France a free hand in Morocco in return for a free hand in Tripoli.

By 1900 an entirely new factor began to intrude into the Eastern Question. Under Bismarck (1862-1890) Germany had avoided all non-European adventures. Under William II (1888-1918) any kind of adventure, especially a remote and uncertain one, was welcomed. In the earlier period Germany had concerned itself with the Near East Question only as a member of the European “concert of Powers’’ and with a few incidental issues such as the use of German officers to train the Turkish Army. After 1889 the situation was different. Economically, the Germans began to invade Anatolia by establishing trading agencies and banking facilities; politically, Germany sought to strengthen Turkey’s international position in every way. This effort was symbolized by the German Kaiser’s two visits to the sultan in 1889 and 1898. On the latter occasion he solemnly promised his friendship to “the Sultan Abdul Hamid and the three hundred million Muhammadans who revere him as caliph.” Most important, perhaps, was the projected “Berlin to Baghdad” railway scheme which completed its main trunk line from the Austro-Hungarian border to Nusaybin in northern Mesopotamia by September 1918. This project was of the greatest economic, strategic, and political importance not only to the Ottoman Empire and the Near East but to the whole of Europe. Economically, it tapped a region of great mineral and agricultural resources, including the world’s greatest petroleum reserves. These were brought into contact with Constantinople and, beyond that, with central and northwestern Europe. Germany, which was industrialized late, had a great, unsatisfied demand for food and raw materials and a great capacity to manufacture industrial products which could be exported to pay for such food and raw materials. Efforts had been made and continued to be made by Germany to find a solution to this problem by opening trade relations with South America, the Far East, and North America. Banking facilities and a merchant marine were being established to encourage such trade relations. But the Germans, with their strong strategic sense, knew well that relations with the areas mentioned were at the mercy of the British fleet, which would, almost unquestionably, control the seas during wartime. The Berlin-to-Baghdad Railway solved these crucial problems. It put the German metallurgical industry in touch with the great metal resources of Anatolia; it put the German textile industry in touch with the supplies of wool, cotton, and hemp of the Balkans, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia; in fact, it brought to almost every branch of German industry the possibility of finding a solution for its critical market and raw-material problems. Best of all, these connections, being almost entirely overland, would be within reach of the German Army and beyond the reach of the British Navy.

For Turkey itself the railway was equally significant. Strategically it made it possible, for the first time, for Turkey to mobilize her full power in the Balkans, the Caucasus area, the Persian Gulf, or the Levant. It greatly increased the economic prosperity of the whole country; it could be run (as it was after 1911) on Mesopotamian petroleum; it provided markets and thus incentives for increased production of agricultural and mineral products; it greatly reduced political discontent, public disorder, and banditry in the areas through which it ran; it greatly increased the revenues of the Ottoman treasury in spite of the government’s engagement to pay subsidies to the railroad for each mile of track built and for a guaranteed income per mile each year.