Chapter 7.2 The Collapse of the Ottomans and the Coming of War
Chapter 7.2 The Collapse of the Ottomans and the Coming of War
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Identify the causes of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
- Analyze the rise of nationalism among minority ethnic groups within Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire
- Explain how the assassination of Franz Ferdinand triggered the start of World War I
- Describe the first few months of World War I
Former German chancellor Otto von Bismarck supposedly commented that the next big problem for Europe, most likely the next big war, would come out of “some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.” This prediction proved to be remarkably precise. The events of 1914 did not happen in a vacuum and were the result of many years of rising tensions in a volatile region of Europe, coupled with diplomatic maneuvers among the great empires of the continent. Yet even as the prelude to the war unfolded, most people did not truly expect conflict to be the outcome.
The “Sick Man of Europe”
The Ottoman Empire had always been predicated on expansion. It drew its strength from its territorial gains and the exploitation of the best and brightest from these new territories to serve the leader of the empire, the sultan. The strategy had worked for a number of centuries, even delivering an Ottoman army as far as the gates of Vienna in 1683 before it was pushed back. At its height, the empire encompassed areas of the Middle East, northern Africa, and a significant swath of southeastern Europe (Figure 7.7).
Starting in the 1800s, however, the Ottoman Empire entered a period of waning power as it grew unable to respond to nationalistic challenges. In the 1820s, nationalist leaders in Greece began fighting the Greek Civil War, and in 1830 Greece gained its independence from the Ottomans. More countries split off from the empire in the 1870s, including Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria. Bismarck worked with the 1878 Congress of Britain, which resulted in Austria-Hungary gaining Bosnia and Herzegovina to oversee while Serbia and Romania gained independence. Bulgaria also won some local autonomy. By the end of the nineteenth century, the demise of the empire, now known as “the sick man of Europe,” was being predicted; only the timing was in question. The Ottoman Empire was no longer strong enough to hold on to its outlying areas, and these grew ever more destabilized. The other powers in Europe watched with concern as the Ottoman Empire became weaker and other countries stepped in to fill the power vacuum, occupying and administering a region but not annexing it as Ottoman influence withdrew.
The ideology of nationalism was taking hold across Europe in the 1800s, and in the 1900s it only grew. The prospect of having a country for each nationality was tantalizingly appealing: Poland for the Poles, Serbia for the Serbs, and so on. In an empire, however, nationalism was a powerful danger. Empires were built of many different nationalities, and they would di