-- controlling the seas and setting the terms of trade;
-- dominating world banking and manipulating the world's largest gold supply; and
-- controlling world raw materials with oil the key one at the turn of the century; with these working, it devised an "informal empire" to loot world wealth and maintain a balance of power on the continent.
Britain's "genius" was being able to shift alliances without letting sentiment interfere with its interests. Post-Waterloo, it operated "on an extremely sophisticated marriage between top (London) bankers and financiers, government cabinet ministers," key industrialists and espionage chiefs. By keeping everything secret, it "wielded immense power over credulous and unsuspecting foreign economies." By the late 19th century, however, things began to change, and a new strategy was needed. Key to it was oil geopolitics as a vital naval supremacy ingredient.
The Lines are Drawn: Germany and the Geopolitics of the Great War
The importance of oil and emergence of continental economies (especially in Germany) provided the backdrop to WW I. By the late 19th century, British bankers and political elites were alarmed that German industrial and technological development began surpassing its own that was in decline. Included was a modern German merchant and naval fleet and an ambitious railway project linking Berlin with Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman empire. At stake was British hegemony, and preserving it led to war.
Prior to its outbreak, coal was king, German output was impressive and so was its growth:
-- its steel production increased 1000% in 20 years, leaving Britain far behind by 1900;
-- its state-backed rail infrastructure doubled in track kilometers from 1870 to 1913;
-- with the advent of centralized electric power generation and long-distance transmission, its electrical industry exploded to dominate half the world's trade by 1913;
-- impressive research built the country's chemical industry and made Germany the world leader in analine dye production, pharmaceuticals and chemical fertilizers;
-- German agriculture thrived; it made "astonishing" gains from the introduction of "scientific agriculture chemistry" and produced an 80% grain harvest increase from 1887 to 1914;
-- population growth was dramatic - 75% to 67 million between 1870 and 1914;
-- Germany's merchant fleet rocketed to second place in the world behind Britain and at a pace to overtake it;
-- steel and engineering advances were achieved; and consider another British concern:
-- early in the century, British Dreadnought battleship leadership was surpassed; Germany's super model was superior and that spelled trouble for UK sea power supremacy; by 1910, "dramatic remedies" were needed; Germany's economic emergence had to be confronted, its growing naval strength as well, and for the first time oil was a factor.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
As we can see today they are using the same parameters to start a ww3
As America slips into depression , the Russians continue to refuse the unipolar world view that the west wants to implement. As the west circles Russia adding the former USSR satelites to the EU and Nato. We can see that the same game plan is in play. A fasistic pre-emptive war on iraq,Autrocites like 7,000 ton of DU dumped on Iraq,ra[e murder ,looting and Torture. It remarkable just like Germany in WW2.
I see a very dire situation brewung in the world.
by
dave stanley (5 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 286 comments)
on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 6:52:35 AM
