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Geopolitical and Geoeconomical Causes of the First World War

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DOI: 10.22182/spt.1112015.1

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 GEOPOLITICAL AND GEOECONOMICAL CAUSES

OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Emilija Manic*
E-mail: geografija@ekof.bg.ac.rs
Milomir Stepic**
E-mail: milomir.stepic@gmail.com

Abstract: Although the whole century has gone since the First World War, the immediate cause and
reasons for its beginning has been again in the centre, not so much of scientific objective research, but in the
centre of contemporary, political changeable relativized research of those who were challengers and those who
were induced. In the order of that aim are the efforts to rename the Sarajevo assassination, which is undoubtedly
determined as the direct cause of the War, into its reason, which essence is much more complex. The real reason
for the beginning of the First World War should be looked for in the confrontation of the great European and
world powers – the process which had lasted at least half century before the War actually began. Basically there
is an expansionism of two complementary Central European countries: the Austro Hungarian Empire and
Germany. The Austro Hungarian Empire, in which the Slavs were majority, had been trying to strengthen the
ethnical-political cohesion within its boundaries, while the foreign political aim was to penetrate to the Aegean
port Salonika at the eastern Mediterranean. Serbia had been perceived as “disruptive factor”, especially after
the expansion achieved in the Balkan’s wars. Germany, since it had united only in the second half of the XIX
century, has been unsatisfied with the established colonial division of the world. It couldn’t be a concurrent to
France, Great Britain and Russia such territorially squeezed in the Central Europe. Because of that, Germany
had decided to take “Drang nach Osten” as its geopolitical and geoeconomical orientation (“The Bagdad
Idea”). The realization of this plan would represent the continental competition to the Great Britain marine
“The Big Imperial Way” and the cutting the Britain imperia into two parts. In that context, Serbia was identified
as “The Gatekeeper of the Orient” to the British, and to the Germans was the only obstacle on its “strategic
diagonal” from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. Preparing for the War, the great powers, in accordance with
their own geopolitical and geoeconomical interests, included small countries in their military alliances, which
they formed many years before the 1914.
KEY WORDS: THE FIRST WORLD WAR, GEOPOLITICAL AND GEOECONOMICAL REASONS,
GREAT POWERS, SERBIA

JEL CLASSIFICATION: N40, N440, N940

1. BETWEEN THE CAUSES AND MOTIVES OF WAR

New terminology and conjoined narratives took special place in the system of postmodern
transformations and the process of building unipolar order. The changes to the meanings of old terms,
the appearance of amorphous, mutated and confusing ones, the adaptation of the terminology to the
new reality and the introduction of many, often tendentiously inaccurate neologisms, were
accompanied by attempts at the "politically correct" (re)interpretation of the past. The interpretation of

*
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Economics
**
Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade

1
events depended less and less on the facts, on undisputed historical sources and objective scientific
approaches. This was increasingly influenced by the existing position in the hierarchy of power and
the need to "cleanse the biographies" of the former war perpetrators and losers, who, in the meantime,
had again become not only exemplary members of the "European family", but also the fulcrum of the
United States as the global hegemon on its "most essential geopolitical bridgehead on the Eurasian
continent."1
The 100th anniversary of these significant events, on which the attention not only of science
and politics, but also of the the media as a powerful instrument of modern geopolitics is focused,
presents a suitable opportunity to plunge back into the past. The centenary of the beginning of the First
World War has again returned the focus of interest onto the reconsideration of the position of its
actors, especially that of the direct instigators and those who rose up to defend themselves. However,
the relations between the powerful countries in 2014 differ significantly from the balance of power in
1914. Bipolarisation resulted in most of the former rival forces from the two world wars (excluding
Russia) gathering within the same economic-political-military integration (EU-NATO), which
personifies Western civilization.2 That civilisation was and has remained geo-culturally, geo-
politically and geo-economically opposed to Russia, the axle of the Eastern, (Neo) Byzantine,
Orthodox civilization. Membership of the winning Cold War camp and the new post-cold war
constellation provided an opportunity for strengthened Germany, and Austria and Hungary along with
it, to relativize the causes and motives of the First World War in which they were defeated.
By default, the causes of war are long-standing rivalries and the attempts of one side to change
the existing layout of positions in bilateral or multilateral relations, i.e. on the regional,
(trans)continental / (trans)oceanic or global plane. The causes of war are defined by economic,
military-strategic, political, religious, civic and other interests, and the main goal has always been,
from the primordial community to the information society, the same - the expansion of territory which
is governed directly or (in)directly managed. When the conditions are right, i.e. when conflicting
interests reach a critical level of conflict, one teeters on the brink of war, and history shows that the
immediate motive for its outbreak is easily found or provoked. The intention to present the motive as
the cause of war is not just an attempt to revise historical facts, but also multi-dimensional
manipulation. To carry out such an attempt on the example of the First World War one century later is
directed at the amnesty of the true culprits from 1914 (and 1939), and an attempt to transfer their
responsibility onto the Serbian factor, with the "crowning proof" that the assassination in Sarajevo was
of Serbian ethnicity. Falsely accused and systematically stigmatized in the West because of the war-
shattered disintegration of Yugoslavia for already quarter of a century (since the 1990s), Serbs and
Serbia have become the ideal scapegoat for the transfer of such a "guilt complex." However, this is
only the transitional phase on the path to blaming the "Serbian patron" and allegedly the real culprit -
Russia.

2. The main cause of the war: the German attempt to change the geopolitical and geo-
economical hierarchy of power

This superficial and one-sided focus on the causes, motives, course, outcomes and
consequences of World War I leads to a mistaken perception from the standpoint of historiography
and a detour from lessons for the future. The war did start with the Austro-Hungarian military attack
on Serbia, but did not start because of Serbia. Long before 28th June 1914, it was clear that war was
being directly prepared. If the motive had not been the assassination in Sarajevo, then it would have
been another event. The Austro-Hungarian political circles considered the crisis which occurred after

1
Bžežinski, Z. . (2001), Velika šahovska tabla, CID, Podgorica; Romanov, Banja Luka, 2001, pp. 57
2
The author of the „clash of civilization“ concept S. Huntington has no dilemma that „ the (European) Union
conterminous with Western civilization“, and that „NATO is safety organization of Western civilization“. See
in: Huntington S.P. (1996), The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon & Schuster,
New York, pр. 161.

2
the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, and the Second Balkan War in 1913, as missed
opportunities. According to historian M. Ekmečić (member of the Serbian Academy of Science and
Art), Vienna was encouraging and planning the uprising of the Albanians in Old Serbia for winter
1914 as a pretext for intervention in Serbia. Furthermore, the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian
Parliament in March 1914 had one main reason - the smooth commencement of the war. The
Government’s takeover of parliamentary competences cleverly suspended any danger of failure to
achieve the necessary two-thirds support of MPs for the declaration of war.
The hegemonic and expansionist intentions of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, established by
anti-Russian motivated British support as far back as the Congress of Berlin in 18783, were not in
dispute, but they maintained only a regional character. The main cause of the war was Germany’s
intention to change the geopolitical and geo-economic relations at European and global levels, and that
of the other major powers to maintain their acquired positions. Compared to other European
adversaries, Germany was facing a major handicap – until the second half of the 19th century Germany
had not carried out or politically experienced the primary integration phase, i.e. was not established as
a unified nation-state. It was only in 1870, when "the chancellor-unifier" Bismarck succeeded in
gathering numerous Germanic states, which had previously passed through both periods of alliances
and mutual confrontation, around Prussia as its centre of gravity. The newly formed Germany became
a political-territorial "giant in the heart of Europe", which fundamentally changed previous
geopolitical and geo-economic relations. Germany showed its political and diplomatic influence very
quickly – already at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 - and later its expansionist intentions.
However, in WesternEurope, France and England had established big and powerful maritime
states much earlier. They had also occupied vast overseas colonies thanks to which they maintained
supremacy on the demographic, economic, trade, military and geopolitical plane. In the east, although
the Russian Empire had not occupied the colonies, through territorial expansion along the Eurasian
expanses, it had reached the Pacific and parts of the American continent (until the sale of Alaska to the
United States in 1867), thus growing into a world "continental giant." Germany therefore found itself
in a geopolitically schizophrenic position: torn between the reality of being a "belated nation-state"
and the (self-imposed) ambition to compete with the other major powers. It would try to change that in
two risky ways: firstly, to spread territorially in Europe where, in turn, it was wedged "between a rock
and a hard place" (Great Britain and France on the one side and Russia on the other), and secondly, to
threaten the colonial status quo, even though the political map of overseas estate and the imperial
routes to it had already been drawn.
By joining such colonial conquests late, Germany managed to occupy some of what was left
outside of what were already quite a large number of independent states, new de-colonised countries
(mostly former Spanish and Portuguese land in Latin America) and the existing, mostly British and
French colonies. The larger areas under German rule before the First World War were the territories of
Togoland, German Cameroon, German South-West Africa (today Namibia), German East Africa (now
Rwanda, Burundi and the continental part of Tanzania), and German New Guinea (the northern part of
present day Papua New Guinea). A few more points on the Pacific archipelagos and the Chinese coast
should be added to this. Out of 79.2 million km2, which in the early years of the 20th century was the
total area covered by colonies in the world, 2.6 million km2 (3.3%) belonged to Germany, which is
only slightly more than that owned by Belgium (2.4 million km2), Portugal (2.1 million km2) and the
Netherlands (2 million km2). However, compared with the British Colonial Empire "where the sun
never sets", which spread out over 32.7 million km2 (41.3% of the total colonies), French colonies

3
Great Britain, as a maritime power, and Russia, as a land power, are geopolitical antipodes, which had been
reflected in very serious rivalry in Eurasia during the XIX century. Historian Lj. Ristic called that the natural
antagonism, because of which the Great Britain had helped Austria-Hungary in Berlin congress to become „the
keeper of the new state in Balakns“, especially „ in that part of Balakns which was unavailable to the British
fleet“. See in: Ристић Љ. (2014). Србија у британској политици 1889-1903, Балканолошки институт
САНУ, Београд, 2014, pp 507

3
with 11 million km2 (13.9%) and the state territory of the Russian Empire of 21.8 million km2 -
German territory was significantly smaller. 4
Germany's colonies were scattered, disconnected from each other and very distant from the
metropolis, as well as from each other. Their territories, in the physical-geographical sense, consisted
of what were mainly impassable deserts or rainforests, with almost no internal transport networks,
ports or quality connections between the interior and the coast. Road construction was a very
expensive, technically complicated and slow undertaking, which impeded governance, military
control, economic utilization and trade. The natural resources of the German colonies could not be
compared with the enormous wealth of the Eurasian territory of the Russian Empire or the huge
French, and especially British assets. The smaller and poorer populations of the German colonies did
not provide a significant market for the products from the powerful economy in the metropolis. All
that could not bring the required economic effects which would significantly impact on the growth of
the overall power of Germany and the change of the balance of power among the great powers in its
favour. From the standpoint of Germany’s interests, such a situation was untenable.
Although historically older and territorially larger than Germany, Austria-Hungary did not
have any non-European colonial intents or ambitions to change the European and global balance of
power. Its expansionist ambitions were directed towards the southeast, "the only direction in which the
Habsburg Monarchy could prove itself as a great European power."5 Therefore, Vienna planned "the
little war" in the Balkans for a long time, believing that victory in it would quash their own political
problems, soothe the tensions that shook their ethnically heterogeneous population, discredit Serbia’s
attraction among their own citizens of Serbian origin, complete their dominance in the Danube region,
occupy key positions the rest of the Balkans (primarily the major geopolitical axis along the Morava-
Vardar valley) and "restore confidence internally and their reputation among the great powers of
Europe."6
Despite their ethno-geographical similarities, the German states (before unification) and
Austria were often adversaries. Moreover, Prussia’s victory in the seven week Prussian-Austrian War7
waged in 1866 further strengthened its previous dominant intra-German position and following the
victory over the French in 1870 it became the core of German state integration. However, after the
constitution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867 and the formation of Germany in 1870, and
especially after the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and the alliance made in 1879, their geopolitical
interests became increasingly complementary. Observed together, before the First World War they
held territory of 1.217 million km2, possessed the whole Central European geographical area and
formed the inter-maritime “geopolitical curtain" from the North and Baltic Seas to the Adriatic "bay"
of the Mediterranean Sea. Once the Austro-Hungarians had placed Bosnia and Herzegovina under
their control, firstly by the "allowed" occupation in 1878, and then through the illegal annexation in
1908 (a violation of the Congress of Berlin’s binding decisions), it became obvious that this was not
just Vienna’s further "step forward" in the Balkans, but the realization of the Pan-German geopolitical
Drang nach (Süd)Оsten. The Austro-Hungarian planned “road section” had its departure point in
Thessaloniki, while German ambitions extended much further - to Baghdad and the Persian Gulf.

3. The theoretical-conceptual basis of Germany’s war goals: from the bio-logistical

perception of ‘life space’ to the mitteleuropa base of expansionism

4
Krivokapić, B. (2010), Enciklopedijski rečnik međunarodnog prava i međunarodnih odnosa, Službeni glasnik,
Beograd, pp. 420
5
Радојевић, M. и др. (2014), Србија у Великом рату 1914-1918: кратка историја, Српска књижевна
задруга; Београдски форум за свет равноправних, Београд, pp. 7
6
Ibid. pp.. 7
7
One group of German states (and Kingdom of Italy) was in alliance била with prussia, the other in alliance
with Austria, and several of German states kept the neutrality. Prussia-austran war was known also as One –
week war, German (civil) war, War of Unification or War of Brothers (Bruderkrieg).

4
 German expansionism and the options for its spatial orientation, which were supposed to be
realized in the First World War, were theoretically-conceptually articulated long before Gavrilo
Princip’s shots on Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day) in 1914. In as far back as the 1840’s, Friedrich List and
Karl Ludwig von Bruck advocated the Germanic establishment of full mitteleuropa domination.8
Economist F. List believed that Germany needed economic penetration on the East, to where the
increasingly stronger, and from the standpoint of national interests senseless emigration of German
paupers, should be (re)directed. Austrian politician K. von Bruck did not advocate the unification of
Germany and Austria, but their strong alliance, by means of which full German domination would also
be achieved in the Central European region. Towards the end of the 19th century anthropo-geographer
Friedrich Ratzel laid the theoretical foundations of Germanic expansionism, based on biologistic
(organic) and evolutionistic (Darwinist) principles.
Ratzel and his work are the logical outcome of German physical-geographical determinism. They
are also the product of the historical and political atmosphere in Europe at that time, and especially the
observable "need for geography." Within the context of German interests, there were two main reasons
for that: first, the Prussian military needs, and second, the national-integration movement which led to
the unification of the fragmented German states into a large, strong and integral state "in the heart of
Europe”. Germany needed geographical knowledge not only for the formation and functioning of the
new, unified state, but also as "justification" for such hegemonic and imperialistic goals. In
Antropogeographie (first edition 1882) Ratzel developed the basic principles of unity and reciprocity
of nature, population and space. He saw space exclusively through unity with life, i.e. as "living space"
(Lebensraum). The function of living space is to provide food, habitat and reproduction, therefore, the
primordial instinct of every living organism (humans, nations and states) is to invade spaces and by
growing, fight for space and expand into new areas. De facto, the struggle for space is the fight for
survival, both in nature and international (interstate) relations.
In his main work, Political Geography (Politische Geographie, first edition 1897), Ratzel
highlighted two factors as essential for the constitution of a state - position (die Lage) and space (der
Raum). Ratzel applied biological laws to the phenomenon of state, defining it as "an organism tied to
the soil" ("der Staat als Bodenstandinger Organismus"), and "part of humanity with part of the soil"
(the thesis of "Blood and Soil" - Blut und Boden). Starting with the premise that "the characteristics of
the state consist of the characteristics of the nation and the characteristics of the soil"9, Ratzel formed
two fundamental concepts: "life energy" (Lebensenergie) and "spatial sense" (Raumsinn). The state,
like all organisms, passes through the stages of life development (cycles) - youth, maturity and old
age. Accordingly, a new state-organism has the natural right to territorial growth, up to its "natural
borders". Lack of space and failure to understand the true significance of space leads the state to
risking its life and may result in death. Ratzel considered the expansion of large states as a necessity.
Their expansion is achieved at the expense of small states, just like "superior" nations expand at the
expense of “inferior” ones. The population growth and cultural and civilizational progress of a nation
increase its appetite for ethno-spatial expansion.
By further developing the concept of the state as an organism, in his article "The laws of the
spatial growth of states" Ratzel singled out the basic principles (seven) of its expansion.10 He saw
expansion up to "natural borders" as a process leading to the formation of a small number of macro-
political and macro-economic spaces, i.e. state-continents. Ratzel thus aligned himself alongside the
supporters of the "geopolitics of large regions", i.e. the idea of “pan-regions" and the concept of a
"global superpower" (Weltmacht). He came to those conclusions on the basis of the American
experience of "a sense of space" and the occupation of "empty space" conceived by the Monroe
Doctrine. By establishing an analogy and applying the American experience to Germany, Ratzel

8
К. Orel said that famous German geographer Karl Riter was the first who used the term Mitteleuropa at the
beginning of the XIX century. See in: Орел, K. (2012), Средња Европа – од идеје до историје, Клио,
Београд, pp. 154.
9
Ratzel, F. (1903), Politische Geographie – oder die Geographie der Staaten, des Verkchres und des Krieges,
Oldenbourg, München und Berlin, pp. 4.
10
Ratzel, F. (1896), “Die Gesetze des räumlichen Wachstums der Staaten,” Petermanns Geographischen
Mitteilungen, Vol. 42, № 5, pp. 97-107.

5
foresaw the perspective of a great European continental power. However, he also pointed out the role
of naval power in achieving the status of "world superpower" and planetary expansion, emphasising
that what some maritime countries had achieved spontaneously (England, Spain, Holland...), majorly
land powers must achieve consciously and systematically (referring to Germany).11
Although Ratzel himself remained consistent in his intellectual-scientific orientation and
refrained from digressing into the unstable terrain of the ideological-political and military (mis)use of
his theoretical assumptions, the German political nomenclature of that time eagerly accepted his ideas
as the "scientific foundation" of expansionism. An even bigger contribution to that was made by the
Swedish politician, state-legal writer and university professor, Johan Rudolf Kjellén, a scientist who
was the first to use the term geopolitics in 1899. By following Ratzel’s biologistic concept, he
presented the most important thesis in his work, the State as a Life Form (Staten som Lifsform), which
was published in Stockholm in 1916, but which presented a synthesis of ideas and studies mostly
completed by the beginning of the First World War. Rather than in Sweden, Kjellén's book
experienced a greater scientific and practical response in Germany, where it was translated the
following year (Der Staat als Lebensform, Leipzig, 1917) and was used as further, allegedly neutral
proof of the feasibility of German expansionism.
Kjellén had deepened and expanded the theory of the state-organism, emphasizing that the
system of the state consists of several subsystems - geopolitics, cratopolitics, ethnopolitics
(demopolitics), ecopolitics (economic policy) and sociopolitics. He attributed particular importance to
geopolitics - the science of the state as a geographical organism. Accordingly, he underscored territory
as a key element of the state and set aside several of its important characteristics: space, borders,
morphography, position and self-sufficiency. He compared loss of territory with the loss of a body part
(amputation), and considered it more dangerous for the state than loss of population, which could be
easily compensated. However, that did not mean that the population was an irrelevant factor of the
"state organism." Moreover, Kjellén emphasised the interdependence of the state and demographic
processes (number, population density, natural regeneration, migration ...). He particularly emphasized
the phenomenon of national feeling (spirit), which the state must manage, preventing any extremes so
as to avoid the situation when national indifference dominates thus causing "anaemia of the state
organism," as well as the opposite case when a shift towards national euphoria can end in the "feverish
temperature of chauvinism" (Kjellén cites Serbia before the First World War as an example).12
The creation of large states, in Kjellén’s opinion, is a natural historical outcome. Their further
expansion is nothing but obedience to the "political imperative to increase their space through
colonization, merging, or various conquests"13, which does not originate from “a brutal conquering
instinct, but natural, essential growth because of self-preservation”14. What particularly suited German
ambitions was Kjellén's comparison of the law of gravity in physics, where the body of a greater mass
attracts that of a lesser mass, with the law of political gravity, where the larger country attracts fewer
neighbours. To support that, he used an economic analogy: just as big capital has an economic
tendency to multiply, a big state has the political logic to spread spatially.
However, big states can also be vulnerable, primarily because of their delicate position.
Taking the example of Germany, Kjellén warned about it being surrounded by numerous neighbours
who kept it under constant concentric pressure, and England which perceived Germany as a permanent
adversary which could endanger them if it were to achieve better naval participation. In this context,

11
Дугин, A. (2004), Основи геополитике, књига 1, Екопрес, Зрењанин, 2004, pp. 43.
12
Kjelen very biased and according to former and later prejudices as an example standed out Serbia and
suspected of it. He thought that Serbia is „disturbing factor“ inserted between of German allies from Berlin to
Persian Gulf, which should be reliable support for German geopolitical, geostrategical and geoeconomical
Southeast expansion. He contested the right of Serbia and Serbs to national and territorial integration in one
“state organism”, displaying inconsistency in his theoretical assumptions.. See in: Кјелен, R. (1923). Држава
као животни облик, Издање И. Ђ. Ђурђевића, Београд – Сарајево, 1923, pp. 119.
13
Кјелен, R. (1923). Држава као животни облик, Издање И. Ђ. Ђурђевића, Београд – Сарајево, 1923, pp.
119.
14
Ibid pp. 64.

6
he considered the position of the Netherlands as especially important.15 According to Kjellén, the
position of small states was particularly threatened by "naturally predisposed" pressure from large
countries which they were unable to resist by means of a neutral presence or international legal norms,
but only through a powerful ally and its counter-pressure. Small countries could survive longer if they
were peripheral (Portugal, Norway ...) or if they had a buffer position which originated from a
compromise between the great powers. Kjellén particularly emphasized the "buffer policy in Europe,
primarily in the Balkans"16, thanks to which, at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Serbia, Romania and
Bulgaria gained independence in order, in the interests of the big Western powers, to prevent Russia’s
penetration towards Constantinople and the Mediterranean.
Although he considered the maritime, thalassocratic type of great powers out-dated and favoured
land-based, telurocratic powers (bearing in mind Germany), Kjellén believed that political instinct
("law") justified their aspirations to connect their fragmented estate into "colonial complexes" for
transport and geostrategic reasons. Therefore, two or more colonial powers often laid claim to the
same geographical area or points. This caused conflicts between them, and Kjellén cited the case of
the confrontation between England and Germany regarding the Middle East concluding that "this
geographical conflict was one of the strongest incentives of the (First) World War."17 In his opinion,
the intensive development of overland transport links, which were rapidly eliminating the advantages
of maritime traffic, would contribute to predominantly big land powers overcoming what had been
until then superior maritime ones.
Kjellén did not question the fact that the strength of the great powers in the early 20th century
was based on the vast expanses they governed, thus he was an advocate of the geopolitical idea of
"large regions". Since Germany’s adversaries the USA, the UK, France and Russia already had such
units he proposed the formation of one central European "big region". Its "natural" core and leader
would be Germany, which had the fundamental quality - "central position" ("Mittellage"). Kjellén’s
Central European pan-territorial vision had two options: a smaller one which included Germany and
Austria-Hungary, with the addition of Poland (since 1916), and a bigger one which also included the
Levant (in the broader sense). 18 Conceptually, his idea corresponded to Friedrich Naumann’s earlier
Central European idea, elaborated in 1915 in the paradigmatic work Mitteleuropa.
Naumann's Mitteleuropa idea was based on the necessity of the German-Austrian-Hungarian
alliance and was the result not only of his perception of relations in Europe in the late 19th and early
20th centuries, but also on far-sighted predictions of the consequences of the initial results of the war.
He estimated that despite being large and populous, Germany would not be able to dominate the
Central European region alone, and that not only would it fail to come into possession of new
colonies, it would also probably lose those it already had. Therefore, he advocated that despite their
differences the core of the future of Mitteleuropa be formed by Germany and Austria-Hungary, and
other regions should join it so that it extended "from the North and Baltic Seas to the Alps, the
Adriatic Sea and the southern border of the Danube plain."19 The background to the creation of such
an entity under the German factor was explained by the alleged geographic predestination, shared
cultural model, the need for creation of a single economic region and the military-alliance necessity.
The integrative "formula" would then outgrow the ethnic and pan-German one, thus becoming one
based on expansional and geopolitical interests. Only the undisputed control of such a central

15
Kjelen has classified Netherland in the so-called delta-countries, because of the Rhina delta confluence control
in the Atlantic ocean (the North see). He summarized in a sentence the extraordinary and far-reaching
geopolitical, military-strategic, transport and trade importance of this area: „England has to consider the German
keeping far away from the Rhine confluence as its mission in life“
16
Ibid pp.. 70-71
17
Ibid pp. 59
18
Стојановић, M. (2011), Политичка географија, геополитика и геостратегија – увод у геополитичко
мишљење, Матица српска, Бања Лука, 2001, pp. 60.
19
Naumann, F. (1915), Mitteleuropa, Reimer, Berlin, 1915, pp. 3. Since Italy entered the war on the side of the
Entente, and not the Central Powers, Nauman had excluded it from mitteleurope project, but he leaves the
possibility that France could take that roll in the future.

7
European "big space" would enable the Germanic factor first to compete with rival superpowers, and
then to move onto further expansion, thus questioning the existing geopolitical structure of the world.

4. The Great imperial road vs. the Baghdad idea

The ideas of F. Ratzel, R. Kjellén and F. Naumann exemplified the "climate" that formed in
German intellectual and political circles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The public was
prepared for the upcoming events and warned that they had to act preventively, according to the rapid
transformation of the world. The basic principles of these processes remained consistent. Among the
"exceptions that prove the rule," they were based on antagonism between telurocracy ("land power")
and thallasocracy ("sea power"), which is considered to be the "first law of geopolitics"20, and on
expansionist urges which lead to the formation of alliances in accordance with one or another
geopolitical identity, which falls within the domain of "the second law of geopolitics." 21. Accordingly,
Western, Atlantic, maritime, colonial powers Britain and France (and the United States from the side-
lines) closely monitored the economic development, technological progress, military modernization
and geopolitical ambitions of two continental powers - Germany (the "heart of Europe") and Russia
(the "heart of Eurasia").
In the second half of the 19th century Russia was a major competitor to British dominance in
Asia. Great Britain took particular care that the Russian expansion in Central Asia did not extend to
the Indian Ocean, and did not cut the belt of its territories along the Asian rim. The metropolis’ sea
access to colonies, the control of the key points on the waterways (straits, channels, islands and ports),
the speed of navigation and manoeuvres of the modern navy still outstripped Russian land mobility.
However, despite numerous problems on the internal and external plane (mainly defeat in the war with
Japan, 1904-1905), the industrialization, transport connections, general modernization and inland
geopolitical power of Russia was advancing rapidly. For the thalassocratic Western powers, primarily
the United Kingdom, that was a "red flag." The quick response came not only from politically imperial
mechanisms, but also from their "intellectual logistics."
The expansion of the railway network in the vast Russian Empire drew particular attention in
London. That fact threatened to fundamentally change the geopolitical and geo-economic status quo.
The route of the Russian railway, which provided the opportunity to rapidly cross the internal Eurasian
vastness, was interpreted as a counterpart and competition to the British waterways, thanks to which
they achieved colonial control of the Eurasian coastal zone. What was particularly alarming was the
Trans-Siberian railway, whose construction began in 1891and had almost reached completion before
the First World War. When completed in 1916, the London strategists interpreted the "pivot" from
continental Moscow to the Pacific port of Vladivostok as the "cementing" of Russian land (Eurasian)
dominance and a dangerous telurocratic opposition to the British thallasocratic "Great imperial road".
It was those same realities which inspired the prominent British geographer, Sir Halford John
Mackinder, firstly in a terse lecture at the Royal Geographical Society in London in early 1904, and
then in an article entitled "The Geographical Pivot of History"22, to conclude that the area mainly
located within Russia's borders is a pivot area of world history inaccessible to naval forces. Thanks to
it, Russia had the potential to rule the entire world. In the version from 1919, territorially corrected and
conceptually adjusted on the basis of the results of the First World War, Mackinder called the ‘Pivot

20
Дугин, A. (2004), Основи геополитике, књига 2, Екопрес, Зрењанин, 2004, pp. 139.
21
Ibid pp. 143.
22
Mackinder, H.J. (1904), „The Geographical Pivot of History“, Geographical Journal, 23(1904), The Royal
Geographical Society, London, 1904, pр. 427-437. Contemporary theorists of political geography, geopolitics
and geostrategy consider Mackinder as „the author of the boldest and most revolutionary scheme of
interpretation of political history of the world“, and this paper of his as „the major geopolitical paper in the
history of that discipline“. See in: Дугин, A. (2004), Основи геополитике, књига 1, Екопрес, Зрењанин, 2004,
pp. 47

8
area’the ‘Heartland’.23 His conception (once again corrected in 1943, pursuant to certain outcomes of
the Second World War) was de facto the personification of the thalasocratic fear of losing the
advantage in mobility, which may lead to the loss of global dominance.
Great Britain and France correctly assessed that it was hard to compete with Russia's
geographical predisposition. Therefore they endeavoured to limit Russia’s power, but to avoid
(postpone) direct confrontation with her and to have her as an ally in order to “keep in the sandwich"
the spatially closer and for the existing colonial order more dangerous and geopolitically more
challenging opponent - Germany. Corresponding to Russia, the German geopolitical identity is
traditionally land-based, continental, and telurocratic. In order to get involved in in the colonial
(re)distribution, Germany was making attempts to transform and develop (also) the maritime
dimension of its geopolitical orientation, under the symbolic motto "The Hamburg idea.” However,
due to the exceptional British domination on the seas, Germany was forced to redirect its main
geopolitical vector onto the land, to the telurocratic "Baghdad idea ", i.e. "The diagonal idea", "Drang
nach (Süd) Osten". (Map 1)
The Baghdad idea symbolised geopolitical transversal, Hamburg-Berlin-Vienna-Belgrade-
Sofia-Constantinople-Baghdad-Basra, and its maritime origins would be the North Sea (Atlantic
Ocean) and the Persian Gulf (Indian Ocean).24 It would span trans-central-Europe, the trans-Balkans,
trans-Anatolia and trans-Mesopotamia, which were supposed to make up the telurocraticaly projected
German interest sphere. From the physical-geographical point of view, the only significant obstacle
would be the Bosphorus, which was not difficult to cross even at that time (less than 700 meters at its
narrowest part).
From the standpoint of Germany’s interests, the only break in the "chain" of allies was Serbia. In terms
of transport, the problem was the intermittent railway line route, which Germany endeavoured to
complete as soon as possible.25 The intention to establish that railway "lifeline" was not directed only
towards Middle Eastern civilization centres and oil deposits, but was also based on a deeper
geopolitical and geo-economic goal. By endangering the maritime links to the "brightest diamond in
the British Crown" (India), it would cut the thalassocratic British colonial empire into two parts -
African-Arabian and South Asian-Australian.

Map 1: Competitiveness of the British Great Imperial Road and the German Baghdad Idea

23
Mackinder, H.J. (1919), Democratic Ideals and Reality – A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction, Constable
and Company Ltd, London, pp. 106. Mackinder has put here his famous syllogism which its timeless value
proves today: WHO RULES EAST EUROPE, COMMANDS THE HEARTLAND; WHO RULES THE
HEARTLAND, COMMANDS THE WORLD ISLAND; WHO RULES THE WORLD ISLAND, COMMANDS
THE WORLD.
24
Pavić, R. (1973), Osnove opće i regionalne političke geografije, geopolitike i geostrategije, I dio, Sveučilište u
Zagrebu, Fakultet političkih nauka, Zagreb, 1973, pp. 351 – 355.
25
Germany in 1903, had won a concession from Turkey to extend the route of the railway through Asia Minor
and beyond, through Mesopotamia, to Baghdad. See in: Гаћиновић, Р. (2014), Млада Босна, Медија центар
„Одбрана“, Београд, pp. 115. The railway connection was very important for Germany and the the fact that in
the wake of the war (in spring 1914) its German investors intensively discussed it with Serbian officials, shows
that interest, too.

9
 The Austro-Hungarian interests corresponded with those of Germany and they shared similar
methods of implementation. The goal of Vienna’s obsessive south-eastern expansionist pretensions
was Thessaloniki. In the closed conditions of the origins of the Danube waterway in the Black Sea and
the vulnerability of the Adriatic participation due to increasingly more open Italian pretensions, in the
early 20th century, Austria-Hungary declared this important Aegean port and endpoint of the Danube-
Morava-Vardar directrix of the Pannonia-Balkan area as the only quality alternative. Although
Austria-Hungary had set the important territorial, international-legal, economic, trade and transport
benchmarks of its future south-eastern orientation at the Berlin Congress, it concretised them after the
change of dynasties in Serbia in 1903, when the geopolitical inclination of Serbia was changed from a
telurocratic, more or less pro-German, to a thalassocratic, pro-Western one. One of the important
methods of anti-Serbian policy and the entire operationalization of Austro-Hungarian expansionism
was analogous to the German one – the railways.
"The railway issue entailed a network of Balkan railways which would, through their
orientation towards different ports and marine departure points, bring economic, geopolitical and
geostrategic advantage to Austria-Hungary." 26 It turned out that at the Berlin Congress the so called
Sandzak of Novi Pazar was not left as "inserted land" and "political isthmus"27 just to separate the two
recently recognized Serbian states, Montenegro and Serbia, but also to serve as a corridor to connect
the Austro-Hungarian (from the occupied/annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Turkish railways.
Benjamin von Kállay’s early ideas were activated by Aehrenthal’s (Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal) plan
for three rail lines ("Trident") which would enable not only south-eastern penetration, but would also
ward off competing directions. In addition to the middle branch through the Uvac Valley to Kosovska

26
Степић, M. (2001), У вртлогу балканизације, ЈП Службени лист СРЈ; Институт за геополитичке студије,
Београд, pp. 281.
27
Цвијић, J. (1987), „Политички значај Новопазарског Санџака“, in Лукић (ed.) Говори и чланци, САНУ
НИРО „Књижевне новине“, Завод за уџбенике и наставна средства, Београд, pp. 119. Ј. Cvijic found that
after the Berlin Congress in the northwestern part of the old Serbian named Sandzak of Novi Pazar, which is
"wrong, but rooted."

10
Mitrovica (through the so-called. Sandzak of Novi Pazar), the northern route would also run from
Vardiste to Uzice, and the southern from the Boka Kotorska to Shkoder.
These railways were supposed to bring Austria-Hungary multiple geopolitical and geo-
economic benefits: to facilitate alternative routes of penetration towards the Aegean and the Adriatic,
to link it with Turkey and Bulgaria as allies in the forthcoming war, to facilitate and accelerate the
transport of troops and military equipment, to counteract the interests of other forces, primarily Italy
and Russia, and to isolate Serbia and force it to once again become tied, in terms of traffic, trade and
politics, to Austria-Hungary. At the same time projects appeared which would directly counter the
ambitions of a "dual monarchy". They were mainly directed towards the historical and geographical
territories of Old Serbia and Macedonia, and anticipated the geopolitical intentions and impending
conflicts in the two Balkan Wars and the First World War. Such Austro-Hungarian pretensions were
most directly counteracted by the Serbian "Adriatic Railway" project which would, by its northeast-
southwest course from the Danube, through the valleys of Timok, Toplice, Sitnica, Drim and Bojana
to Medova on the Adriatic coast, cut the pan-German expansionist vector.28
Such a geopolitical environment dictated the (pre)war balances of power and alliances which
were made (and broken) in the years before the Austrio-Hungarian attack on Serbia. With the
exception of a few neutral countries, which were never characterised by higher geo-political, military-
strategic and economic importance, the rest of the world had divided into two blocks. The central
powers alliance was formed by Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1879, shortly after the Berlin
Congress. With that they clearly let the other European powers know that in the impending struggle
for the preservation of the previously established order, they would have an integrated central
European telurocratic colossus. With Italy joining them in 1882 this became a geopolitically more
respectable, tripartite alliance, with significant participation in the Mediterranean. By declaring
neutrality in 1914 Italy dealt this alliance a severe blow. However, attracted by territorial promises,
Italy crossed over to the opposite side in 1915. When, in 1914, the Central Powers were joined by
Turkey, which stretched from the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles to the Persian Gulf, the Suez Canal
and the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, and then in 1915 by Bulgaria, it seemed that the German "Baghdad
idea" was to be achieved. The only remaining "disruptive factor" from Hamburg to Basra was Serbia.
A series of allied agreements between France and Russia from 1891 to 1894 could be
considered as the embryos of the second block, the Entente. This was preceded by the fall of the
German Chancellor Bismarck in 1890 and the end of his policy of building a system of alliances in
order to preserve peace and prevent the formation of anti-German alliances. The previous (secret)
alliance with Russia in 1887, based on neutrality in case of war, was terminated, and cooperation with
Austria-Hungary was intensified.29 This is why even then Germany and Austria-Hungary had already
been placed in the geostrategic position "between a rock and a hard place": on the one side, the
Atlantic, colonial power, France, and on the other the huge land empire which stretched to the Pacific,
Russia. Another alliance, known as the Entente Cordiale, (L'Entente cordiale), was formed in 1904 by
two previously traditional rivals - France and the United Kingdom. In addition to determining the
division of zones of influence in Africa, this alliance also explicitly referred to the joint opposition to
increasingly more powerful Germany. The Anglo-Russian Entente from 1907 completed a series of
bilateral agreements, and the Triple Entente signed between Russia, France and Great Britain in the
same year made it clear that Germany and Austria found themselves surrounded by both sea and land.
This alliance was renamed the Entente in 1914 and along with the three great powers (including
France and Great Britain’s colonies), a further 22 other independent countries gradually joined, but did
not all become directly militarily engaged. (Map 2)

Map 2: Global position of Entente and Central Powers in the initial phase of the First World War

28
Степић, M. (2001), У вртлогу балканизације, ЈП Службени лист СРЈ; Институт за геополитичке студије,
Београд, pp. 281-282.
29
Радојевић, М. и др. (2014), Србија у Великом рату 1914-1918: кратка историја, Српска књижевна
задруга; Београдски форум за свет равноправних, Београд, pp. 40.

11
 The rival powers were rapidly preparing for war. The most striking indicator was the intensive
arming and modernizing of their armies. Germany was at the forefront, increasing the financing of
military needs 11 times during the 1870-1914 period30, and from the beginning of ‘pact mania’, from
the 1890s until the beginning of the First World War, 4 times.31 Russia was close behind along with
Great Britain, whose investment in the navy as the war approached far surpassed the financing of other
army branches. However, even though Germany and Austria-Hungary started the war, they were
significantly weaker than their rival powers. In terms of the most traditional ("hard") factors of power,
which at that time had a much greater impact on the outcome of the conflict than today (the quantity
and quality of territory, population, army man power during peacetime and mobilization, raw
materials, economic power), the advantage was on the side of the Entente. Thus, for instance, the three
Entente Power states were 19 times larger territorially, and twice as big in terms of population as the
two states which made up the Central Powers. These disparities increased further when taking into
consideration the vast resources of the colonies and countries around the world that became the
Entente’s war allies. Therefore, the geopolitical scenario for the war was written, the war stage was
set, and the main protagonists of the war allocated their roles. The war could begin. All that was
needed was to find a casus belli.

5. Instead of a conclusion: ‘targeting’ powerless Serbia as the direct instigator of war

Why was Serbia an ideal target for the Central Powers for the start of the war? Although it
experienced an overall growth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its geopolitical position was
extremely delicate. Its position at the centre of the ‘Balkan geopolitical knot'32 of the great powers’
interest vectors, left little room for manoeuvre for the autonomous realization of national interests. The
Germanic actors tolerated Serbia only as a small, helpless and limitedly sovereign buffer state,
deprived of ‘Piedmont’s’ ambition towards other Serbian areas under “dual monarchy" rule and
oriented toward Berlin and Vienna, and in no way towards St. Petersburg, London and/or Paris. Any
other Serbia was perceived as a nuisance, an obstacle and a "stumbling block". 33 After the change of

30
Радојевић, М. и др. (2014), Србија у Великом рату 1914-1918: кратка историја, Српска књижевна
задруга; Београдски форум за свет равноправних, Београд, pp. 43.
31
Overy R. (ed.), History of the 20th Century, Times Books, London, 2003, pp. 29.
32
Степић, M. (2001), У вртлогу балканизације, ЈП Службени лист СРЈ; Институт за геополитичке студије,
Београд, pp. 96-102.
33
Bismark in 1879 (Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck) has thus characterized the position the newly
independent Serbia and Montenegro in relation to South expansionist orientation Austria. See in: Радојевић, М.

12
dynasty in 1903 and changes in the orientation of Serbia’s foreign policy, and especially after its
victory and territorial expansion in the Balkan Wars, Berlin and Vienna clearly decreed that "Serbia
must die."34 One glance at a map was sufficient to "justify" the Germanic position - "The Baghdad
idea", i.e. that the "pivot" from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf was hindered only by Serbia.
The historiography-revisionist thesis that Serbia was a threat and wanted a war against such
powerful opponents as Austria-Hungary and Germany, even if, hypothetically, the Entente powers
incited it, is totally illogical. Serbia had just emerged from two Balkan wars with huge human losses,
economically exhausted and indebted, politically fragile (scheduled elections), militarily spent (in
equipment and weapons) and with poor, anarchic and ethnically heterogeneous newly attached areas
which were yet to be politically ‘digested’. Conversely, Austria-Hungary was seeking a reason to start
and win a local war in the Balkans in order to restore the shaken reputation of the great European
power, calm the nationalist movements of the Slavs within its borders and expand by taking Serbia’s
important geo-strategic territory. Germany too, although it had aspirations of a wider scope and was
the "challenger" of the great powers, also ‘targeted’ Serbia as the only obstacle in the way of achieving
Drang nach (Süd)Osten and the ideal excuse to quickly get involved in the war. The rule had not
changed - if the big powers want a war, they will find a motive to start one. Could Serbia have avoided
war? Did she have any choice at all?

Vienna and Berlin estimated that Serbia was sufficiently weak to be unable to offer stronger
and lasting resistance alone. It was also geopolitically logical that the other forces would intervene in
the conflict and this was where Germany saw its chance for a change in the existing relations at the
time. The key question is whether Serbia acted rationally and remained nationally responsible when,
after 1903, she "rejected a quarter-century long economic and political attachment to the Austro-
Hungarian Monarchy"35 and turned from an Austro-Hungarian satellite into a "disruptive factor". This
was no "ordinary" abandonment of pro-German orientation, but an act which was diametrically
opposite to the Serbian geopolitical identity. Serbia, the Serbs and Serbian territories had always
inherited the land geopolitical code36 and were, accordingly, until the fall of the Obrenovic dynasty
compatible with the Germanic power axis, which was established according to the same geopolitical
pattern. That is how the geopolitical paradox appeared: in the extremely important Balkans, the
telurocratic Serbian factor took a pro-thalassocratic course. However, what other option did Serbia
have - to remain within the Germanic sphere of interest, acceptable to Berlin and Vienna, only within
the borders of the "pre-Kumanovo" state entity, semi-dependent and small, and always suspected for
wanting to be Great?

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14

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