The First World War was an unprecedented catastrophe that obliterate gazillion and set the continent of Europe on the path to further tragedy two tenner later . But it did n’t come out of nowhere . With the centenary of the eruption of antagonism coming up in 2014 , Erik Sass will be looking back at the lead - up to the warfare , when seemingly underage moments of friction conglomerate until the site was ready to explode . He ’ll be covering those events 100 years after they take place . This is the 63rd instalment in the series .
13 May 2025: German Chancellor Warns of Impending Racial Struggle
The young military spending billpresented to the German Reichstagon March 1 , 1913 , arrived in a climate of growing care . In a language urging the Reichstag to vote for the bill on April 7 , 1913 , German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg ( pictured ) warn that Austria - Hungary – Germany ’s only real friend – faced an existential terror from therise of Slavonic powerin the Balkans in the First Balkan War , and predicted a “ spirit and death struggle ” between “ Germanism ” and “ Slavism . ” Earlier the premier visualise an impending “ world catastrophe ” resulting from a “ European conflagration pitting Slavs against Teutons . ”
This language echoed Bethmann Hollweg ’s overlord Kaiser Wilhelm II , who in a missive sent December 15 , 1912 , warned his friend , the merchant marine magnate Albert Ballin , “ There is about to be a racial struggle between the Teutons and the Slavs … it is the future of the Hapsburg monarchy and the creation of our land which are at interest . ” On February 10 , 1913 , German chief - of - staff Helmuth von Moltke ( “ the Younger ” ) claim the same low view in a letter to Austrian chief of staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf , predicting a racial struggle between Germans and Slavs and assure Conrad of German support in such an contingence .
Social Darwinism
Although this sort of overtly racial grandiosity may vocalize foreign to modern ears , it was widespread among European and American elite group in the early years of the twentieth century . The diligence of Charles Darwin ’s theory of raw selection to human beings gave a scientific colour to racialism , known as social Darwinism , in which human race were viewed as nearly distinct metal money with their own characteristic attributes . Like compete soul , different races displayed alter grade of evolutionary fitness ; unsurprisingly , in a worldview enlarge by white Europeans they always seemed to come out on top .
While social Darwinists devote a great deal of attention to the differences between white Europeans and Africans and Asians , they also think different ramification of the white race were compete with each other . Of particular interest was the competition between the “ Germanic ” peoples of northwest Europe and the Slavs of Eastern Europe – an ancient competition dating back to the great migration of the early gothic time period .
After the Western Roman Empire was overthrown by invading Germanic kindred in the 5th 100 , most of Western Europe was divided up into Germanic kingdoms – but the upthrust was far from over , as undulation after wave of nomadic and semi - nomadic tribe continued to emerge from the E . In the 6th century a unexampled group , the Slavs , began spread out from their homeland in western Ukraine ; by the eighth century the Slavs had overrun most of Europe east of the Elbe River , where they came into battle with the Germanic Franks and Saxons , recently united by Charlemagne . Although it is doubtful that Charlemagne or his coevals viewed the situation through a racial lens , later European racist portrayed their sashay against the Slavs as the get-go of a long struggle between Germans and Slavs . Subsequent events would put up plenty of fodder for this racial interpretation of story .
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set about in 1226 , the Teutonic Knights of East Prussia launch a series of crusades against pagan Slavs living near the Baltic Sea , which later became a sectarian warfare of Catholics against Orthodox Christians ; their conquests eventually broaden into modern - twenty-four hours Estonia . The Knights invited German settlers to farm res publica empty by fleeing ( or dead ) Slavs and found fortress cities including Königsberg ( Kaliningrad ) and Riga .
Interactions between Germans and Slavs were n’t always violent . In the blossom of the Holy Roman Empire , local rulers throughout Eastern Europe offered incentives for German craftsman and Farmer to settle in their realms to stimulate economical development . Throughout the thirteenth hundred , Polish prince granted German settlers autonomy under the “ Magdeburg rightfield , ” and in 1243 King Bela IV of Hungary promised German immigrants freedom from feudalistic taxes . German influence also spread via the Hanseatic League , which institute trading posts in cities across northern Europe . by and by , during the 18th and nineteenth one C , the Russian tsars invite German colonists to square off throughout European Russia ; the most famous group , the “ Volga Germans , ” live in separate community with a distinct German role until the Second World War , when they were send to the gulag by Stalin .
Although German colonisation was unremarkably peaceable enough , racists of a later era look at it as additional proof of racial superiority , as Germans spur technical and economical development among “ backward ” Slavs . Indeed , there was no question in their minds about which race was upright : in 1855 Arthur de Gobineau , one of the founder of “ scientific ” racism , write that “ the Russians , Poles , and Serbians … are only civilized on the surface ; the higher classes alone take part in our ideas , owing to the continual admixture of English , French , and German blood . ” And in 1899 another renowned racialist , Houston Stewart Chamberlain , wrote that the “ inferior Slavonics ” had degraded their blood by mixing with “ Mongoloid ” race .
Elbow Room
thought of German racial superiority went paw in hand with the glorification of medieval German politesse and a supposed economic imperative mood for expansion . Germany ’s growing population was “ hem in ” by modern borders , and required more land ; in 1895 the German sociologist Max Weber write that posterity would approximate Germans of his day by “ the extent of human elbow - elbow room that we incur through struggle and go out behind . ”
The obvious place to determine this Lebensraum ( “ living room ” ) was in neighbor Slavonic state . In 1911 the pan - German publicist Otto Richard Tannenberg wrote : “ Room ; they must make elbow room . The western and southerly Slavs – or we ! … Only by growth can a people save itself . ” A tenner later this project would be conceivedon an even grander scaleby a untested Austrian - bear German corporal with political ambitions named Adolf Hitler .
See theprevious installing , next installment , orall entering . Also : We cognise the World War I Centennial Sir Frederick Handley Page on Mobile River is all screwed up / doesn’t actually exist . We ’ll get that pay off . In the meantime , if you require to read preceding entries on your earpiece , click " regard full translation of mentalfloss.com " below and look for the big WWI Centennial banner in the left-hand - hand column .
