text:
⌚ Cheap method of travel essay
20th-century international relations 20th-century international relationshistory of the relations between states, especially the great powers, from approximately 1900 to 2000. The history of the 20th century was shaped by the changing relations of the world's great powers. The first half of the century, the age of the World Wars and the start of the Cold War, was dominated by the rivalries of those powers. The second half saw cheap method of travel essay replacement, largely through the agency of those wars, of the European state system by a world system with many centres of both power and discord. This article provides a single integrated narrative of the changing context of world politics, from the outbreak of World War I to the 1990s. Because domestic affairs figure heavily in the analysis of each state's foreign policies, the reader should consult the histories of the individual countries for more detail. For discussion of the military strategy, tactics, and conduct of the World Wars, see World War I and World War II. Forty-three years of peace among the great powers of Europe came to an end in 1914, when an act of political terrorism provoked two great alliance systems into mortal combat. The South Slav campaign against Austrian rule in Bosnia, culminating in the assassination of the Habsburg heir apparent at Sarajevo, was the spark. This local crisis rapidly engulfed all the powers of Europe through the mechanisms of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, diplomatic arrangements meant precisely to enhance the security of their members and to deter potential aggressors. The long-term causes of the war can therefore be traced to the forces that impelled the formation of those alliances, increased tensions among the great powers, and made at least some European leaders desperate enough to seek their objectives even at the risk of a general war. These forces included militarism and mass mobilization, instability in domestic and international politics occasioned by rapid industrial growth, global imperialism, popular nationalism, and the essaytyper of a social How do i make my essay longer worldview. But the question of why World War I broke out should be considered together with the questions of why peace ended and why in 1914 rather than before or after. The European map and world politics were less confused in the decades after 1871 than at any time before or since. The unifications of Italy and Germany removed the congeries of essay kannada European principalities that dated back to the Holy Roman Empire, while the breakup of eastern and southeastern Europe into small and quarreling states (a process that would yield the term balkanization ) was not far advanced. There the old empires, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman bar essay help, still prevailed. The lesser powers of Europe, including some that once had been great, like the Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain, played little or no role in the affairs of the great powers unless their own interests were directly involved. Both physical size and the economies of make my essay better important in an industrial age rendered smaller and less developed countries impotent, while the residual habits of diplomacy dating from the Congress of Vienna of 1815 made the great powers the sole arbiters of European politics. In the wider world, a diplomatic system of the European variety existed nowhere else. The outcome of the U.S. Civil War and Anglo-American settlement of the Canadian border ensured that North America would not develop a multilateral balance-of-power system. South and Central America had splintered into 17 independent republics following the final retreat of Spanish rule in 1820, but the new Latin American states were inward-looking, their centres of population and resources isolated by mountains, cheap method of travel essay, and sheer distance, and disputes among them were of mostly essay 3a interest. The Monroe Doctrine, promulgated essay writing service free the United States and enforced by the British navy, sufficed to spare Latin America new European adventures, the only major exception—Napoleon III's gambit in Mexico—occurring while the United States was essay writing service ethics with civil war. When the United Cheap custom essay purchased Alaska from the Russian tsar and Canada acquired dominion status, both in 1867, European possessions on the American mainland were reduced to three small Guianan colonies in South America and British Honduras (Belize). North Africa east of Algeria was still nominally under the aegis of the Ottoman sultan, while sub-Saharan Africa, apart from a few European ports on the coast, was terra incognita. The British had regularized their hold on the Indian subcontinent after putting down the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58, while the Chinese and Japanese empires remained xenophobic and isolationist. Thus, the cabinets of the European great powers were at the zenith of their influence. Europe itself, by 1871, seemed to be entering an age of political and social progress. Britain's Second Reform Act (1867), the French Third Republic (1875), the triumph of nationalism in Italy and Germany (1871), the establishment of universal manhood suffrage in Germany (1867), equality for the Hungarians in the Habsburg monarchy (1867), emancipation of the serfs in Russia (1861), and the adoption of free trade by the major European custom essay writing.com all seemed to justify faith in the peaceful evolution of Europe toward liberal institutions and prosperity. International peace also seemed assured once Otto von Bismarck declared the new German Empire a satisfied power and placed his considerable talents at the service of stability. The chancellor knew Germany to be a military match for any rival but feared the possibility of a coalition. Since France would never be reconciled to her reduced status and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine imposed by the treaty ending the Franco-German War, Bismarck strove to keep France isolated. In 1873 he conjured up the ghost of monarchical solidarity and formed a Dreikaiserbund (Three Emperors' League) with Austria-Hungary and Russia. Such a combination was always vulnerable to Austro-Russian rivalry over the Eastern Question—the problem of how to organize the feuding Balkan nationalities gradually freeing themselves from the decrepit Ottoman Empire. After the Slavic provinces of Bosnia and Cheap uk essay writers rebelled against Ottoman rule in 1875 and Russia made war on the Ottoman Empire two years later, the Xhosa essay topics collapsed. Bismarck achieved a compromise at the Congress of Berlin (1878), but Austro-Russian amity was not restored. In 1879, therefore, Bismarck concluded a permanent peacetime military alliance with Austria, whereupon the tsarist government, to court German favour, agreed to a renewal of the Dreikaiserbund in 1881. Italy, seeking aid for her Mediterranean ambitions, joined Germany and Austria-Hungary to form the Triple Alliance in 1882. The next Balkan crisis, which erupted in Bulgaria in 1885, again tempted Russia to expand its influence to english essay writing service gates of Constantinople. Bismarck dared not oppose the Russians lest he push them toward an alliance essay zeal research vengeful France. So instead he played midwife to an Anglo-Austro-Italian combination called the Second Mediterranean Entente, which blocked Russian ambitions in Bulgaria while Bismarck himself concluded a Reinsurance Treaty with St. Petersburg in 1887. Once more the Eastern Question had been defused and Germany's alliances preserved. The generation of peace after 1871 rested on Germany's irenic temper, served in turn by Bismarck's statesmanship. Order of essay writing that temper change, or less adept leadership succeed Bismarck, Germany had the potential to become the major disrupter of European stability. For the constitution drafted by Bismarck for the Second Reich was a dysfunctional document designed to satisfy middle-class nationalism while preserving the power of the Prussian crown and the Junker class (the Prussian landed aristocracy). Apparently a federal empire, Essay on i help my mother was in pay for essay promo code dominated by Prussia, which was larger in area and population than all the other states combined. The king of Prussia was kaiser and chief warlord of the German armies; the prime minister of Prussia was the federal chancellor, g eazy good life, not to a majority in the Reichstag, but only to the crown. Furthermore, Prussia retained a three-class voting system weighted in favour of the wealthy. The army remained, in Prussian tradition, virtually a state within the state, loyal to the kaiser alone. In sum, Germany remained a semi-autocratic military monarchy even as it blossomed into an industrial mass society. The lack of outlets for correct me essay dissent and reform was especially damaging given the cleavages that continued to plague Germany after unification: Protestant North versus Catholic South, agriculture versus industry, Prussia versus the other states, Junkers versus middle-class liberals, industrialists versus the (increasingly socialist) working class. Bismarck manipulated the parties and interests as he did foreign powers. But toward the end of his tenure, even he realized that German politics might someday reduce to a choice between surrender of privilege by the old elites or a coup d'état against the liberal and socialist groups he labeled Reichsfeinde (enemies of the Reich). Austria-Hungary and Russia, still overwhelmingly agrarian, faced different challenges by the end of the 19th century. Most acute for Austria-Hungary was the nationality question. An heir to the universalist vision of the Holy Roman Empire, Austria-Hungary was a multinational empire composed not only of Germans and Magyars but also of (in 1870) 4,500,000 Czechs and Slovaks, 3,100,000 Ruthenes, 2,400,000 Poles, 2,900,000 Romanians, 3,000,000 Serbs and Croats, about 1,000,000 Slovenes, and 600,000 Italians. Thus, the Habsburgs faced the challenge of accommodating the nationalism of their ethnic minorities without provoking the dissolution of their empire. In British, French, and, increasingly, Russian opinion, Austria-Hungary was simply out of step with the times, moribund, and, after Turkey, the most despised of states. Bismarck, however, saw Austria-Hungary as "a European necessity": the organizing principle in an otherwise chaotic corner of Europe, the cheap method of travel essay against Russian expansion, and the keystone in the balance of power. But the progress of nationalism gradually undermined the legitimacy of the old empires. Ironically, Austria existed from 1815 to 1914 in a symbiotic relationship with her ancient enemy, the Ottoman Empire. For as the Balkan peoples gradually pulled free from Constantinople, they and their cousins across the Habsburg frontier inevitably agitated for liberation from Vienna as well. Russia was also a multinational empire, but with the exception of the Poles her subject peoples were too few compared to Great Russians to pose a threat. Rather, Russia's problem in the late 19th century was backwardness. Ever since the humiliating defeat in the Crimean War, tsars and their ministers had undertaken reforms to modernize agriculture, technology, and education. But the Russian autocracy, making no concession to popular sovereignty and nationality, was more threatened by social change even than descriptive essay 123helpme Germans. Hence the dilemma of the last tsars: they had to industrialize in order to maintain Russia as a great power, cheap essay writing service online industrialization, by calling into being a large technical and managerial class and an urban proletariat, also undermined the social basis of the dynasty. In sum, the decades after 1871 did not sustain the liberal progress of the 1860s. Resistance to political reform in the empires, a retreat from free trade after 1879, the growth of labour unions, revolutionary socialism, and social tensions attending demographic and industrial growth all affected the foreign policies of the great powers. It was as if, at its pinnacle of achievement, the very elements of liberal "progress"—technology, imperialism, nationalism, cultural modernism, and scientism—were inviting Europeans to steer their civilization toward calamity. European demographic and industrial growth in the 19th century was frantic and uneven, and both qualities contributed to growing misperceptions and paranoia in international affairs. European population grew at the rate of 1 percent per year in the century after 1815, an increase that would have been disastrous had it not been for the outlet of emigration and the new prospects of employment in the rapidly expanding cities. But the distribution of Europe's peoples changed radically, altering the military balance among the great powers. In the days of Essay about your dreams XIV, France was the most populous—and also the wealthiest—kingdom in Europe, and as late as 1789 it numbered 25 million to Britain's 14.5 million. When the French Revolution unleashed this national power through rationalized central administration, year 8 essay writing examples, and cheap method of travel essay national draft based on patriotism, it achieved unprecedented organization of force in the form of armies of millions of men. The French tide receded, at the cost of more than a million deaths from 1792 to 1815, never to crest again. Population growth in France, alone among the great powers, was almost stagnant thereafter; by 1870 her population of 36 million was nearly equal to that of Austria-Hungary and already less than Germany's 41 million. By 1910 Germany's population exploded to a level two-thirds greater than France's, while vast Russia's population nearly doubled from 1850 to 1910 until it was more than 70 percent greater than Germany's, although Russia's administrative and technical backwardness offset to a degree her advantage in numbers. The demographic trends clearly traced the growing danger for France vis-à-vis Germany and the danger for Germany vis-à-vis Russia. Should Russia ever succeed in modernizing, she would become a colossus out of all proportion to the European continent. Population pressure was a double-edged sword dangling out of reach above the heads of European governments in the 19th century. On the one hand, fertility meant a growing labour force and potentially a larger army. On the other hand, it threatened social discord if economic growth or external safety valves could not relieve the pressure. The United Kingdom adjusted through urban industrialization on the one hand and emigration to the United States and the British dominions on the other. France had no such pressure but was forced to draft a higher percentage of its manpower to fill the army ranks. Russia exported perhaps 10 million excess people to its eastern and southern frontiers and several million more (mostly Poles and Jews) overseas. Germany, too, sent large numbers abroad, and no nation provided more new industrial employment from 1850 to 1910. Still, Germany's landmass was small relative to Russia's, her overseas possessions unsuitable to settlement, and her sense of beleaguerment acute in the face of the "Slavic threat." Demographic trends thus helped to implant in the German population a feeling of both momentary strength and looming danger. Industrial trends magnified the demographic, for here again Germany was far and away the fastest growing essay help tips power on the Continent. This was so not only in the basic industries of coal and iron and steel but also in the advanced fields of electricity, chemicals, and internal combustion. Germany's swift development strained the traditional balance of power in her own society and politics. By the end of the century Germany had become a highly urbanized, industrial society, complete past mistakes same again essay for college large, differentiated middle and factory proletariat classes, but it was still governed largely by precapitalist aristocrats increasingly threatened by demands for political reform. Industrialization also made possible the outfitting and supply of mass armies drawn from the growing populations. After 1815 the monarchies of Europe had shied away from arming the masses in the French revolutionary fashion, and the events of 1848 further justified their fear of an armed citizenry. But in the reserve system Prussia found a means of making possible a rapid mobilization of the citizenry without the risk to the regime or the elite officer corps posed by a large standing, and idle, army. (In Austria-Hungary the crown avoided disloyalty in the army by stationing soldiers of one ethnic group on the soil of another.) After Prussia's stunning victory over France in 1871, all the great powers came sooner or later to adopt the German model of a mass army, supplied by a national network of railways and arms industries coordinated in turn by a journey by train essay 200 words general staff. The industrialization of war meant that planning and bureaucracy, technology and finance were taking the place of bold generalship and esprit in the soldier's craft. The final contribution to the revolution in warfare was planned research pay for essay writing uk development of weapons systems. Begun hesitantly in the French navy in the 1850s and '60s, command technology—the collaboration of state and industry in the invention of new armaments—was widely practiced by the turn of the century, adding to the insecurity that inevitably propelled the arms races. The demographic, technical, and managerial revolutions of the 19th century, in sum, made possible the mobilization of entire populations and economies for the waging of war. The home of the Industrial Revolution was Great Britain, whose priority in the techniques of the factory system and of steam power was the essay on advantages and disadvantages of television 170 200 words for a period of calm confidence known (with some exaggeration) as the Pax Britannica. The pound sterling became the preferred reserve currency of the world and the Bank of England the hub of international cheap method of travel essay. British textiles, machinery, and shipping dominated the markets of Asia, South America, and much of Europe. The British Isles (again with some hyperbole) were "the workshop of the world" and in consequence from 1846 led the world in promoting free trade. British diplomacy, proudly eschewing alliances in favour of "splendid isolation," sought to preserve a balance of power on the Continent and to protect the routes to India from Russian encroachment in the Middle East or Afghanistan. The Pax Britannica could last only as long as Britain's industrial hegemony. But that hegemony very naturally impelled other nations somehow to catch up, in the short term by imposing protective tariffs to shield domestic industries and in the longer term by granting government subsidies (for railroads and other national development work) and the gradual replication of British techniques. First Belgium, France, and New England, then Germany and other states after 1850 began to challenge Britain's industrial dominance. France (1860), Prussia (1862), and other countries then reversed essay questions for night policies and followed the British into free trade. But in 1873 a financial panic, attributed by some to overextension in Germany after receipt of France's billion-franc indemnity, ended the period of rapid growth. In the depression of 1873–96 (actually years of slower, uneven growth) industrial and labour leaders formed cartels, unions, and lobbies to agitate for tariffs and other forms of state intervention to cheap reliable essay writing service uk the economy. Bismarck resisted until European agriculture also suffered from falling prices and lost markets after 1876 owing to the arrival in European ports of North American cereals. In 1879 the pay for essays to be written alliance of rye and steel voted a German tariff on foreign manufactured goods and foodstuffs. Free trade gave way to an era of neo-mercantilism. France, Austria, Italy, and Russia followed the new (or revived) trend toward tariff protection. After 1896 the volume of world trade rose sharply again, but the sense of heightened economic competition persisted in Europe. Social rifts also hardened during psychology essay writing service uk period. Challenged by unrest and demands for reforms, Bismarck sponsored the first state social insurance plans, but essay notes also used an attempt on the kaiser's life in 1878 as a pretext to outlaw the Social Democratic Party. Conservative circles, farmers as well as the wealthier classes, came gradually to distrust the loyalty of the urban working class, but industrialists shared few other interests with farmers. Other countries faced similar divisions between town and country, but urbanization was not advanced enough in Russia or France for socialism to acquire a mass following, while in Britain agriculture had long since lost out to the commercial and industrial classes, and working-class participation in democratic politics was on the rise (male suffrage was still dependent upon property qualiifications, but the Second Reform Act [1867] had extended the vote to many workingmen in the towns and cities). The social divisions attending industrialization were especially acute in Germany because of the rapidity of her development and the survival of powerful precapitalist elites. Moreover, the German working class, while increasingly unionized, had few legal means of affecting state policy. All this made for a series of deadlocks in German politics that would increasingly affect foreign policy after Bismarck's departure. The 1870s and '80s, therefore, witnessed a retreat from the free market and a return to state intervention in economic affairs. The foreign counterpart to this phenomenon was the New Imperialism. The great cheap method of travel essay of Europe suddenly shook off almost a century of apathy toward overseas colonies and, in the space of 20 years, partitioned almost the entire uncolonized portion of the globe. Theories postulating Europe's need to export surplus capital do not fit the facts. Only Britain and France definition essay 123helpme capital-exporting countries in 1880, and in years to come their investors preferred to export capital to other European countries (especially Russia) or the Western Hemisphere rather than to their own colonies. The British remained free-trade throughout the era of the New Imperialism, a booming home economy absorbed most German capital, and Italy and Russia were large net importers of capital. Once the scramble for colonies was complete, pressure groups did form in the various countries to argue the economic promise of imperialism, but just as often governments had to foster colonial development. In most cases, trade did not lead but followed the flag. Why, then, was the flag planted in the first place? Sometimes it was to protect economic interests, as when the British occupied Egypt in 1882, but more often it was for strategic reasons or in pursuit of national prestige. One necessary condition for the New Imperialism, often overlooked, is technological. Prior to cheap uk essay writers 1870s Europeans could overawe native peoples along the coasts of Africa and Asia but lacked the firepower, mobility, and communications that would have been needed to pacify the interior. (India was the exception, where the British East India Essay 1 english question paper exploited an anarchic situation and allied itself with selected native rulers against others.) The tsetse fly and the Anopheles mosquito—bearers of sleeping sickness and malaria—were the ultimate defenders of African and Asian jungles. The correlation of forces between Europe and the colonizable world shifted, however, with the invention of shallow-draft riverboats, the steamship and telegraph, the repeater rifle and Maxim gun, and the discovery (in India) that quinine is an effective prophylactic against malaria. By 1880 small groups of European regulars, armed cheap method of travel essay modern weapons and exercising fire discipline, could overwhelm essay help canada times their number of native troops. The essay questions for the great gatsby for Africa should be dated not from 1882, when the British occupied Egypt, but from the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The strategic importance of cheap method of travel essay waterway cannot be overstated. It was the gateway to India and East Asia and essay layout a vital interest nonpareil for the British Empire. When the khedive of Egypt defaulted on loans owed to France and Britain, and a nationalist uprising ensued—the first such Arab rebellion against the Western presence—the French backed away from military occupation, although with Bismarck's encouragement and moral support they occupied Tunis in 1881, expanding their North African presence from Algeria. Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, otherwise an adamant anticolonialist, then established a British protectorate cheap method of travel essay Egypt. When the French reacted bitterly, Bismarck further encouraged French colonial expansion in hopes of distracting them from Europe, and he then took his own country into the fray by claiming four large segments of Africa for Germany in 1884. In that year the king of the Belgians cast his eye on the entire Congo basin. The Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884–85 was called to settle a variety of disputes involved in European colonial occupation, and over the next 10 years all the great powers of Europe save Austria and Russia staked out colonies and protectorates on the African continent. But whatever the ambitions and rivalries of military adventurers, explorers, essay writers college private empire builders on the scene, the cabinets of Europe came to agreements on colonial boundaries with surprising neighbourliness. Colonial wars did ensue after 1894, but never between two European colonial powers. It has been suggested that imperial rivalries were a long-range cause of World War I. It has also been said that they were a safety valve, drawing off European energies that might otherwise have erupted in war much sooner. But the links between imperialism and the war are more subtle. The heyday of the New Imperialism, especially after 1894, created a tacit understanding in the European elites and the broad literate classes that the days of the old European balance of power were over, that a new world order was dawning, and that any nation left behind in the pursuit of world power would sink into obscurity. This intuition must surely have fed a growing sense of desperation among Germans, and one of paranoia among Britons, about trends in global politics. Tri m essay second point, subtler still, is that the New Imperialism, while it did not directly provoke World War I, did essay prompts a transformation of alliances that proved dangerous beyond reckoning once the great powers turned their attention back to Europe. Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, and within a decade popularizers had applied—or misapplied—his theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest to contemporary politics and economics. This pseudoscientific social Darwinism appealed to educated Europeans already demoralized by a century of higher criticism of religious scripture and conscious of the competitiveness of their own daily lives in that age of freewheeling industrial capitalism. By the 1870s books appeared explaining the outcome of the Franco-German War, for instance, with reference to the "vitality" of the Germanic peoples by comparison to the "exhausted" Latins. Pan-Slavic literature extolled the youthful vigour of that race, of whom Russia was seen as the natural leader. A belief in the natural affinity and superiority of Nordic peoples sustained Joseph Chamberlain's conviction that an Anglo-American–German alliance should govern the world in the 20th century. Vulgar anthropology explained the relative merits of human races on the basis of physiognomy and brain size, a "scientific" approach to world politics occasioned by the increasing contact of Europeans with Asians and Africans. Racialist rhetoric became common currency, as when the kaiser referred to Asia's growing population as "the yellow peril" and spoke of the next war as a "death struggle between the Teutons and Slavs." Poets and philosophers idealized combat as the process by which nature weeds out the weak and improves the human race. By 1914, therefore, the political and moral essay writing help for middle school on war that had arisen write my essay me 1789–1815 order essay significantly weakened. The old conservative notion that established governments had a heavy stake in peace lest revolution engulf them, and the old liberal notion that national unity, democracy, and free trade would spread harmony, were all but dead. The historian cannot judge how much social Darwinism influenced specific policy decisions, but a mood of fatalism and bellicosity surely eroded the collective will to peace. In 1890 the young kaiser William II dismissed the aged Bismarck and proclaimed a new course for Germany. An intelligent but unstable man who compensated for a withered arm with military demeanour and intemperate remarks, William felt keenly his realm's lack of prestige in comparison with essay title help British Empire. William rejected Bismarck's emphasis on security in Europe in favour of a flamboyant Weltpolitik (world policy) aimed at making Germany's presence abroad commensurate with her new industrial might. Where Bismarck considered colonies a dangerous luxury given Germany's geographic position, the kaiser thought them indispensable for Germany's future. Where Bismarck sought alliances to avoid the risk of war on two fronts, the kaiser (and his chief foreign policy official, Baron von Holstein) believed Germany should capitalize on the colonial quarrels among France, Britain, and Russia. Where Bismarck cheap method of travel essay purchase annotated bibliography the socialists and feared for the old order in Germany, the kaiser permitted the antisocialist laws to lapse and believed he could win essay title examples the working class through prosperity, social policy, and national glory. The consequences of the new course were immediate and damaging. In 1890 Holstein gratuitously dropped Bismarck's Reinsurance Treaty with Russia, prompting St. Petersburg to overcome its antipathy to republican France and conclude a military alliance in 1894. The tie was sealed with a golden braid: between 1894 and 1914 the Russians floated billions of francs in loans on the Paris market to finance factory building, arms programs, and military railroads to the German border. Russia hoped mainly for French support in its colonial disputes with the British Empire and even went so far as to agree with Austria-Hungary in 1897 to hold the question of the Balkans in abeyance for 10 years, thereby freeing resources for the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the essay 0n summer vacation of northern China. The German foreign office thus did not essay topic help from an unexpected source alarm at the alliance Bismarck had struggled so long to prevent. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 signaled the arrival of Japan buy your essay online the world stage. Having seen their nation forcibly opened to foreign influence by Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853, the Japanese determined not to suffer China's fate as a hapless object of Western incursion. Once the Meiji Restoration established strong central government beginning in 1868, Japan became the first non-Western state to launch a crash program of industrialization. By the 1890s its modern army and navy permitted Japan to take its place beside the Europeans as an imperial power. In the war with China, Japan won control of Korea, Taiwan, Port Arthur on the Manchurian mainland, and other advantages. European intervention scaled back these gains, but a essay 50 to 100 words for concessions in China eventuated. Russia won concessions in Manchuria, the French in South China, the Germans at Jiaozhou Bay on the Shandong Peninsula. Mla 8 essay example 1898 the Essay helping words States annexed the Philippine Islands after the Spanish-American War. The loser in the scramble, besides China, was Britain, which had previously enjoyed a near monopoly in the China trade. British fortunes suffered elsewhere during this high tide of imperialism from 1897 to 1907. The South African, or Boer, War (1899–1902) against the independent Boer republics of the South African interior proved longer and costlier than the British expected, and although they won the "dirty little war" the British saw their world position erode. Germany partitioned Samoa with the United States, and the latter annexed the Hawaiian Islands. Germany abandoned her long apathy toward the Middle East and won a concession for Turkish railroads. The kaiser, influenced by his envy of Britain, his own cheap method of travel essay for seafaring, and the worldwide impact of The Influence of Sea Power upon History by the American naval scholar Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, determined that Weltpolitik was impossible without a great High Seas Fleet. The prospect of a large German navy—next to the growing fleets of France, Russia, Japan, and the United States—meant that Britain would no longer rule the waves alone. The dawn of the 20th century was thus a time of anxiety for the British Empire as well. Challenged for the first time by the commercial, naval, and life essay might of many other industrializing nations, the British reconsidered the wisdom of splendid isolation. To be sure, in the Fashoda Incident of 1898 Britain succeeded in forcing France to retreat from the upper reaches of the Nile. But how much longer could Britain defend her empire alone? Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain began at once to sound out Berlin on the prospect of global collaboration. A British demarche was precisely what the Germans had been expecting, but three attempts to reach an Anglo-German understanding, between edward r essayan dds and 1901, led to naught. In retrospect, it is hard to see how it could have been otherwise. The German foreign minister and, from 1900, chancellor, Bernhard, Fürst (prince) von Bülow, shared the kaiser's and Holstein's ambitions for world power. If, as Germany's neo- Rankean historians proclaimed, the old European balance of power was giving way to a new world balance, then the future would surely belong to the Anglo-Saxons (British Empire and America) and Slavs (Russian Empire) unless Germany were able to queens essay help its own place in the sun. Bülow agreed that "our future lies on essay writer pro water." German and British interests were simply irreconcilable. What Britain sought was German help in reducing Franco-Russian pressure on the British Empire and defending the balance of power. What Germany sought was British neutrality or cooperation while Germany expanded its own power in the world. Bülow still believed in Holstein's "free hand" policy of playing the other powers off against each other and accordingly placed a high price on German support and invited Britain to join the Triple Alliance as a full military partner. Understandably, the British declined to underwrite Germany's continental security. The failure of the Anglo-German talks condemned both powers to dangerous competition. The German navy could never hope to equal the British and would only ensure British hostility. But equality was not necessary, said Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. All Germany needed was a "risk fleet" large enough to t rex essay the British, who would not dare alienate Germany and thus lose their only potential ally in the continuing rivalry with France and Russia. In this way Germany could extract concessions from Essay vato without alliance or war. What the Germans failed to consider was that A essay format might someday come to terms with its other antagonists. This was essay 5 september what Britain did. The Edwardian era (1901–10) was one of intense concern over the decline of Britain's naval and commercial dominance. German firms shouldered aside the British in numerous markets (even though they remained each other's best trading partners). The new German navy menaced Britain in her home waters. The French and Russian fleets, not to mention order your essay review Japanese, outnumbered the Royal Navy's Asian squadron. The French, My best friend essay, and potential Russian presence in the Mediterranean threatened the British lifeline to India. Soon the Panama Canal would enable the United States to deploy a two-ocean navy. Accordingly, the foreign secretary, Lord Lansdowne, set about reducing the number of Britain's potential opponents. First, he cemented friendly relations with the United States in the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901). He then shocked the world by concluding a military alliance with Japan, thereby securing British interests in East Asia and allowing the empire to concentrate its regional forces on India. But when growing tension between Russia and Japan over Manchuria appeared likely to erupt in war in 1904, France (Russia's ally) and Britain (now Japan's ally) faced a quandary. To prevent being dragged into the conflict, the French and British shucked off their ancient rivalry and concluded an Entente Cordiale whereby France gave up opposition to British rule in Egypt, and Britain recognized French rights in Morocco. Though strictly a colonial arrangement, it marked another buy capstone essay away from isolation for both Britain and France and another step toward it for the restless and frustrated Germans. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 was an ominous turning point. Contrary to all expectations, Japan triumphed on land and sea, and Russia stumbled into the Revolution of 1905. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt mediated the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the war, and the tsar quelled the revolutionary flames with promises of parliamentary government, but the war resonated in world diplomacy. Japan established itself as the leading Asian power. The example of an Oriental nation rising up to defeat a European great power emboldened Chinese, Indians, and Arabs to look forward to a day when they might expel the imperialists from their midst. And tsarist Russia, its Asian adventure a shambles, looked once again to the Balkans as a field for expansion, setting the stage for World War I. In 1905 the Germans seized on Russia's temporary troubles to pressure France in Morocco. Bülow believed he had much to gain—at best he might force a breakup of the Anglo-French entente, at worst he might provoke a French retreat and secure German rights in Morocco. But at the Algeciras Conference in 1906, called to settle the Morocco dispute, only Austria-Hungary supported the German position. Far from breaking the Entente Cordiale, the affair prompted the British to begin secret staff talks with the French military. The United States, Russia, and even Italy, Germany's erstwhile partner in the Triple Alliance, took France's side. For some years Italian ambitions in the Mediterranean had been thwarted, and the attempt to conquer Abyssinia in 1896 had failed. The German alliance seemed to offer little, while Rome's other foreign objective, the Italian irredenta in the Tirol and Dalmatia, was aimed at Austria-Hungary. So in 1900 Italy concluded a secret agreement pledging support for France in Morocco in return for French support of Italy in Libya. The Russo-Japanese War also strengthened ties between France and Russia as French loans again rebuilt Russia's shattered armed forces. Finally, and most critically, the defeated Russians and worried British were now willing to put to rest their old rivalry in Central Asia. Cheap method of travel essay Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 made a neutral buffer of Tibet, recognized Britain's interest in Afghanistan, and partitioned Persia into spheres of influence. Foreign Secretary V essayer conjugaison Edward Grey also hinted at the possibility of British support for Russian policy in the Balkans, reversing a century-old tradition. The heyday of European imperialism thus called into existence a second alliance system, the Triple Entente of France, Britain, and Russia. It was not originally conceived as a balance to German power, but that was its effect, especially in light of the escalating naval race. In 1906 the Royal Navy under the reformer Sir John Fisher launched HMS Dreadnought, a battleship whose size, armour, speed, and gunnery rendered all existing warships obsolete. The German government responded in kind, even enlarging the Kiel Canal at great expense to accommodate the larger ships. What were the British, dependent on imports by sea for seven-eighths of their raw materials and over half their foodstuffs, to make of German behaviour? In a famous Foreign Office memo of January 1907, Senior Clerk Sir Eyre Crowe surmised that Weltpolitik was either a conscious bid for hegemony or a "vague, confused, and unpractical statesmanship not realizing its own drift." As Ambassador Sir Francis Bertie put it, "The Germans aim to push us into the water and steal our clothes." For France the Triple Entente was primarily a continental security apparatus. For Russia it was a means of reducing points of conflict so that the antiquated tsarist system could buy time to catch up technologically with the West. For Britain the ententes, the Japanese alliance, and the "special relationship" with the United States were diplomatic props for an empire beyond Britain's capacity to defend alone. The three powers' interests by no means coincided—disputes over Persia alone might have smashed Anglo-Russian unity if the war had not intervened. But to the Germans the Triple Entente looked suspiciously like encirclement designed to frustrate their rightful claims to world power and prestige. German attempts to break the encirclement, however, would only alarm the entente powers and cause them to draw the loose strings into a knot. That in turn tempted German leaders, fearful that grade 7 essay topics was against them, to cut the Gordian knot with the sword. For after 1907 the focus of diplomacy shifted back to the Balkans, with European cabinets unaware, until it was too late, that alliances made with the my academic and career goals essay about welding world in expository essay help had dangerously limited their freedom of action in Europe. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Which essay writing service is the best in uk before 1914 succumbed to hubris. The conventional images of "armed camps," "a powder keg," or "saber rattling" almost trivialize a civilization that combined within itself immense pride in its newly expanding power and almost apocalyptic insecurity about the future. Europe bestrode the world, and yet Lord Curzon could remark, "We can hardly take up our morning newspaper without reading of the physical and moral decline of the race," and the German chief of staff, Helmuth von Moltke, could say that if Germany backed down again on Morocco, "I shall despair of the future of the German Empire." France's stagnant population and weak industry made her statesmen frantic for security, Austrian leaders were filled with foreboding about their increasingly disaffected nationalities, and the tsarist regime, with the most justification, sensed doom. Whether from ambition or insecurity, the great powers armed as never before in peacetime, with military expenditures reaching 5 to 6 percent of national income. Military conscription and reserve systems made available a significant percentage of the adult male population, and the impulse to create large standing armies was strengthened by the widespread belief that firepower and financial limitations would make the next war short and violent. Simple reaction also played a large role. Fear of the "Russian steamroller" was sufficient to expand Germany's service law; a larger German army provoked the outmanned French into an extension of national service to three years. Only Britain did without a large conscripted army, but her naval needs were proportionally more expensive. In an age of heavy, rapid-fire artillery, infantry rifles, and railroads, but not yet including motor transport, tanks, or airplanes, a premium was placed by military staffs on mass, supply, and prior planning. European commanders assumed that essay writing service toronto a continental war the opening frontier battles would be decisive, hence the need to mobilize the maximum number of men and move them at maximum speed to the border. The meticulous and rigid advance planning that this strategy required placed inordinate pressure on the diplomats in a crisis. Politicians might hold back their army in hopes of saving the peace only at the risk of losing the war should diplomacy fail. What was more, all the continental powers embraced offensive strategies. The French general staff's "cult of attack" assumed that élan could carry the day against superior German numbers. Its Plan XVII called for an immediate assault on Lorraine. The Germans' Schlieffen Plan addressed the problem of war on two fronts by throwing almost the entire German army into a sweeping offensive through neutral Belgium to capture Paris and the French army in a gigantic envelope. Troops could then be transported east to meet the slower-moving Russian army. Worked out down to the last railroad switch and passenger car, the Schlieffen Plan was an apotheosis of the industrial age: a mechanical, almost mathematical perfection that wholly ignored political factors. None of the general staffs anticipated what the war would actually be like. Had they glimpsed the horrific stalemate in grad school essay writing service trenches, surely neither they nor the politicians would have run the risks they did in 1914. Above the mass infantry armies of the early 20th century stood the officer corps, the general staffs, and at the pinnacle the supreme war lords: kaiser, emperor, tsar, and king, all of whom adopted military uniforms as their standard dress in these years. The army was a natural refuge for the central and eastern European aristocracies, the chivalric code of arms sustaining almost the only public service to which they could still reasonably lay claim. Even in republican France a nationalist revival after 1912 excited public morale, inspired the military buildup, and both fueled and cloaked a revanche aimed at recovery of the provinces lost 40 years before. Popular European literature poured forth best sellers depicting the next war, and mass-circulation newspapers incited even the working classes with news of imperial adventures or the latest slight by the adversary. Various peace movements sprang up to counter the spirit of militarism before 1914. Most numerous and disturbing to those responsible for national defense were the socialists. The Second International took the Marxist view of imperialism and militarism as creatures of capitalist competition and loudly warned that if the bosses provoked a war, the working classes would refuse to take part. Jean Jaurès defined the proletariat as "masses of men who collectively love peace and hate war." The 1912 Basel Conference declared the proletariat "the herald of world peace" and proclaimed "war on war." Sober observers like George Bernard Shaw and Max Weber doubted that any putative sense of solidarity among workers would outweigh their nationalism, but the French government kept a blacklist of agitators who might try to subvert mobilization. Some of Germany's leaders imagined that war might provide the opportunity to crush socialism by appeals to patriotism or martial law. A liberal peace movement with a middle-class constituency flourished essay introduction generator the turn of the century. As many as 425 peace organizations are estimated to have existed in 1900, fully half of them in Scandinavia cheap method of travel essay most others in Germany, Britain, and the United States. Their greatest achievements were the Hague write a narrative essay about overcoming a challenge and what you learned as a result of 1899 and 1907, at which the powers agreed to ban certain inhumane weapons but made no progress toward general disarmament. The liberal peace movement also foundered on internal contradictions. To outlaw war was to endorse the international status quo, yet liberals always stood ready to excuse wars that could claim progressive ends. They had tolerated the wars of Italian and German unification, and they would tolerate the Balkan Wars against the Ottoman Empire in 1912–13 and the great war in 1914. Another solution for many peace advocates was to transcend the nation-state. Norman Angell's The Great Illusion (1910) argued that it already had been transcended: that interdependence among nations made war illogical and counterproductive. To Marxists this image of capitalism was ludicrous; to Weber or Joseph Schumpeter it was correct but beside the point. Blood was thicker than class, or money; politics dominated economics; and irrationality, reason. The one European statesman most sympathetic to the peace movements was, not surprisingly, Britain's Liberal foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey. Citing the waste, social discord, and international tension caused by the naval arms race he made several overtures to Germany in hopes of ending it. When these failed, Britain had little choice but to race more quickly than the Germans. Anyone used an essay writing service radical Liberals like David Lloyd George had to admit that however much they might deplore arms races in the abstract, all that was liberal and good in the world depended on the security of Britain and its control of its seas. In the end, war did not come over the naval race or commercial competition my custom essay reviews imperialism. Nor was it sparked by the institutional violence of the armed states, but by underground terrorism in the name of an oppressed best essay writing service in usa. Nor did it come over the ambitions of great powers to become greater, but over the fear of one great power that unless it took vigorous action it might cease to exist altogether. It began in the Balkans. In 1897 Austria-Hungary and Russia had agreed to put their dispute over the Balkans on ice. When the agreement ran out in 1907, the Ottoman Empire still ruled Macedonia, ringed by Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bulgaria. But everything else had changed. For now Austria-Hungary's only reliable ally was Germany, whose Weltpolitik had led it to join the competition for influence at Constantinople. Essay 200 words was looking again at the Balkans for foreign policy advantage and enjoying, for the first time, a measure of British tolerance. In Serbia, 6 page essay example state most threatening to Vienna because of its ethnic tie to the Serbs and Croats inside the Dual Monarchy, a fundamental political shift had occurred. In previous years Vienna had neutralized Serbia by bribing the ruling Obrenović dynasty, but in 1903 the rival Karageorgević clan seized control in Belgrade in a bloody coup d'état and shifted to a violently anti-Austrian policy. Finally, in 1908, a cabal of officers known as the Young Turks staged the first modernizing revolution in the Muslim world and tried to force the sultan to adopt liberal reforms. In particular the Young Turks called for parliamentary elections, thereby placing in doubt the status of Bosnia and Hercegovina, provinces still under Essay typer cheap sovereignty but administered by Austria-Hungary since 1878. The Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, Aloys Aehrenthal, proposed to settle the Bosnian issue and to crush Serbian ambitions once and for all by annexing the provinces. To this purpose he teased the Russian foreign minister, Aleksandr Petrovich Izvolsky, with talk of a quid pro quo: Russia's acquiescence in annexation in return for Austria-Hungary's in the opening of the Dardanelles to Russian warships. When instead Aehrenthal acted unilaterally, and Izvolsky's straits proposal was rejected, the Russians felt betrayed. Their response was to increase aid and comfort to their client Serbia and to determine never again to back down in the Balkans. German politics were also approaching a breaking point. Chancellor von Bülow had governed, with the support of Tirpitz, the kaiser, and the moderate and conservative parties in the Reichstag, on the basis of a grand compromise of which the navy was the linchpin. Agrarian interests continued to demand protection against foreign foodstuffs, but the tariffs imposed to that end harmed German industrial exports. A large armaments program, especially naval, compensated heavy industry for lost foreign markets. The losers in the tariffs-plus-navy-legislation arrangement were consumers, who were taxed for the defense program after they had paid higher prices for bread. Popular resentment tended to cheap method of travel essay the socialist vote, and the other parties could cheap method of travel essay a majority only by banding together. Soon, however, the expensive dreadnought race provoked a fiscal crisis that cracked the Bülow bloc and, in 1909, elevated Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to the chancellorship. He faced the choice of ending the naval race and moderating Germany's Weltpolitik or making democratic concessions to the left or somehow rebuilding the coalition of conservative agrarians and industrialists in the teeth of socialist opposition. Bethmann showed signs of preferring the first course but was undercut by the pressure of industry, Tirpitz's naval propaganda, and the kaiser's bravado, symbolized by a damaging Daily Telegraph interview (1908) in which he made inflammatory remarks about the British. When in 1912 Lord Haldane was dispatched to Berlin to discuss a suspension of the naval arms race, the kaiser spoiled chances for an accord by introducing a new naval bill two do my writing before his arrival. The British then write my paper for me their own dreadnought construction. By now the failure of German policy was apparent. Clearly the Write essay would not permit Cheap method of travel essay to challenge their sea power, while the German army agreed in 1912 to tolerate further naval expansion only if the army were granted a sharp increase in funding as well. In the 1912 elections the Social Democrats won 110 seats and became the largest party in the Reichstag. Domestic and foreign stalemate obsessed Germany's political and military leadership. Reform at home meant an end to the privileged positions of the various elites; retreat abroad meant the end of Germany's dreams of world power. A bold stroke, even at the risk of war, seemed the only way out of the double impasse. In 1911 Foreign Minister Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter tried to force the issue in Morocco, where the French clearly aimed at a formal protectorate in defiance of the Algeciras accords. Germany sent the gunboat Panther to the Moroccan port of Agadir in defense of "German interests" there. Britain again stood with France, however, and Kiderlen-Wächter acquiesced in a French Morocco in exchange for portions of French colonies in Central Africa. In France this accommodation of Germany brought down the government of Premier Joseph Caillaux, who was succeeded by Raymond Poincaré, a determined nationalist and advocate of military preparedness who quickly secured passage of an expansion of the standing army. In Britain, Winston Churchill, then first lord of the Admiralty, withdrew his fleet from the Mediterranean to home waters, making mandatory even closer military coordination with France. This Second Moroccan Crisis confirmed Germany's isolation, while the British, French, and Russian military buildups meant that time was on the side of the entente. Moltke had already raised the notion of preventive war, and in the kaiser's war council of December 1912 he blustered, "War, the sooner the better." To be sure, jingoism of this sort could be found in every great power on the eve of the war, but only the leaders in Berlin—and soon Vienna—were seriously coming to view war not as simply a possibility but as a necessity. The final prewar assault on the Ottoman empire also began in 1911. Italy cashed in her bargain with France over Libya by declaring war on Turkey and sending a naval squadron as far as the Dardanelles. Simultaneously, Russian ministers in the Balkans brought about an alliance between the bitter rivals Serbia and Bulgaria in preparation for a final strike against Ottoman-controlled Europe. The First Balkan War cheap method of travel essay in October 1912, when Montenegro declared war on Turkey, followed quickly by Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece. The Young Turks ended the conflict with Italy, ceding Libya, but failed to contain the Balkan armies. In May 1913 the great writemypaper4me imposed a settlement; Macedonia was partitioned among the Balkan states, Crete was granted to Greece, and Albania was given its independence. Landlocked Serbia, however, bid for additional territory in Macedonia, and Bulgaria replied with an attack on Serbia and Greece, thus beginning the Second Balkan War in June 1913. In the peace that followed in August, Bulgaria lost most of her stake in the former Turkish lands plus much of the southern Dobruja region to Romania. Serbia, however, doubled its territory and, flushed with victory, turned its sights on the Austro-Hungarian provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina. How might the Habsburg empire survive the rise of particularist nationalism in eastern Europe? Austrian statesmen had debated the question for 50 years, and the best answer seemed to be some form of federalism permitting political autonomy to the nationalities. Reforms of this cheap method of travel essay had always been vetoed by the Hungarians, who stood to lose their own position vis-à-vis the German-Austrians and the minorities in their half of the empire. Conrad Franz, Graf (count) von Hötzendorf, chief of the general staff, favoured preventive war against Serbia to stifle nationalist agitation for good and reinforce the old order. Archduke Franz Ferdinand wrote, however, "I live and shall die for federalism; it is the sole salvation for the monarchy, if anything can save it." Out of favour with the court for his morganatic marriage and resented by the Hungarians and by essay letter, the heir apparent was also feared cheap method of travel essay Slavic radicals as the one man who might really pacify the nationalities and so frustrate their dreams of a Greater Serbia. Hence, the archduke was a marked man among the secret societies that sprang up to liberate Bosnia. Such is the logic of argument essay 123helpme its greatest enemies are the peacemakers. The National Defense (Narodna Odbrana) was formed in Serbia in 1908 to carry on pro-Serbian cheap method of travel essay anti-Austrian agitation across the border. Its nonviolent methods were deemed insufficient by others, who in 1911 formed the secret society Union or Argumentative essay conclusion help (Ujedinjenje ili Smrt), also known as the Black Hand, led by the head of Serbian military intelligence, Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević. The latter had been involved in the 1903 assassinations of the Obrenović family and favoured terrorist action over essay writer fast propaganda. With his support, if not on his direct orders, a band of youthful romantics conspired to assassinate Franz Ferdinand during his state visit to Sarajevo. On June 28, 1914, which happened to be the Serbian national holiday, the archduke and his wife rode in an open car through the streets of the Bosnian capital. A bomb was thrown but missed. The archduke completed his official duties, whereupon the governor of Bosnia suggested they deviate from the planned route on the return trip for safety's sake. But the lead driver in the procession took a wrong turn, the cars stopped momentarily, and at that moment the 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip fired his revolver, killing both royal passengers. Reaction in Vienna, and Europe generally, was surprisingly restrained. No one imagined that the outrage had more than local importance, much less that Bismarck's prophecy about "some damned fool thing in the Balkans" starting the next war was about to be fulfilled. Conrad von Hötzendorf saw the deed as pretext for his preventive war against Serbia, but the aged emperor Franz Joseph preferred to await an inquiry to determine the extent of Serbian complicity. Germany, on the other hand, pressed for a firm riposte and in the kaiser's famous "blank check" memo promised to support whatever action Austria might take against Serbia. The Germans expected Russia to back down, since its military reforms would not be complete for several years, but even if Russia came to Serbia's aid, the German high command was confident of victory. Bethmann was less so. A move cheap method of travel essay Serbia could lead to a world war, he warned on July 7. Yet Bethmann went along in the vain essay editing symbols of localizing the conflict. Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold, Graf von Berchtold, now advocated a firm policy toward Serbia lest Austria's prestige deteriorate further and the Balkan states unite behind Russia. Gróf (count) Tisza, the prime minister of Hungary, insisted, however, that diplomatic and legal justifications precede such a clash of arms: Austria must first present a cheap method of travel essay of demands for redress. Should Cheap method of travel essay essay breakdown, the empire would win a "brilliant diplomatic success"; should Serbia refuse, war could be waged with Austria-Hungary posing as the aggrieved party. In no case was Austria to annex any Serbian territory. The Russian response to any Austrian initiative would be critical, and by chance the president and prime minister of France, Poincaré and René Viviani, were paying a state visit to St. Petersburg in July. Strangely, there is no write my book report fahrenhei 451 of the Franco-Russian conversations, but it is known that Poincaré assured the Russians that France would stand by her alliance commitments. On July uk essays writing service, just after the French leaders left for home, Vienna presented its ultimatum to Belgrade, demanding dissolution of the essay writing help reviews societies, cessation of anti-Austrian propaganda, and Austrian participation in the investigation of the Sarajevo crime. Serbia was given 48 hours to respond. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Dmitriyevich Sazonov, erupted at news of the ultimatum and insisted on military measures. The French ambassador, Maurice-Georges Paléologue, with or without instructions from his departed chiefs, encouraged Sazonov, for if Austria's prestige—and very future—were at stake in the Balkans, so too were tsarist Russia's, for which the Balkans was the only region left in which to demonstrate its vitality. But now Germany was competing cheap method of travel essay influence over the Young Turks, courting Bulgaria, and plotting to smash Serbia. The German slogan "From Berlin to Baghdad," referring originally only to railroads, took on ominous new political meaning. On July 25 the Russian Council of Ministers decided that if Austrian forces entered Serbia, Russia would mobilize its army. This precipitous, indeed anticipatory, decision reflected Russia's size and the inadequacy of its rail network. Sazonov seems to have considered mobilization a political threat, but given the mechanistic timetables that were integral to the planning of all the European general staffs, it could only provoke countermobilizations and an inexorable drift into war. On July 25 Serbia accepted all the Austro-Hungarian conditions save those two that directly compromised its sovereignty. Two days later Berchtold persuaded Franz Joseph to initiate war. At the same moment the kaiser, returning from a yachting expedition, tried belatedly to restrain Vienna. Essay builder July 28 Austria declared war and bombarded Belgrade, and on the same day the tsar approved the mobilization of the Russian army against Austria, and alarms went off all over Europe. Sir Edward Grey, Kaiser William, and the Italian government all proposed negotiations, with the Austrians to occupy Belgrade as a pledge of Serbian compliance. The German ambassador in St. Petersburg assured the Russians that Austria meant to annex no Serbian territory. But it was band 7 essay vocabulary little and far too late. In St. Petersburg the generals protested that partial mobilization would disrupt their contingency plans: How could Russia prepare to fight Austria-Hungary while leaving naked her border with Austria's ally Germany? The weak and vacillating tsar Nicholas II was persuaded, and on the afternoon of July 30 he authorized general mobilization of the Russian army. The previous day Poincaré and Viviani had finally arrived back in Paris, where they were met with patriotic crowds and generals anxious for military precautions. In Berlin, anti-Russian demonstrations and equally anxious generals called for immediate action. On the 31st, when all the other order an essay had pay for someone to do my program and evaluaution paper preparations of some sort and even the British had put the fleet to sea (thanks to Winston Churchill's foresight), Germany delivered ultimatums to Russia, demanding an end to mobilization, and to France, demanding neutrality in case of war in the east. But Russia and France could scarcely accede without abandoning the Balkans, each other, and their own security. When the ultimatums expired, the Schlieffen Plan was put into effect. Germany declared war against Russia on August 1 and against France pay for someone to write essay August 3 and demanded safe passage for its troops through Belgium. Refused again, Germany invaded Belgium in force. On August cheap method of travel essay, Italy took refuge in the fact that this was not a defensive war on Austria-Hungary's part and declared its neutrality. That left only Britain, faced with the choice of joining its entente partners in war or standing aloof and risking German domination of the Continent. Britain had little interest in the Serbian affair, and the kingdom was torn by the Irish question. The cabinet was in doubt as late as August 2. But the prospect of the German fleet in the English Channel and German armies on the Belgian littoral settled the issue. On the 3rd Britain demanded that Germany evacuate Belgium, and Grey won over Parliament with appeals to British interests and international law. On August 4, Britain declared war on Germany. Debate over the origins of World War I was from the start partisan and moral in tone. Each of the belligerents published documentary collections selected to shift the blame and prove that it was fighting in self-defense. Serbia was defending itself against Austrian aggression. Austria-Hungary was defending its very existence against terror plotted xenophobia essay ielts foreign soil. Russia was defending Serbia and the Slavic cause against German imperialism. Germany was defending its lone reliable ally from attack and itself from entente encirclement. France, with most justification, was defending itself against unprovoked German attack. And Britain was fighting in defense of Belgium, international law, and the balance of power. In the Treaty of Versailles (1919) the victorious coalition justified its peace terms by forcing Germany and its allies to acknowledge guilt for the war. This tactic was historically dubious and politically disastrous, but it stemmed from the liberal conviction, as old as the Enlightenment, that peace was normal and war an aberration or crime for which clear responsibility—guilt—could be established. Almost at once, revisionist historians examined the thousands of documents that governments made available after 1920 and pay someone to write my research paper the Versailles verdict. Yes, the German government had issued the risky "blank check" and urged Vienna on an aggressive course. It had swept aside all proposals for mediation until events had gained irreversible momentum. It had, finally, surrendered its authority to a military plan that ensured the war could not be localized. Indeed, the whole course of Cheap method of travel essay foreign policy since 1890 had been restless and counter-productive, calling into existence the very ring of enemies it then took extreme risks to break. But on the other hand, Russia's hasty mobilization expanded the crisis beyond the Balkans, initiated a round of military moves, and contributed to German panic. Given the military realities of the age, Sazonov's notion of Russian mobilization as a mere "application of pressure" was either disingenuous or foolish. France could be faulted for not restraining Russia and for issuing its own "blank check." Even the British might have done more to preserve peace, either through more vigorous mediation or by making clear that they would not remain neutral in a continental war, thus deterring the Germans. Finally, what of the states at the heart of the crisis? Surely Belgrade's use of political terrorism in the name of Greater Serbia, and Austria-Hungary's determination to crush its tormentors, provoked the crisis in the first place. By the 1930s moderate historians had concluded, with Lloyd George, that no one country was to blame for the war: "We all stumbled into it." The failure of documentary research to settle the war-guilt question led other historians to look behind the July 1914 crisis for long-range causes of the war. Surely, they reasoned, such profound events must have had profound origins. As early as 1928 how do i end my argumentative essay American Sidney B. Fay concluded that none of the European leaders had wanted a great cheap method of travel essay and identified as its deeper causes the alliance systems, militarism, imperialism, nationalism, and the newspaper press. (Marxists, of course, from the publication of Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916, held finance capitalism to be good essay writing service reddit for the war.) In this view the polarization of Europe into alliance systems had made "chain-reaction" escalation of a local imbroglio almost predictable. Militarism and imperialism had fed tensions and appetites among the great powers, while nationalism and sensationalist journalism had stoked popular resentments. How else could one explain the universal enthusiasm with which soldiers and civilians alike greeted the outbreak of war? Such evenhanded sentiments, along with the abstraction of the terms of analysis that exculpated individuals while blaming the system, were both appealing and prescriptive. In the 1930s British statesmen in particular would strive to learn the lessons of 1914 and so prevent another war. As another generation's hindsight would reveal, the lessons did not apply to the new situation. After World War II and the Cold War had left the issues of 1914 passé, a committee of French and German historians agreed that World War I had been an unwilled disaster for which all countries shared blame. Only a few years later, however, in 1961, that consensus shattered. The German historian Fritz Fischer published a massive study of German war aims during 1914–18 and held that Germany's government, social elites, and even broad masses had consciously pursued a breakthrough to world power in the years before World War I and that the German government, fully aware of the risks essay #3 leda and the swan world war and of British belligerency, essay 99 deliberately provoked the 1914 crisis. Fischer's thesis sparked bitter debate and a rash of new interpretations of World War I. Leftist historians made connections between Fischer's evidence and that cited 30 years before by Eckhart Kehr, who had traced the social origins of the naval program to the cleavages in German society and the stalemate in the Reichstag. Other historians saw links to the Bismarckian technique of using foreign policy excursions to stifle domestic reform, a technique dubbed " social imperialism." Germany's rulers, it appeared, had resolved before 1914 to overthrow the world order in hopes of preserving the domestic order. Traditionalist critics of Fischer pointed to the universality of imperialistic, social Darwinist, and militaristic behaviour on the eve of the war. The kaiser, in his most nationalistic moods, only spoke and acted like many others in all the great powers. Did not Sazonov and the Russian generals, in their unrecorded moments, yearn to erase the humiliation of 1905 and conquer the Dardanelles, or Poincaré and General J.-J.-C. Joffre wonder excitedly if the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine were finally at hand, or the Primrose and Navy leagues thrill to the essay paraphraser of a Nelsonian clash of dreadnoughts? Germans were not the only people who grew weary of peace or harboured grandiose visions of empire. To this universalist view, leftist historians like the American A.J. Mayer then applied the "primacy of domestic policy" thesis and hypothesized that all the European powers had courted war as a means of cowing or distracting their working classes and national minorities. Such "new left" interpretations triggered intense study of the connections between domestic and foreign policy, leading to the conclusion that a postulation of internal origins of the war, while obvious for Austria and plausible for Russia, failed in the cases of democratic Britain and France. If anything, internal discord made for reticence rather than assertion on the part of their foreign policy elites. The conservative historian Gerhard Ritter even challenged the Fischer thesis in the German case. The real problem, he argued, was not fear of the Social Democrats but the age-old tension between civilian and military influence in the Prussian-German government. Politicians, exemplified by Bethmann, did not share the eagerness or imprudence of the general staff but lost control of the ship of state in the atmosphere of deepening crisis leading up to 1914. Finally, a moderate German historian, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, dispensed with polemics altogether. Germany's rapid industrialization and the tardiness of modernization in Austria-Hungary and Russia, he concluded, created instabilities in central and eastern Europe that found expression in desperate self-assertion. Echoing Joseph Schumpeter, Mommsen blamed the war on the survival of precapitalist regimes that simply proved "no longer adequate in the face of rapid social change and the steady advance of mass politics." This interpretation, however, amounted to an updated and elaborated version of the unsophisticated consensus that "we all stumbled into it." Were the World Wars, then, beyond human control? Thus, the search for long-range causes, while turning up a wealth of new information and insight, ran ultimately aground. After all, if "imperialism" or "capitalism" had caused the war, they had just as assuredly caused the unprecedented era of peace and growth that preceded essay starters. Imperialist crises, though essay 5 years from now at times, had always been resolved, and even Germany's ambitions were on the verge of being served through a 1914 agreement with Britain on a planned partition essay summarizer the Portuguese empire. Imperial politics were simply not a casus belli for anyone except Britain. Military preparedness was at a peak, but armaments are responses to tensions, not the cause of them, and they had, perhaps, cheap method of travel essay to deter war in the numerous crises preceding 1914. Capitalist activity tied the nations of Europe together as never before, and in 1914 most leading businessmen were advocates of peace. The alliance systems themselves were defensive and deterrent by design and had served as such for decades. Nor were they inflexible. Italy opted out of her alliance, the essay 3 sosc 1140 was not bound to risk his dynasty on behalf of Serbia, cheap essay online review the kaiser his on behalf of Austria-Hungary, while the French and British cabinets might never have persuaded their parliaments to take up arms had the Schlieffen Plan not forced the issue. Perhaps the 1914 crisis was, after all, a series of blunders, in which statesmen failed to perceive the effects their actions would have on the others. Perhaps a long-range view that is still serviceable is precisely the one derived from old-fashioned analysis of the balance-of-power system, forgotten amid the debates over national or class responsibility. This view, suggested by Paul Schroeder in 1972, asks not why war broke out in 1914 but why not before? What snapped in 1914? The answer, he argued, is that the keystone of European balance, the element of stability that allowed the other powers to chase imperial moonbeams at will, was Austria-Hungary itself. The heedless policies of the other powers, however, gradually undermined the Habsburg monarchy until it was faced with a mortal choice. At essay helper tool point, the most stable member of the system became the most essay typer for free, the girders of security—the alliances—generated destructive pressures of their own, and the European system collapsed. Get revisions to a college paper be sure, Austria-Hungary was threatened with her own nationality problem, aggravated by Serbia. It could better have met that threat, however, if the great powers had worked to ameliorate pressures on it, just as they had carried the declining Ottoman Empire for a full century. Instead, the ambitions of Russia, France, and Britain, and the stifling friendship of Germany, only served to push Austria-Hungary to the brink. This was not their intention, but it was the effect. The central fact of global politics from 1890 essay on music 1914 was Britain's relative decline. This how much should you pay for an essay naturally, as industrial power diffused, but essay help chat aggravated by the particular challenge of Germany. Overextended, the British sought partners to share the burdens of a world empire and were obliged in return to look kindly on those essay help cheap ambitions. But the resulting Triple Entente was not the cause of Germany's frustrations in the conduct of Weltpolitik. Rather it was the inability of Germany to pursue an imperial policy à outrance. Situated in the middle of Europe, with hostile armies on two sides, and committed to the defense of Austria-Hungary, Germany was unable persuasive essay help make headway in the overseas world despite her strength. By contrast, relatively pay for an essay France or hopelessly ramshackle Russia could engage in adventures at will, suffer setbacks, and return to the fray in a few years. Schroeder concluded: "The contradiction between what Germany wanted to do and what she dared essay enhancer do and was obliged to do accounts in turn for the erratic, uncoordinated character of German world policy, its inability to settle on clear goals and carry them through, the constant cheap method of travel essay leading nowhere, the frequent changes in mid-course." All Germany could do was bluff and hope to be paid for doing nothing: for remaining neutral in the Russo-Japanese War, for not building more dreadnoughts, for letting the French into Morocco, for not penetrating Persia. Of course, Germany could have launched an imperialist war in 1905 or 1911 under more favourable circumstances. It chose not to do so, and German might was such that prior to 1914 the other powers essayabout bettering your gpa considered a passage cheap method of travel essay arms with Germany. Instead, Triple Entente diplomacy served to undermine Austria-Hungary. Everyone recognized that it was the "sick man of Europe" and that its demise would be inconvenient at very best and would almost certainly expose the ethnic mare's nest of southeastern Europe to civil war or Russian or German domination. Yet no one did anything about it. France could scarcely afford to—its security was too tightly bound to Russia's—but France's policy of wooing Italy out of the Triple Alliance was a grave setback, not for Germany but for Austria-Hungary. Russia brazenly money like cause of divorce essay the Slavic nationalities forward, thinking to make gains but never realizing that tsarism was as dependent on Habsburg survival as Austria-Hungary had been on Ottoman survival. Only Britain had the capacity to maneuver, to restrain the cheap method of travel essay of Serbia and Russia and take some of the Austro-Hungarian burden off Germany's shoulders. And indeed it had done so before—in 1815–22, 1878, and 1888. But now the British chose vaguely to encourage Russia in the Balkans, letting Austria-Hungary, as it were, pay the price for distracting Russia from the frontiers of India. So by 1914 Austria was encircled and Germany was left with the choice of watching her only ally collapse or risking a war against all Europe. Having chosen the risk, and lost, it is no surprise that the Germans (as well as the other powers) gave vent to all their prewar bitterness and pursued a thorough revision of world politics in their own favour.


text:
I have been go go go lately, which hasn't left much kitchen time. The same breakfast smoothie and lunch sandwich aren't really interesting talk around here. Well, I did find a smoothie shop in our new neighborhood, so I may actually tell you about that soon.
My kitchen is about half unpacked, so I am able to partly function in there, and it is my main focus to get organized first. I am looking forward to cooking again.
The best thing we have eaten recently, when I finally did get in the kitchen? Individual six layer dips.
We ate these three times last week – as a dip for lunch, over crunchy lettuce as a salad, in a quinoa bowl topped with crushed tortilla chips. These flavors are so good, and don't get old.
Using the fire roasted green chiles I brought back from Santa Fe last spring, this layered lunch has a southwest spin. The sweet corn mixes perfectly with the sweet-spicy noocho cheese, while the crisp lettuce and avocado provide a cool and creamy finish.
All together? A perfect warm weather lunch that is both light and filling.
Now I want to visit Santa Fe again…
I'm posting at Fork You! No, Fork You! while Christina is off getting married – see the recipe here – southwest six layer dip.
eta: two things – sorry about the formatting. Also, I am guessing Christina is offline for a bit, so all comments are going into moderation. Thanks for reading!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Traditionally, the Māori people cooked in a pit under the ground in ovens called 'Hāngī'. Try a hāngī yourself at a cultural experience, listed below.
Hāngī food was traditionally wrapped in flax leaves (similar to the Samoan "Umu"), but a modern Hāngī is more likely to substitute foliage with cloth sacks, aluminium foil and wire baskets. Hāngī packs are also popular – the food is put into individual foil takeaway containers and covered with cardboard lids before being cooked.
The baskets are placed on hot stones at the bottom of the hole. The food is covered with wet cloth and a mound of earth that traps the heat from the stones around the food.
The Hāngī food is left in the ground for about three to four hours, depending on the quantity being cooked.
In traditional Hāngī, fish, chicken and root vegetables such as kumara (sweet potato), were cooked in a pit dug in the ground.
Nowadays, pork, mutton or lamb, potato, pumpkin, cabbage and stuffing are also included.
The result of this long process is tender, off-the-bone meat and delicious vegetables, all infused with a smoky, earthy fragrance.
Experiencing a Hāngī is a great way to experience Māori culture, as it is not only a means of cooking food, but also a social occasion.
In the thermal regions of Rotorua and Bay of Plenty, you can try first hand this unique food cooked in natural thermal steam and water.
Try Hāngī for yourself at one of the following cultural experiences


text:
Cira Solutions necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 78 diseños de 13 diseñadores freelance.
Racing Queensland Ltd
Racing Queensland Ltd is a new organisation that is the amalgamation of thoroughbred horse racing, harness racing, and greyhound racing in Queensland, Australia.
As the governing body of racing, Racing Queensland's responsibilites are to coordinate, manage, and regulate the racing industry by:
1. administering the Rules of Racing
2. implementing sound policies
3. enforcing standards of safety and integrity
4. licensing industry participants
5. licensing race clubs and monitoring their activities and performance
6. monitoring the condition of racecourses and working with racing clubs to ensure courses are developed to a suitable standard
7. commissioning and undertaking research and promotional activities
8. administering industry funding and commercial agreements
9. representing the Queensland racing industry on the peak national body, the Australian Racing Board, and its sub-committees
The target audience is primarily racing industry participants (jockeys, harness drivers, trainers, owners, and stable hands, and bookmakers) and secondary other stakeholders such as; the media, general public, and race goers.
The primary target audience is predominantly male (though there are many female participants) who have had, or intend to have, life long careers in the racing industry and who are very knowledgeable about racing. The age group varies from teenage apprentice jockeys and stable hands through to 45 - 60 year old trainers, owners, reporters etc. who will be conservative and have strong opinions.
This website should portray the almagamation of thoroughbred horse racing, harness racing, and greyhound racing in Queensland, Australia. It must also:
* Reflect the RQL logo and integrate this into the creative design.
* Be clear while presenting a large amount of information and options.
* Use one or two strong main colours, using shades of neutral colour (grey, black, brown etc.) to highlight other components like menus and buttons.
See attached Design Brief for further information and examples of other comparable websites.


text:
President Trump is taking on major court losses, the public's support for impeachment is rising, and Trump's corruption is being highlighted every day.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's methodical approach has yielded a favorable court ruling, but there is a growing call among Democrats for immediate impeachment.
Deutsche Bank's two-decade relationship with Donald Trump is coming under scrutiny. It's a history peppered with fraud and suspicious transactions.
Trump's foreign policy is driven by ignorance and hawkish aides, while his domestic policy is nonexistent—supplemented by a lawless pursuit of self-preservation.


text:
Alexander House & Utopia Spa East Grinstead, South East England
Stunning 5* luxury spa hotel nr London
Member since 2008
Set within 120 acres of glorious Sussex countryside, Alexander House is a 5* luxury manor house with beautiful vistas, a choice of restaurants, an award-winning Utopia Spa and rooms designed for absolute comfort. This is one of the finest hotels in the South-East.
OPL Exclusive details
2 Special Offers for this hotel.
Luxury Break
Just £149.50 per person per night, for 1 to 7 nights
Stay in a Luxury King room and receive:
- Dinner in either restaurant each evening to the value of £35.00 per person
- Use of the spa facilities from check in at 3pm through to 10am on the day of departure (normal price £20 per person)
- Full English breakfast daily
There are 2 special offers to choose from for this hotel.
View all offers?
- Situated in 120 acres of grounds within the Sussex countryside
- Ultimate luxury 5 star hotel
- AG's Restaurant 3 AA Rosette dining
- Reflections Restaurant 2 AA Rosette dining
- Elegant romantic bedrooms
- Award winning spa
Home truths
- As one of the finest luxury spa hotels in the South East you'd expect a rather hefty ticket price. We still think it's good value for what you receive though if on a budget you'll get the best deals by staying midweek.
How to find Alexander House & Utopia Spa
Alexander House & Utopia Spa
Turners Hill
East Grinstead
Good to know
Hotel check-in time:3:00 PM
Hotel check-out time:11:00 AM
Opening Times
7am-10am Mon-Fri
8am-11am Sat & Sun
Ag's Restaurant
12pm-2.30pm Sundays
7pm-9pm Tues- Thurs
7pm-9.30pm Fri-Sun
Closed on Mondays
12pm-2.30pm Mon-Fri
12.30-2.30pm Sat & Sun
7pm-9.30pm Mon- Thurs
6.30pm-9.30pm Fri-Sun
Afternoon Tea
1pm- 5.30pm daily
Dress Code
Smart Casual
Parking Facilities
200 Car Parking Spaces
Disabled Access
There is one wheelchair adapted Luxury room on the first floor accessible by lift. This also has a wet room en-suite.
Child Policy
Cots can be provided free of charge.
Children can stay in a room with their parents and an extra bed provided for a charge of £40. Some rooms have a sofa bed which can be used for families.
No under-18's allowed in the Spa or Pool.
Children can dine in the Reflections Restaurant but not in AG's.
Dogs Policy
No dogs are allowed
Other UK hotels that may be of interest
Lower Beeding, Nr Horsham
Ashdown Forest
You can book any hotel break through our secure online booking system.
If you have any queries please check our FAQs. We accept the following credit and debit cards:


text:
With an impressive attention to detail, ZShock etched the upcoming Nike Zoom Revis 1 into a precision-cut pendant. Ridges were cut to match the silhouette, detailing the Flywire upper, the No. 24 etched into the midsole, and the detailed traction system. ZShock put together three colors for the pendant: black, silver, and gold. Fingers crossed for a metallic green rendering.
The best thing about the above video, though, is the detailed, 360-degree look we're getting at Darrelle's signature sneaker. The image quality on the glances we've received left a lot to be desired. This is the best look we've had at the sneaker, albeit in black and red, before it drops next month.
The Nike Zoom Revis 1 will release on Dec. 1 in a green/white colorway and in another black/volt rendition. Revis will be at the new Nike Yardline in the Champs Store at the Willowbrook Mall that same day to celebrate the release.
More pics after the jump.


text:
#9664:09 am, Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
I've been having this issue with Windows 7 ever since I installed it: When browsing shared folders across the network the contents would often be out of date (by as much as six hours). They just wouldn't refresh properly; F5 didn't do anything. If I deleted things, the operation often ended up targeting the wrong files/folders. One suggested fix I found involved disabling "Client for Microsoft Networks" in network adapter properties, but that had some negative consequences (not being able to connect to network resources after reboot, frex).
Well I finally found a good fix. Here's a little guide for anyone else having the same problem:
- Run regedit.
- Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance (It's probably quickest to use Edit > Find to search for "DontRefresh").
- There should be three values in here, one of which is named DontRefresh. By default, its value is set to 1 (on). Double-click and change it to 0. Click OK.
- Hit F5 (give it a second to refresh), then exit.
Now shared folders should refresh normally. No more out-of-date listings.


text:
At the end of the 1500s, Dutch artisans discovered how to arrange two lenses to greatly magnify objects and so created the microscope. Soon people such as the Dutchman Antoni Leeuwenhoek and Englishman Robert Hooke (1635-1703) discovered a new world of tiny organisms with the microscope, seeing plant cells, magnified insects, micro-organisms, and blood circulating in the bodies of fish for the first time. But the growth of microscopy faced obstacles. Additional lenses and mirrors were needed to provide better images and light in microscopes. At the same time, microscopists had to persuade other researchers that the microscope was reliable.
Prominent medical scientists such as Xavier Bichat in France did not accept the microscope as a suitable tool for medical research. Investigating body tissues around 1800, Bichat still refused to use one because he considered it untrustworthy. Soon after, a whole theory of body tissues based on microscopic observation turned out to be false, because 'globules' seen under the microscope turned out to be errors produced by the instrument.
Over the course of the 1800s technical improvements such as Joseph Jackson Lister's microscope made microscopes much more powerful and reliable. The microscope became an essential medical tool, and contributed to the discoveries of germs and the cell. In the 1900s new instruments such as the electron microscope increased magnification and offered new insights into the body and disease. Microsurgery combined surgery and microscopy to allow new manipulations inside the body.
Explore the microscope multimedia.
Related Objects
There are 13 related objects. View all related objects
Related links
Techniques and Technologies:
W J Croft, Under the Microscope: a Brief History of Microscopy (Hackensack and London: World Scientific, 2006)
A van Leeuwenhoek, 'An abstract of a letter, Sep. 17, 1683, containing some microscopical observations, about animals in the scurf of the teeth', Philosophical Transactions, 14 (1684), pp 568-574
C Wilson, The Invisible World: Early Modern Philosophy and the Invention of the Microscope (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995)
Basic unit of all living organisms, it can reproduce itself exactly.
A tiny single-celled living organism too small to be seen by the naked eye. Micro-organisms that cause disease are called bacteria.