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After years of industrialization, the capitalist countries experienced an economic crisis around 1908. So as Song Xiaofei expected, by 1908, the main theme of the world was war!

This worldwide crisis originated in the United States. As early as March 1907, the exchange crisis broke out on Wall Street, and in 1907-1908, more than 300 credit institutions in the United States went bankrupt, with a total debt of $356 million, and 27,400 industrial and commercial enterprises registered bankruptcy, with a total debt of $420 million. What is the crisis? Some depositors even hired people to queue them out of exhaustion, including Sydney, Goldman Sachs, which later became a Wall Street celebrity. Weinberg, who at the time made $10 a day in line.

In the 1907 crisis, industrial production in the United States fell by 30 percent, and the number of unemployed was estimated at 5 million to 6 million at its peak, as had not been seen in previous crises. The financial tsunami soon spread to Europe, and the crisis spread to many countries around the world, and Germany, Britain, France, and other countries tried their best to dump goods into their colonies, and this series of crises exacerbated the contradictions between Britain and Germany, and between Germany and France. In the end, the fuse of the world war broke out in advance in the Balkans, known as the "powder keg of Europe".

The Balkan Peninsula is one of the three major peninsulas in southern Europe, located in the southeast corner of Europe, across the Turkish Strait and Asia, east of the Black Sea, west of the Adriatic Sea and the Aegean Sea, north of the Danube River and its tributary Sava River, and the European continent is very wide, without high mountains. The transportation hub has always been a battleground for soldiers, with a land area of about 550,000 square kilometers. It's about the size of one and a half Japan.

The Balkans have a complex history, with the Huns, Avars, Lombards, Bulgarians, Romans, and Slavic peoples vying for control of the peninsula between the 4th and 7th centuries AD. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans for more than 500 years. But from the early 19th century. The Russian Empire was eager to open a passage to the Mediterranean Sea in the south, and the Austrian Empire was trying to expand southward to the Adriatic Sea, and Britain and France were motivated by selfish interests. to protect the lifeline of communication to the Indian Ocean and the Far East, where fierce warfare was fought. In addition, there are many ethnic contradictions, religious conflicts, cultural differences, and border disputes here, and it has become the most concentrated and fierce region of contradictions and conflicts in Europe, and Yugoslavia is the most serious.

Yugoslavia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Balkan Peninsula. The first inhabitants of the territory of present-day Yugoslavia were Illyrians, Thracians and Celts. In the 6th century. A group of Slavs began to break through the Danube defense line of the Byzantine Empire and invade the Balkans, and by the 7th century they settled in the Balkans, gradually merging with the local indigenous population, collectively known as the Southern Slavs.

However, in the 14th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire, a feudal theocratic Muslim empire that once spanned Europe, Asia and Africa, rose from western Asia. Conquered the Balkans and eliminated the Slavic states within Yugoslavia. Military feudal rule was established in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania for more than 500 years, and the Balkan Peninsula was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for a long time.

However, at the beginning of the 19th century, Pan-Slavism was rampant in Tsarist Russia, and scholars and poets among them enthusiastically studied the folk songs, folklore and rural dialects of the Slavic peoples in order to prove their racial kinship and linguistic similarity, in an attempt to express a common Slavic consciousness. In the middle of the 19th century, when the crisis of serfdom in Russia deepened, and the tsarist government was eager to expand abroad in order to alleviate domestic contradictions, the Russian Pan-Slavists took advantage of the Pan-Slavist ideas that appeared in Austria in the early days and tampered with them to serve the tsar, they advocated that the Slavs and Russians had a common history and blood relationship, similar language and culture, the same religious beliefs, lived next to each other, had a common destiny and interests, and the Russian nation was the leader of the Slavs, and declared that Russia was the Slavic peoples" Protector", relying on the tsar to secure the future of the Slavs, wanted to establish a Great Slavic Empire with Russia as the "ally", free the Slavs from Austrian and Ottoman rule, and finally achieve the goal of advancing Russia's European borders to the west and south.

Tsars Alexander I, II and Tsar Nicholas II supported Pan-Slavism and its movements in various ways as a tool for pursuing aggressive policies, with Russia presenting itself as the liberator of the southern Slavs and meddling in the Balkans, Serbia and Bulgaria and other places fantasizing about relying on Tsarist Russia to drive out the Ottoman oppressors, and by the late 19th century, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania were freed from Ottoman rule with the support of Tsarist Russia, made **. This made the Ottomans very angry.

The Ottoman Empire, also known as the Ottoman Turkish Empire, was a centralized unified empire from 1804 to 1867, with a territory of present-day Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Northern Italy, Transylvania in Romania and Galicia in Poland.

By the middle of the 19th century, however, the Ottoman Empire had been greatly weakened: the Italian War of 1859 had deprived it of all non-Austrian historical territories in Italy; The Austro-Prussian War of 1866 forced it to be excluded from the German Confederation; At the same time, Hungary in its territory was also very dissatisfied with Vienna rule, as Austria had suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 with the support of Russia.

Because the Hungarian nation was the second largest nation in the Ottoman Empire, and it accounted for one-third of the empire's land area, in order to protect the status of the Ottoman emperor in Hungary and prevent such a large area from separating from the empire**, the Ottoman Emperor Franz. Joseph I had to negotiate a pacifying nature with the Hungarian nobility to find a compromise that would enable them to support him, eventually establishing a dualist empire. That is, the Austro-Plenum Empire, referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz. Joseph I served as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary at the same time.

Meantime. In response to the expansion of Tsarist Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy established the Triple Alliance against Russia and France. In 1882, the Treaty of the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria and Italy was signed, and the Triple Alliance was formally established, and Germany became the core of the Triple Alliance. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Germany's economy developed rapidly, catching up with and surpassing Britain. Germany's plan to build a "triple B railway" also indicated an intention to expand into the Balkans, starting with its capital, Berlin. Pass through Istanbul, the capital of Turkey, to Baghdad in Asia. In 1892, France and Russia concluded a military pact to counter the Triple Alliance, and the Franco-Russian alliance was formed. Britain also adjusted its relations with France and Russia. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Anglo-French Entente and the Anglo-Russian Entente were signed. The signing of the Anglo-French and Anglo-Russian Entente meant the establishment of the Entente between Britain, France and Russia. In this way, the two major military blocs in Europe: the Central Powers and the Entente were finally formed.

But the Bolshevik Revolution led by Lenin in 1905 succeeded with the support of China. This eventually led to the collapse of the Tsarist Empire. China, along with Germany and Britain, carved up Tsarist Russia, and both the Slavs and the South Slavs were reduced to the inferior nations of Europe. Emperor Franz of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Joseph I felt that the time had come for revenge, and with the acquiescence of Germany, in 1908 he brazenly annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as Bosnia and Herzegovina. The local people had wanted to unite with Serbia to form a large southern Slavic state.

Seventy-eight-year-old Austrian Emperor Franz. Joseph I's goal was to take advantage of Russia's collapse and restore the glory of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. After recovering Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania, it annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. Continue to march on the Serbian border in preparation for the annexation of Serbia.

As the saying goes, a skinny camel is bigger than a horse, and although the Austro-Hungarian Empire at this time no longer had the glory of the past, it was still a vast country spanning Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, with the second largest land area in Europe and the third largest population in Europe, 52 million. At the same time, the scale of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's machinery manufacturing and munitions industry was also the fifth largest in the world, only after the British Empire, the Chinese Empire, the United States of America, and the German Empire, and the quality of heavy artillery units was the second in the world, second only to the Chinese Empire. According to the Austro-Hungarian Military Service Act, all healthy young men must perform universal compulsory military service, and healthy males who have reached the age of 21 are selected and assigned by the Enlistment Board to serve in the Reichwehr for three years of active service, then seven years in the reserve army, and then another two years of active duty in the local defense forces, or a "substitute reserve" for 10 years in the local defense forces, and the Austro-Hungarian mobilization plan is that men who serve in the reserve in the reserve army are transferred to active duty in the Reichwehr immediately after the mobilization order is issued, Soldiers who served in the substitute reserves of the local defense forces were transferred to the active duty of the local defense forces, and the reserve personnel of the local reserves were intensively trained and responsible for making up for the loss of troops in wartime, so that the empire could mobilize three or four million troops.

The Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht had the following infantry units: 62 Austrian infantry regiments, 40 Hungarian infantry regiments, 4 Bosnia-Herzegovina infantry regiments, 28 field infantry battalions, 1 Bosnian field infantry battalion, 4 Tyrolean infantry regiments.

The artillery units of the Imperial Wehrmacht are the strongest and most complete, with 42 field cannon regiments, 14 field howitzer divisions, 11 mounted artillery divisions, 14 heavy howitzer divisions, 11 mountain artillery regiments, 6 fortress artillery regiments, and 10 ** fortress garrison artillery battalions.

The Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht also had cavalry units: 16 hussar regiments, 10 lancer regiments, 15 dragoon regiments.

In addition, Austria-Hungary had the so-called Field Chaser Unit, 29 ** Field Chaser Battalions, 4 Tyrolean Chasseur Regiments, 4 Bosnian Chaser Regiments. The Austro-Hungarian field hunters were actually light infantry units, and they were named after the fact that the soldiers of these units were traditionally recruited from hunters. Unlike ordinary infantry, field hunters are required to have tasks such as going deep behind enemy lines, conducting guerrilla warfare, not relying on heavy firearms support, and not participating in large corps operations. At the same time, some of the field hunter units are actually mountain light infantry units, these troops are recruited from the traditional mountain people, climbing mountains and wading in the habit of naturally walking on flat ground, because of frequent hunting and excellent marksmanship, and have a certain ability to survive in the wild, is a rare excellent unit for carrying out mountain infiltration, raiding and other tasks, a bit like the current special forces forces.

In 1908, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not weak in naval strength, with 1 dreadnought, 3 quasi-dreadnoughts, 6 pre-dreadnoughts, 4 coastal defense ships, 2 protective cruisers, 3 armored cruisers, 4 light/reconnaissance cruisers, destroyers, and 6 submarines.

And with the development of the second industrial revolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the empire in the last 50 years of the 19th century in both industry, commerce and finance have been greatly improved. Joseph I did not hesitate to throw himself into the war, preparing to restore the homeland of the empire in his lifetime, and after the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the goal of Austria-Hungary was Serbia.

However, Serbia had a village 6,000 years ago, and it was one of the largest villages in Europe at that time. In the 6th and 7th centuries AD, Serbs, a branch of the South Slavs, settled in the middle and lower reaches of the Sava River in the Balkans to the Adriatic coast. By the end of the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire had completely conquered Serbia and began a five-century rule, but Serbia gained a high degree of autonomy during the revolutions of 1804 and 1815. In 1878, Serbia was fully defeated with the assistance of Russia, and in 1882 it established a kingdom of **, with a population of about 4 million people, of which about 1 million troops and reservists could be mobilized, which was not so easy to deal with, and, forced by the pressure of the Austro-Hungarian army, Serbia and Bulgaria formed an alliance, Montenegro and Greece also participated, forming the Balkan League.

It turned out that Russia was the traditional protectorate of Serbia, and after the collapse of the Russian Empire, Tsar Nicholas II sought the protection of the Entente composed of Britain and France, and Serbia and other countries naturally also sought the protection of Britain and France. Austria went to war on Serbia, and the Entente powers such as Britain and France were extremely dissatisfied with the expansion of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and Britain had good reason to be wary of Germany's quest for hegemony through the Allies. The British tradition is not to judge the actor by his motives, but by his strength, that is, even if Austria-Hungary does not send troops to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina and attack Serbia, because Germany has a large army, how this army can be used is enough to provoke the nerves of the British. Now that the German Emperor Wilhelm II is again vigorously developing the navy, British hegemony will be threatened. France also did not want Europe to become the territory of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the economic crisis broke out due to the overproduction of the capitalist world, so Britain and France agreed to become a protectorate of Serbia.

In order to win over Russia, Britain and France let the Russians go to the front line as cannon fodder, and let Russia send laborers to the front on the condition that the Tsarist government was exempted from the war reparations paid to Britain and France. Nicholas II finally got a respite and immediately agreed to the demands of England and France. After all, now that the Tsarist Empire had collapsed and the economy was bankrupt, Russia was full of workers and peasants living on the streets, and the people were living in misery, and there was a possibility of another revolution with the Bolsheviks at any time. In this way, Russia was also ready to enter the war, and a major war between the Central and Entente powers in Europe was inevitable.

In 1908, the Chinese Empire, because it had long been a central bank, a monetary system based on the gold standard, effectively resisted the financial crisis, and a complete industrial system was established not long ago, so it was not greatly affected by the economic crisis. China's armed forces have long been prepared for a world war, and the only question they face is whether they will join the Allies or the Entente. (To be continued......) u