A challenge: World War in 1882

[MrHola]

Create a worldwide conflict starting in 1882.
You decide about the participants.
It starts in 1882 and ends in 1887.

Also describe the impacts the 'Great War' has on the world, in this day and back then.

Good luck.

[Max Sinister]

You could use the partition of Africa as a reason for war. Maybe you have to kill Bismarck for that - he had decided the German Empire was "saturated" and didn't have to expand anymore. He could've negotiated to avoid war.

[stevep]

You could use the partition of Africa as a reason for war. Maybe you have to kill Bismarck for that - he had decided the German Empire was "saturated" and didn't have to expand anymore. He could've negotiated to avoid war.

Max

Actually, while initially he opposed German colonisation in Africa, later he was deeply involved in the gathering of several colonies, allegedly for reasons of political popularity at home.

Steve

[Grey Wolf]

The thing is, its difficult to see Africa providing enough of a cassus belli for war. All the powers had interests there, but it would be VERY difficult for a rival power to project sufficient force into another's sphere to achieve anything lasting, and where these spheres were only nominal and such projections did occur the results were largely sorted out by negotiations and land exchanges.

The history of colonial clashes in the latter part of the 19th century seems to me to prove (at least empirically) that war would not come from such rivalries - the near but not quite armed clashes between the US and Germans in Samoa for example, and between Britain and France at Fashoda. Logic would say that the reason that these did NOT get out of hand was because the stakes were not quite high enough and that enough checks and balances existed in the system to allow for compromise

IMHO tensions could be whipped up by general feelings of colonial rivalry, and power games could be played out using African states as proxies, but the over-arcing REASON for a war would need to be on a grand strategic scale

Grey Wolf

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

There was an attempt in 1881 or 1882 by some Italian to assassinate Francis Joseph in Trieste. This could work as a Sarajevo analogy, but it's complicated by the fact that Italy was having great difficulties with France at the same time and was improving ties with Germany as a result. Combined with the alliance between Germany and A-H, this makes it hard for the war to extend beyond the original 2.

What is the earliest date for the POD?

And it's casus belli, with one s. Sorry for being a nitpicker.