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Part Ninety-Six: Stirring the Mediterranean Pot
Update time! I think I have the crises spaced out enough so it's realistic. I don't think it conflicts with any previously mentioned events, but if it does let me know. 
Part Ninety-Six: Stirring the Mediterranean Pot
The Moroccan Crisis:
In the years leading up to the Great War, a number of diplomatic crises heightened the tensions between the European great powers. The first of these was the Moroccan Crisis in 1899. By the turn of the 20th century, Morocco was one of the few remaining independent states on the African continent. France, after securing its dominant place on the continent, sought to gain more influence in Morocco. In April of 1899, France pressured Sultan Abdelhafid to accept commercial concessions and grant French ships and soldiers passage through Moroccan territory. However, after a rebellion by several members of the Moroccan aristocracy led to Abdelhafid rejecting the concessions, the French navy was sent to occupy several port cities including Tangiers and Tetuan around the Strait of Gibraltar. The French army in Algeria also mobilized outside of the city of Oujda on the Moroccan-Algerian border in preparations to launch a full invasion.
The French actions against Morocco soon reached the rest of the world and were met with a number of reactions by the other great powers. Great Britain and Spain saw the French invasion and occupation of Tangiers as a threat to their control over the Strait of Gibraltar, and launched diplomatic protests against the French invasion. Germany gave France its tacit support for the French action. While the French stopped their advance short of entering Fez and mostly occupied border towns, the Spanish still raised alarms, now asserting that the Congo Conference had prohibited France from exerting any more influence in Morocco. In one instance during the crisis, a French shelling near the Spanish enclave of Ceuta almost brought France and Spain to war. After three months of tensions in Morocco, the great powers elected to resolve the crisis through another diplomatic conference, which was held in the southern Portuguese town of Faro in November of 1899.
Representatives from Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, Hungary, and the United states all attended the Faro Conference. France received its primary support from Germany and Italy in the negotiations, while Great Britain and Spain were backed by the Ottomans, Russia, and Hungary. The American ambassador to Morocco, Samuel Gummere, was the main American representative at the conference. Gummere and the United States delegation sided with preserving Moroccan independence[1], and so the Faro Conference represented one of the few times that the United States and Great Britain agreed on a diplomatic position in the early 20th century. At the conference both France and Spain claimed that Morocco was within their spheres of influence, and after months of negotiation the two sides reached a compromise. In exchange for the end of the French occupation, Morocco would accept French and Spanish advisers, and the French were permitted to construct a naval base at the city of Kenitra on Morocco's Atlantic coast[2]. On the side of the British and Spanish, they were granted equal commercial concessions in Morocco that the French were seeking placing Morocco further under European influence.
The Turkish War:
The second major crisis of the early twentieth century was the outbreak of a war between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. While the Ottomans had established autonomy for some regions of the Balkans, the law applying to the rest of the Ottoman lands in Europe were lagging in reform. In 1902, a major revolt began among the Greeks in Crete that soon took control of most of the island[3]. As the Ottoman forces began to combat the revolt, some Greeks in Thessaly also rose up against the Turks. The Turkish army brutally put down the Thessalian rebellion, and started massacring Greeks elsewhere in the Balkans for fear that these Greeks would join the revolt as well. Sparked by these events, the kingdom of Greece declared war on the Ottoman Empire in August of 1902. The Greeks soon gained support from Russia, France, and Italy, who were eager to grab land of their own from the Ottoman Empire.
With Italian and French support, the Greeks initially gained some quick advances. The Greek army reached Larissa and Janina by the middle of September, gaining control of the Thessaly. The Italians defeated the Turkish fleet in the Bay of Valora[4] and, along with a French fleet, bombarded Tunis and Tripoli. Meanwhile, Russian armies were entering Turkey through Rumania and the Caucasus. By the end of 1902, Greek armies backed by militias and a French expeditionary force had reached Salonika. The Russian armies had set up a frontier at the Danube, and Tsar Nicholas declared Rumania was to become an independent country. French and Italian ships were also blockading routes out of the Aegean Sea, cutting Turkey off from any trade. As the countries began getting nearer to Constantinople, however, thoughts of the spoils of the war came up and the participants in the war and other great powers began to have disagreements.
The British government, once again alarmed at French expansionism in the Mediterranean, had been calling for an armistice for months. At the same time, the success of the Greek rebellion and the Russian occupation of Rumania sent murmurs of possible other uprisings by the Bulgarians, Armenians, and other Ottoman minorities. The thought of provoking further destabilization of the Ottoman Empire contributed to the combatants agreeing to an armistice[5] with another conference to determine the final borders following the war. At the conference which established the Treaty of Rome, Great Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire all discussed the territorial changes, though the Turkish representatives were shut out of much of the negotiations. The Greek gains of the vilayets of Thessaly and Janina were agreed upon early in the negotiations. The complications arose when France and Italy both demanded they be given all of the Ottoman territory in North Africa. Worries over more French strategic control over the Mediterranean led to most powers in the negotiations supporting Italy's case. In the final treaty, Italy was given Tunis and Tripolitania while France gained the Fezzan region in the African interior.
Further complications in the treaty discussions involved the Russian gains from the Ottomans. Initially, the Russian delegation asked for cessions and a sphere of influence over much of eastern Anatolia and the areas north of the Danube River. The territory that the Russians had occupied on the ground had reached past the Danube in the Balkans, but had only reached as far west as Erzerum and as far south as Lake Van. After the Turkish representatives almost walked out of the negotiations, the other powers convinces Russia to scale back its desired gains. The Russians eventually settled their gains to Dorbudja and a general western shift of the Russian-Turkish border in the Caucasus. The Russian gains from the Treaty of Rome included the cities of Batumi and Ardesen on the Black Sea coast, and Petegrek, Kars, Igdir, and Olti[6]. Much of the population of this area ceded to Russia were Armenians, which fueled Armenian nationalist ideals in both Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
The End of the Adriatic League:
After the Turkish War, Italy continued to strengthen its naval position in the Mediterranean. After the eager French aggression against the Moroccans and the Ottomans, many in the Italian government grew wary of French ambitions and sought to consolidate the Italian control over the Adriatic Sea. In May of 1903 during the meeting of the Adriatic League Senate, the Italian representatives proposed that Trieste and Fiume, having majority Italian populations, be annexed into the Italian republic. While there was severe opposition to the move as those were the two largest and most prosperous cities in the League, the motion was passed. In July, the two territories were transferred to Italian control. Grand ceremonies were held in Trieste and Fiume to commemorate the transfer of power, but on the ground nothing much changed.
However, this would spell the beginning of the end of the Adriatic League. The annexation of Trieste and Fiume caused a disturbance among the Hungarian government as Hungary largely relied on the Adriatic League for oceanic trade. Later in 1903, Hungary began to pressure the members of the Adriatic League for greater concessions regarding trade tariffs and naval access to the League's ports. After the League's refusal of Hungary's latest demand, the chancellor ordered Hungary's military to block roads crossing from Hungary into the Adriatic League cities. The Adriatic League took this as an act of war and moved to ask Italy for assistance. Italy, however, did not want to escalate matters with Hungary having just fought the Turkish navy a year earlier. At the rejection of assistance from Italy, the Adriatic League had lost its main backer. In early 1904, an agreement was made between the remaining members of the league, Italy, and Hungary to cede the city of Zadar to Italy and Split to Hungary. Dubrovnik and Kotor still rejected annexation, and were combined into the Republic of Ragusa[7].
[1] I thought the US siding with Morocco against France would be an interesting original aspect of the TL, but it turns out they did that in OTL during the First Moroccan Crisis too.
[2] France pushed for a base on the Strait of Gibraltar at Tangiers or Mantil but the Brits and Spanish would have none of it.
[3] Similar to the OTL Cretan Revolt in the 1860s.
[4] Vlore, Albania.
[5] After the chaos in post-Habsburg Austria, the great powers are wary of another hasty collapse.
[6] There were also some minor changes in the borders of the autonomous areas within the OE. I'll make a map of post-Turkish War borders in the next couple days.
[7] During the time of the Adriatic League a movement grew in Dubrovnik to revive the old name.
Part Ninety-Six: Stirring the Mediterranean Pot
The Moroccan Crisis:
In the years leading up to the Great War, a number of diplomatic crises heightened the tensions between the European great powers. The first of these was the Moroccan Crisis in 1899. By the turn of the 20th century, Morocco was one of the few remaining independent states on the African continent. France, after securing its dominant place on the continent, sought to gain more influence in Morocco. In April of 1899, France pressured Sultan Abdelhafid to accept commercial concessions and grant French ships and soldiers passage through Moroccan territory. However, after a rebellion by several members of the Moroccan aristocracy led to Abdelhafid rejecting the concessions, the French navy was sent to occupy several port cities including Tangiers and Tetuan around the Strait of Gibraltar. The French army in Algeria also mobilized outside of the city of Oujda on the Moroccan-Algerian border in preparations to launch a full invasion.
The French actions against Morocco soon reached the rest of the world and were met with a number of reactions by the other great powers. Great Britain and Spain saw the French invasion and occupation of Tangiers as a threat to their control over the Strait of Gibraltar, and launched diplomatic protests against the French invasion. Germany gave France its tacit support for the French action. While the French stopped their advance short of entering Fez and mostly occupied border towns, the Spanish still raised alarms, now asserting that the Congo Conference had prohibited France from exerting any more influence in Morocco. In one instance during the crisis, a French shelling near the Spanish enclave of Ceuta almost brought France and Spain to war. After three months of tensions in Morocco, the great powers elected to resolve the crisis through another diplomatic conference, which was held in the southern Portuguese town of Faro in November of 1899.
Representatives from Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, Hungary, and the United states all attended the Faro Conference. France received its primary support from Germany and Italy in the negotiations, while Great Britain and Spain were backed by the Ottomans, Russia, and Hungary. The American ambassador to Morocco, Samuel Gummere, was the main American representative at the conference. Gummere and the United States delegation sided with preserving Moroccan independence[1], and so the Faro Conference represented one of the few times that the United States and Great Britain agreed on a diplomatic position in the early 20th century. At the conference both France and Spain claimed that Morocco was within their spheres of influence, and after months of negotiation the two sides reached a compromise. In exchange for the end of the French occupation, Morocco would accept French and Spanish advisers, and the French were permitted to construct a naval base at the city of Kenitra on Morocco's Atlantic coast[2]. On the side of the British and Spanish, they were granted equal commercial concessions in Morocco that the French were seeking placing Morocco further under European influence.
The Turkish War:
The second major crisis of the early twentieth century was the outbreak of a war between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. While the Ottomans had established autonomy for some regions of the Balkans, the law applying to the rest of the Ottoman lands in Europe were lagging in reform. In 1902, a major revolt began among the Greeks in Crete that soon took control of most of the island[3]. As the Ottoman forces began to combat the revolt, some Greeks in Thessaly also rose up against the Turks. The Turkish army brutally put down the Thessalian rebellion, and started massacring Greeks elsewhere in the Balkans for fear that these Greeks would join the revolt as well. Sparked by these events, the kingdom of Greece declared war on the Ottoman Empire in August of 1902. The Greeks soon gained support from Russia, France, and Italy, who were eager to grab land of their own from the Ottoman Empire.
With Italian and French support, the Greeks initially gained some quick advances. The Greek army reached Larissa and Janina by the middle of September, gaining control of the Thessaly. The Italians defeated the Turkish fleet in the Bay of Valora[4] and, along with a French fleet, bombarded Tunis and Tripoli. Meanwhile, Russian armies were entering Turkey through Rumania and the Caucasus. By the end of 1902, Greek armies backed by militias and a French expeditionary force had reached Salonika. The Russian armies had set up a frontier at the Danube, and Tsar Nicholas declared Rumania was to become an independent country. French and Italian ships were also blockading routes out of the Aegean Sea, cutting Turkey off from any trade. As the countries began getting nearer to Constantinople, however, thoughts of the spoils of the war came up and the participants in the war and other great powers began to have disagreements.
The British government, once again alarmed at French expansionism in the Mediterranean, had been calling for an armistice for months. At the same time, the success of the Greek rebellion and the Russian occupation of Rumania sent murmurs of possible other uprisings by the Bulgarians, Armenians, and other Ottoman minorities. The thought of provoking further destabilization of the Ottoman Empire contributed to the combatants agreeing to an armistice[5] with another conference to determine the final borders following the war. At the conference which established the Treaty of Rome, Great Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire all discussed the territorial changes, though the Turkish representatives were shut out of much of the negotiations. The Greek gains of the vilayets of Thessaly and Janina were agreed upon early in the negotiations. The complications arose when France and Italy both demanded they be given all of the Ottoman territory in North Africa. Worries over more French strategic control over the Mediterranean led to most powers in the negotiations supporting Italy's case. In the final treaty, Italy was given Tunis and Tripolitania while France gained the Fezzan region in the African interior.
Further complications in the treaty discussions involved the Russian gains from the Ottomans. Initially, the Russian delegation asked for cessions and a sphere of influence over much of eastern Anatolia and the areas north of the Danube River. The territory that the Russians had occupied on the ground had reached past the Danube in the Balkans, but had only reached as far west as Erzerum and as far south as Lake Van. After the Turkish representatives almost walked out of the negotiations, the other powers convinces Russia to scale back its desired gains. The Russians eventually settled their gains to Dorbudja and a general western shift of the Russian-Turkish border in the Caucasus. The Russian gains from the Treaty of Rome included the cities of Batumi and Ardesen on the Black Sea coast, and Petegrek, Kars, Igdir, and Olti[6]. Much of the population of this area ceded to Russia were Armenians, which fueled Armenian nationalist ideals in both Russia and the Ottoman Empire.
The End of the Adriatic League:
After the Turkish War, Italy continued to strengthen its naval position in the Mediterranean. After the eager French aggression against the Moroccans and the Ottomans, many in the Italian government grew wary of French ambitions and sought to consolidate the Italian control over the Adriatic Sea. In May of 1903 during the meeting of the Adriatic League Senate, the Italian representatives proposed that Trieste and Fiume, having majority Italian populations, be annexed into the Italian republic. While there was severe opposition to the move as those were the two largest and most prosperous cities in the League, the motion was passed. In July, the two territories were transferred to Italian control. Grand ceremonies were held in Trieste and Fiume to commemorate the transfer of power, but on the ground nothing much changed.
However, this would spell the beginning of the end of the Adriatic League. The annexation of Trieste and Fiume caused a disturbance among the Hungarian government as Hungary largely relied on the Adriatic League for oceanic trade. Later in 1903, Hungary began to pressure the members of the Adriatic League for greater concessions regarding trade tariffs and naval access to the League's ports. After the League's refusal of Hungary's latest demand, the chancellor ordered Hungary's military to block roads crossing from Hungary into the Adriatic League cities. The Adriatic League took this as an act of war and moved to ask Italy for assistance. Italy, however, did not want to escalate matters with Hungary having just fought the Turkish navy a year earlier. At the rejection of assistance from Italy, the Adriatic League had lost its main backer. In early 1904, an agreement was made between the remaining members of the league, Italy, and Hungary to cede the city of Zadar to Italy and Split to Hungary. Dubrovnik and Kotor still rejected annexation, and were combined into the Republic of Ragusa[7].
[1] I thought the US siding with Morocco against France would be an interesting original aspect of the TL, but it turns out they did that in OTL during the First Moroccan Crisis too.
[2] France pushed for a base on the Strait of Gibraltar at Tangiers or Mantil but the Brits and Spanish would have none of it.
[3] Similar to the OTL Cretan Revolt in the 1860s.
[4] Vlore, Albania.
[5] After the chaos in post-Habsburg Austria, the great powers are wary of another hasty collapse.
[6] There were also some minor changes in the borders of the autonomous areas within the OE. I'll make a map of post-Turkish War borders in the next couple days.
[7] During the time of the Adriatic League a movement grew in Dubrovnik to revive the old name.
- wilcoxchar
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