then it would be easier for advocates of more complete control to argue that Korea could not be changed unless it came fully under Japanese sovereignty—in short, that it be annexed by the Japanese directly, without the mediation provided under the protectorate

he game would be decided by the reaction of the Koreans to the reform process and by their participation in it. I

et guided change would work only if the Japanese could succeed at a task they had failed so far—the forging of a reliable and effective set of Korean collaborators.

ou must realize that it is more than natural for the people to oppose reform, and from the beginning you must decide to succor the people. by sacrificing yourselves in the execution of affairs.

Ito made it clear that the reform process would work only with the collaboration of the Koreans themselves.

ause of the backwardness and weakness of Korea lay not in the inherent character of the Korean people but in the corruption and conservatism of the Korean elite.

Korean people had been misled and misgoverned.

Koreans, who had docilely submitted to Chinese suzerainty for centuries, had not taken advantage of the independence the Japanese had won for them in the Sino Japanese War, and that the Japanese therefore had to step in to help put their country in order.

apan had been compelled to turn Korea into a protectorate to guarantee its own security

The emperor issued a rescript clearly lodging the right of command over military forces in Korea in the hands of the resident general, who was also empowered to conduct Korea's foreign affairs, to oversee all Korean government business, and to supervise all Korean and Japanese government officials on the peninsula

containing the king, as we shall see, proved easier than containing popular anger

early, the Japanese did not intend to let Kojong pursue the intrigues that had undone them so often before

"Ah, how wretched it is. Our twenty million countrymen have become the slaves of another country! Should we live, should we die! Has not the spirit of our people, enduring for four thousand years; been annihilated in a single night! How wretched it is, how wretched it is! My countrymen, my countrymen!"

Professor Lee's discovery, if correct, does suggest that the Japanese may have used fraud if not crude coercion or threats against the personal safety of the king and his ministers to secure a signed treaty

ministers committed suicide in protest or if word of the negotiations leaked, armed Japanese troops were to be posted around the palace, with sentries at the legation and other key points in the city.

complicated intrigues would create opportunities for other foreign powers to take advantage of; were that to happen, the region would once again be plunged into conflict.

The next day Ito himself met with several ministers to explain why Japan needed to take control of Korea's external affairs.

find itself in a far more difficult situation.

As long as the Japanese guaranteed an "open door" in Korea, and as long as they confined their expansionist impulses to that country, the Western powers were willing to accept Japan as a partner in imperialism.

waiting to ascertain the willingness of the foreign powers to accept a Japanese protectorate in Korea.

n practice, then, if not in law, the Japanese were moving toward a protectorate at all levels of the Korean government well before the end of the war.4

dispatch of Japanese advisers opened the way to widening Japanese influence over the central governmen

Japanese army was usurping the basic functions of local government

commander of the Korean Garrison Army informed the Korean government that it would assume police and security powers in Seoul and its surrounding area since he was no longer confident that the Korean police could guarantee the safety of Japanese forces.4

he promotion of Korean economic development.

The acquisition of Japanese control over Korean telegraph, telephone, and mail systems

The acquisition of Japanese control over the Korean railway system

ment finances

Therefore, it was necessary that Japan gradually built its position in Korea politically, militarily, and economically to forestall the outbreak of future disturbances and accomplish the self defense of the Japanese empire

fate of Korea so directly affected the security of the Japanese empire that no other country could be allowed to swallow it up.

apanese should obtain rights to land and maritime sites for permanent military and naval bases to defend the peninsula and Japanese rights there.

by unobtrusive means" the Japanese should gradually secure economic rights and concessions for their nationals— railroad concessions, mining concessions, coastal and inland navigation rights, mail and telegraph concessions, and the right to acquire land.

bring order to the Korean government's business and to improve Japanese trade, it was urgent to carry out a fiscal reform of Korea, including a new currency system and better tax collection.

nvisaged a massive Japanese military presence, sweeping internal reforms, and the expansion of Japanese economic presence on the peninsula.

fundamental goals required a more sweeping intrusion and also a comprehensive plan of action.

enabled Japan to deploy its troops "legally" on Korean territory, but it did not address the fundamental problem of reform, nor did it advance Japanese economic interests.

Even if the Korean court was not enthusiastic about its new ties with the Japanese, the Japanese were relieved that the Korean government had finally chosen sides.

When reports of a Russian counterattack at Anju, the confidence of the court wavered again; but when the counterattack was repelled, a pro Japanese mood gathered strength

rotocol, signed on February 23, pledged the Japanese to "guarantee the independence and territorial integrity" of Korea and to "take necessary measures" if the royal house or the territorial integrity of the country was "endangered by the aggression of a third Power or internal disturbances."

severe were the Korean government's fiscal problems that it simply could not afford to arm itsel

amamoto Gonnohyoe opposed a preemptive military action on two grounds: first, the dispatch of Japanese troops to Korea, an independent country, would provoke the foreign powers; second, the dispatch of troops during negotiations with the Russians would destroy international confidence in Japan, perhaps provoking international intervention; and finally, the Russians would regard it as a provocative act, tantamount to a declaration of war, and hostilities might begin before Japan's preparations were complete.

There were two ways to keep the Koreans under control if the Japanese went to war with the Russians: the first was to send in troops immediately to establish the superiority of Japanese force in Seoul; the other was to sign either a defensive alliance or a protectorate treaty with the Korean government

Japan "must place [Korea] under our authority by real force, but the best policy would be to choose means that are nominally correct."

Although military force would determine Japan's success on the battlefield, the Koreans had to be dealt with diplomatically.

ar were to begin immediately, the two countries would be on an equal footing, but if it were delayed for three or four years the Russians would be able to outmatch the Japanese through a military buildup

eturn for a Japanese guarantee to protect Korean territory and preserve the Korean royal house, the draft proposed that Korea agree not to alienate any part of its territory to another power, not to use its revenues as collateral for foreign loans without Japanese permission, and not to rely on any other powers for assistance

as long as Russia maintained troops in Manchuria, they would menace Korea and they perhaps had begun to think that one day Japan might be able to supplant Russia as the dominant power in Manchuri

The proposed "demilitarization" of Korea was not at all to the liking of the Japanese leadership, who saw Korea as a keystone of national defense

If each side recognized the other's sphere of influence in Northeast Asia, the potential for conflict between them would ease, and the Japanese would be able to consolidate their political and economic position in Korea without fear of Russian interference.

If the neutrality of Korea could be guaranteed by a consortium of powers, Russia would no longer have to worry about Japanese belligerence; however, once its strength in Manchuria was consolidated, Russia would be in a better position to think about moving into Korea again

eutralization, in other words, was simply a Russian expedient to gain time while it consolidated its position in Manchuria

the exchange of Russian recognition of Japanese paramountcy in Korea for Japanese recognition of Russian paramountcy in Manchuria

If the Russians intended to occupy Manchuria, then Japan should not divide Korea but try to protect it

with Russian troops and Russian capital consolidating the Russian presence in Manchuria, it made sense to reduce the possibility of conflict with Japan

rovide the Japanese freedom of action to respond with force to an intrusion or occupation by a third power (i.e., the Russians); it would also allow the Japanese more direct involvement in reform—including the installation of Japanese advisers to shape and guide the reform effort, as the Japanese had done in 1894 95.

A protectorate, widely used as a device for domination by the Western imperialists in the late nineteenth century

apanese leaders were pessimistic that the Korean elite could carry out any meaningful reform without outside help.

powerful segment of the Japanese leadership believed that given the political and moral bankruptcy of the Korean government, the best solution to the Korean problem was to make the country a protectorate

Korean court encouraged Russo Japanese rivalry as part of its tactics for survival. As the crisis in China subsided, the Japanese leadership concentrated on how to deal with the persistent Russian threat to the peninsula

aggressive stance of the Russians in Manchuria and north China served only to heighten japanese fears that the diplomatic agreements reached with St. Petersburg in the spring of 1898 could not contain Russian ambition.

a sense of crisis faded as it became clear that a partition of China was no longer in the offing.7

borted when the United States and Great Britain, both backers of an Open Door policy in China, warned the Japanese off, and the Chinese revolutionaries, bereft of Japanese military and naval support, were ousted by local authorities.

rebels' capture of Peking, which revealed the weakness of the Ch'ing regime, emboldened the Yamagata government to extend Japanese power into south Chin

The question confronting the Japanese leadership was how to react to the rapidly changing situation in China, a larger, more complex, and more critically important issue than the future of Korea

competition for concessions in Korea played out against a headier drama—the "Far Eastern crisis" triggered by the German occupation of Kiaochow Bay in the fall of 1897.

The Japanese were able to annex Korea with relatively little bloodshed precisely because they made accommodations for established Korean elites and sacrificed the Ilchinhoe’s agenda.

Korean elite reformers, who had largely been pro-Japanese during the Russo- Japanese War, articulated Korean nationalism in competition with Japan’s colonial discourse and the Ilchinhoe’s populist activism

Japan’s “civilizing mission” was not something that Japan genuinely intended but failed to accomplish. She views such a “mission” as a dis- cursive strategy that empires use to legalize their domination of a place by defining its original inhabitants as “incapable of becoming civilized on their own.”

true bandits were the “traitors” who sold out their country, not those who fought for the right cause even though they were not strong enough to expel the enemy, Japan.

had been reduced to serving as slaves of the Japanese.

While the protectorate was working to suppress the Ilchinhoe’s populist mobi- lization, Korean elite media began denouncing the moral character of the organi- zation’s members

lchinhoe’s “silly commotions,” wrote the Korea Daily News, had given Japan an excellent excuse to insert itself into Korea’s domestic affairs

according to the 1904 protocol be- tween Korea and Japan,” it was “the Japanese government that should improve Ko- rean administration.”

More broadly, Japan asserted the empire’s prerogative in “improving” the Ko- rean government and condemned any popular intervention in reform politics.

Ito
Hirobumi, the protectorate-general, made efforts to appease Korean aristocrats and conservative elites on various occasions.

The authoritarian and bureaucratic character of Japan’s “civilizing mission” was manifested in other ways as wel

Most significantly, Yamaguchi clarified the protectorate government’s intention to expand its control over taxes under the jurisdiction of the Royal Treasury.

popular in- tervention in tax administration would have disrupted the stability of Japan’s control of Korea’s finances as well.

T HERE MAY HAVE BEEN NOTHING that Japanese protectorate officials wanted less for their “civilizing mission” in Korea than such popular supervision of tax adminis- tration.

Consequently, the Ilchinhoe’s advocacy “for the people” was hurt rather than helped by its collaboration with Japan.

eople could support a “civilizing empire” that protected their freedom and welfare without tyr- anny.

res- cue the people from such peril, the Ilchinhoe suggested that Korea and Japan should create a “grand political institution” in which the Korean and Japanese people would enjoy equal status as first-class citizens.

Korea en- trusted its diplomacy to a powerful “ally” and let that ally “protect Korea’s sover- eignty [kukkwo ̆n],” this would be no different from the Korean monarch’s own display of sovereignty

dependent country would lose independence in name but not in substance.

“independence through dependence,” arguing that autonomy could be strengthened through dependence on another’s capability.

overnment, it said, should support the throne and take direct charge of the administration; the people should indirectly participate in legislation (ippo ̆pkwo ̆n) and assist the government.

“The state [kukka],” it began, “exists because of the people [inmin], and the people are sus- tained through association.”

Japanese authorities instead rejected the Ilchinhoe’s popular mo- bilization, concerned about its effect on Japan’s control of Korea’s finance and local stability, the organization began to collapse.

Despite the organization’s commitment to support the protector- ate, its radical advocacy of “the people’s rights and interests” led to a strained re- lationship with Japanese officials, who viewed the Ilchinhoe as hampering their “civ- ilizing mission.

Riker’s definition makes it clear that populism is premised on the ideas that public policy should reflect “the will of the people” and that freedom is identified not with a lack of state re- strictions on private sectors but with the institutionalization of popular wishes.

“1. What the people, as a corporate entity, want ought to be social or public policy. 2. The people are free when their wishes are law.”

Populists claim legitimacy on the grounds that they speak for the people: that is to say, they claim to represent the democratic sovereign.”

organization’s members welcomed Japanese in- tervention in Korea, demanding that the government be run for protecting the peo- ple’s property and life

Tonghak religion preached that “Men are Heaven” and should be treated as such. Its founders cultivated a social vision premised on the “moral equality of human beings” and proposed “equal treatment of all persons a

Japan responded by dispatching one of its own armies to Korea, which created fierce international rivalries on the Korean Peninsula and soon triggered the First Sino-Japanese War (1894 –1895

nfluenced the Korean reformist elites called the “Enlightenment School” and led them to engage with Japan in their successive movements to reform the Korean monarchy.

civilizing mis- sions,” according to Alice Conklin, gained wider currency at the end of the nine- teenth century, when a democratic empire needed to “reconcile its aggressive im- perialism with its republican ideals.” 1

shift from empire to formal colony primarily to a peripheral crisis—namely, “local dis- order” and a surge in nationalism, which threaten an empire’s security interests on an international scale.

arrangements of mutual cooperation and bargaining between Europeans and their local agents in the context of an expanding free-trade regime

compliance with foreign powers has historically been tolerated, and some local actors indeed accommodated empire as a viable framework within which to obtain power, profits, or safety

collaboration may have been deemed more ac- ceptable in colonial situations, where diverse ethnic or religious communities had not already been subsumed under the rubric of a nation and thus found their iden- tities blurred by competing cultural discourses forged under long foreign domina- tion.

The term “collaboration” and its moral connotations epit- omize the specific historical moments when “assistance to an occupying power” had extraordinary moral ramifications and ultimately failed to legitimize its relevance among the occupied.

Deliberate accommodation includes opportunist and political adjustments that go “beyond a minimal adaptation” and “provid[e], directly or indirectly, material or moral assistance for the occupier’s policies.

Structural accommodation refers to the kinds of inevitable adjustments that make the economy, public services, and everyday life flow even under occupation

hey face a political and moral crisis if they are unable to justify the validity of those choices to the conquered society more broadly.

collaboration by this definition involves the use of political and normative suasion to legitimize local subordination to empire, and often elicits moral implications

dilemmas of those local actors who actually pursued opportunities within empire and the meanings of the profound “moral tensions” that they con- fronted in at least some colonial situations.

Empire, he suggests, offers a stage for local actors to use in pursuing opportunity, wealth, or even freedom, and the assumption that there is a linear connection between freedom and nation is inaccurate

inary of collaboration and resis- tance is an inadequate framework for the multiple interactions that occurred within and across empires.

HE NOTION OF “ IMMORAL RIGHTS ” signifies a global ideological juncture at which the morality of “civilizing empires” was not sanctioned by their colonial “subjects,” and anticolonial resisters rejected freedom that was not bound to the rights of collectives

claimed to represent the “people’s rights” and “welfare” and opted to compromise the sovereignty of the Korean state for that claim.

he conclusion was that the Ilchinhoe’s acts constituted “treason,” “voluntary aid to Japan’s colonization of Korea,” and “the active destruction of Korean resistance for independence.”

The treaty was actually a dynamic and evolving entity that allowed the treatment of Germany to be adapted and made either more strict or conciliatory depending on its post-war behaviour.

refusal by the senate to ratify the treaty robbed him of these means to influence the immediate post-war period.

he could control the evolution of the situation through the League of Nations, by settling the issue of reparations later (they were not definitively resolved in the treaty) and by the means of pressure bound up in France and England’s war debts to the United States.

onvinced as they were that the Rhenish were of a different nature than the “Prussians”, they thought that the former would end up accepting and even embracing the French presence.

Treaty of Versailles was the product of profound agreement between the United States, England and France, despite their differences, to sustainably weaken Germany politically, militarily and economically.

such discrimination could only be temporary and would have to cease when Berlin had conformed to the new economic and political world order

Above all, however, the British and French disagreed with Wilson on one fundamental point: for them, the economic and political organization of the post-war world (the League of Nations and economic agreements between the Allies) needed to exclude Germany for a very long time, even if it was democratized

difficult for Paris to accept Wilson’s new policy; even after it had done so, the French rallied for the creation of states that were as powerful as possible, with little heed for their ethnic coherence

creation of a greater Poland, including Lithuania and part of Ukraine, based on the idea that under such conditions it could keep Germany in check

feared that were Austria reduced to its German-speaking population it would quickly join the Reich and, more broadly, that Germany would easily dominate such a fractured Central-Eastern Europe

control by the Allies of the main global raw materials and the possibility of subjecting the Reich to economic and trade discrimination. Wilson now accepted the principle of using such “economic weapons”, which he had previously rejected.

geographical influence of the Reich needed to be drastically reduced and Wilson now agreed with the British and especially French positions on this matter.

these treaties persuaded the Allies, and Wilson in particular, of the totally and definitively imperialist nature of German policy, which in turn spurred a new toughening in their attitude.

This strategy was in part a success since, when the armistice was declared on 11 November 1918, the Reich indeed obtained the guarantee that peace would be based on the Fourteen Points, but it was only partial since Wilson had considerably toughened his attitude towards Germany since the spring, although it took a while before this was fully understood in Berlin.

based on attempting to use Wilson’s Fourteen Points to undercut the much more offensive French and English projects.

ast chancellor under Wilhelm II, Max von Baden (1867-1929), decided to embrace Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

The military leaders’ theses were as such losing ground. This was of course even more patent following the large-scale military routs in August

Berlin and the Bolsheviks agreed to collaborate, possibly even militarily, against the Whites and against any attempted Allied intervention.

simply trying to collect the right cards to use when negotiating a peace agreement in order to obtain the best possible conditions and notably avoid letting the Allies deprive Germany of its colonies and subject it to permanent economic discrimination

military leaders, the peace treaties in the East were meant to allow them to assume the offensive in the West and win the war before the massive arrival of American troops; this is what was attempted with the series of offensive battles that began in late March on the Western front

these treaties were harsh: Romania became a political and economic protectorate of the Central Powers, Russia lost Poland, Finland, the Baltic States and, worse still, Ukraine, with all of these regions fated to actually become German protectorates.

Wilson’s position changed following events in the spring of 1918 and in the end allowed for a convergence of war aims between the Allies and America; a convergence that was not absolute but nonetheless sufficient to win the war and impose the treaties of 1919

understandable that the British and especially French Allies – who had much more radical territorial and economic claims against the Reich and that had no intention of admitting Germany into the new post-war international order – were actually quite disappointed by the Fourteen Points

American president was still convinced that the Reich would remain the most influential state in mainland Europe and would heavily influence Central and Eastern Europe; this seemed inevitable and acceptable so long as Berlin embraced the international rules of Wilsonianism;

new in advancing war aims that, for the first time, were based on principles that were clearly understandable for public opinion and that resonated greatly, even among the Central Powers.

countered their exclusive and traditional territorial and economic aims with the Open Door policy; and he refused to be referred to as an Ally, preferring to be called an “associate” of London and Paris.

Open diplomacy, the right of peoples to self-determination, freedom of the seas, disarmament: this was the policy that Wilson began to defend with increasing resolve, in the name of the global spread of America’s liberal, political and economic values.

In 1916, as Wilson gradually realized that the United States could not indefinitely keep out of the war, he slowly abandoned this fundamentally isolationist perspective and embraced an internationalist vision in which America played a much more active role in the world

president was convinced that the Allies and Central Powers would form closed and inward-looking economic blocks after the war; since the United States would not be able to stop this situation, a modernized Monroe Doctrine would be required to draw in South America and as such replace European influence and interests.

ilson did not want to see Germany crushed, he felt that an Allied victory – which at first he nonetheless wanted to be as limited as possible – would by and large be preferable as the latter were more liberal and democratic than the Reich.

Georges Clemenceau’s (1841-1929) arrival in power in November, and the support of public opinion, put an end to the atmosphere of pacifism and pushed aside all possibilities other than victory. Britain, too, took a tougher stance and for the first time notably demanded the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France when a peace agreement was signed

Encouraged by the October Revolution and the possibility of a separate peace with Russia in the near future, Germany also toughened its stance and again envisaged making Belgium a close protectorate.

decided to reject it despite Lloyd George’s contrary opinion. Indeed, most of the cabinet felt that if the Reich was able to become stronger in the East at Russia’s expense, then it would resume hostilities a few years later in the West under much better conditions.

military impasse and social and political problems were beginning to lead some leaders to seriously consider the possibility of a negotiated peace rather than peace imposed by victory or at least shaped by a position of force for the first time since the start of the war.

only complete annexation was set aside as it no longer fit with the new spirit that accompanied America’s declaration of war and the Russian Revolution.

rejected “all thought of conquest” but restated the goal of “defeating Prussian militarism” and the need “to obtain solid guarantees of peace”

defining war aims thereafter, however, it became necessary to refer at least approximately to principles that could be stated publicly: public opinion was now a witness to countries’ war aims.

Berlin and the Allies had played by the rules of traditional power politics

Whether they liked it or not, this forced the belligerent parties to take Wilsonian principles into account when defining their war aims.

It was in this context that the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, that had largely divided the Middle East between the two countries, was challenged at France’s expense in 1917 by British policy aimed at the Arab world, which it wanted to encourage to rise up against Turkey, and by the Balfour Declaration that announced the creation of a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine

aims sometimes conflicted with the French, who also wanted to mark their presence in the Middle East

London’s main goals at the time were to free Belgium, break up the Turkish empire and strongly increase Britain’s presence in the Middle East;

British felt that it was essential, however, to control the sea front and keep Germany from gaining ocean access – and thus to chase it out of Belgium, Africa and the Middle East.

war would instead be driven full throttle ahead, notably with the support of the United States which appeared to be on the verge of entering the war and upon whom the British were counting to reach their aims, even if it meant having to share the management of world affairs in the post-war period.

to drastically reduce Germany’s economic influence

This project for economic growth was based on a complex strategy: in addition to the impact on the steel industry that would accompany the return of Alsace-Lorraine and the control of the Saarland and Luxembourg, the French wanted to form a customs union with Belgium and Italy to finally bring continental Western Europe under French economic influence.

additional boost to the potential of France’s iron and steel industry that would come with the acquisition of Lorraine, the Saarland and Luxembourg would place France alongside Great Britain and not far behind Germany

security was understood by French leaders in two senses: strategic security, of course, thence the desire to control the Rhine by one means or another; but also economic security, to the extent that they had understood that security in the 20th century was inseparable from industrial influence.

More than truly imperialist ambition, this set of aims was the product of an obsession with security tied to the fear of Germany’s influence and impetus.

France wanted to be given free reign by its Allies to settle the issue as it pleased when a peace agreement was signed. Aside from the Saarland and perhaps the Rhineland, Germany would also lose other provinces, notably to Russia, and the entire country’s unity might even be challenged.

there was no question that Belgian independence needed to be restored and, beyond that, the decision had already been made to reduce Germany’s influence, especially its military and naval force, and also to chase the Reich out of Africa and limit the spread of its influence in the Middle East.

French leaders very quickly introduced the idea of “guarantees” required for peace in view of the post-war period; this vague expression meant that in any case, they would go beyond the mere reclaiming of Alsace-Lorraine, even if their war aims were not yet fully defined

addition to the return of Alsace-Lorraine, of course –, the possibility of connecting to France in one form or another the Saarland, Luxembourg and the Rhineland;

war would be pursued beyond the liberation of French territory and until the “downfall of Prussian militarism”, a coded way of saying that the unity of the Reich would be challenged when a peace treaty was signed.

outset of the war, the Allies were far more set on drastically curtailing the political, military and economic influence of Germany than has long been admitted, particularly France and Russia which, starting in 1912, had a similar reaction to what they felt was a growing German threat

military leaders were less accommodating, but although they were very influential, it is nonetheless excessive to say, as is often the case, that they actually ruled the country starting in the autumn of 1916

Emperor was torn between the position held by the chancellor and that defended by military leaders

Berlin in turn toughened its aims anew:

early 1916 it was obvious that these different attempts at a separate peace had failed, notably due to the Allies’ determination to put an end to what they called “the hegemony of Prussian militarism” and drastically curb the influence of Germany in Europe

only a separate peace with an adversary of the Reich would allow it to win a decisive military victory over the others.

Finally, the word in Berlin was always that an economic Mitteleuropa would be conditional on its acceptance by the Allies in the peace treaties,

only means to keep Austria-Hungary closely tied to Germany after the war, as well as Belgium and Poland, without having to resort to large-scale annexations that would not be easily accepted by Europe, once Germany had abandoned all hope (actually just after the Marne debacle) of a total victory over the Allies.

main challenge was to rein in the annexationist zeal of Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859-1941) and the military leaders who were seriously contemplating the annexation of Belgian Flanders, the North of France up to the Somme, Poland and the Baltic States

Very quickly, Bethmann Hollweg curtailed his ambitions

this programme was meant to guide German policy throughout the war; it was an extension of the imperialist aims defined before the war, at least as early as 1912, and mirrored the interests of the German ruling class.

President Wilson on the international stage, with his talk of self-determination and the rights of small nations, and the yet uncertain but growing specter of revolution in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern and Central Europe together made for a volatile mix of ideas, examples, and potential sources of support for the enemies of empire everywhere

argument from civilization, the imperial scoundrel’s last redoubt, drowned in the ocean of blood that owed in the battleelds, even— especially—in the empires’ most “civilized” European provinces

logic of popular rule, which argued that political legitimacy derived not from divine sanction but from the people, had nally, after a long and arduous process, achieved near universal recognitio

it delivered a debilitating blow to dynastic empires—for centuries the pre-eminent type of state organization—and to imperial expansion and acquisition as the main logic of relations between states in world affairs

The Great War was a war of empires, fought primarily by empires and for the survival or expansion of empire

Italy returned to its “pacication” of the “fourth shore,” killing perhaps 100,000 indigenes under the Fascist dictatorship that took control in Rome in October 1922

dominions claimed a place at the conference in their own right and fought for their own interests

he imperial Great Powers proved less and less able to control the peace being made. Imperial expansion through League of Nations mandates laid the foundations for restive successor states. By the time of the settlement in Anatolia in 1923, successor states sharply demarcated the limits of imperial authority.

legitimized self-determined nation states as the successors to empire

nited States would serve as rst among equals, and within it US economic (and later, military) preponderance would sustain Washington’s hegemony globally.

they invariably met a ruthless response

Wilson’s call for self-determination famously inspired Ho Chi Minh to enquire about the concept’s applicability to colonial possessions outside Europe

encounter of colonial workers and troupes with Europe’s competing political, social, and economic ideologies (socialism, syndicalism, and communism among them) began to have an effect in many French colonies

As in Egypt, the British authorities sought to play on the divisions among Indians to retain their inuence for a while longer, but they could not restore the illusion of imperial harmony and legitimacy that had surrounded the Delhi Durbar of 1911, held to mark the coronation of George V as the sovereign of India

Egyptian nationalists, who saw the peace conference as an opportunity to be rid of British meddling, grew frustrated as their hopes for a hearing evaporated and mobilized forcefully against the British presence.

Decolonization culminated in the revolutionary year of 1917. New plans for the structure of the state proliferated, eventually leading to movements for autonomy and/or independence in all of the imperial borderlands.

In this respect, the war proved a great disappointment for many who had hoped to parlay support for the Allied war effort into advances in claims for self-government.

Leaders of the Indian National Congress or many “Home Rulers” in Ireland supported the war in the hope of greater political autonomy, perhaps even national independence

a war fought on both sides with native auxiliaries was likely to undermine the very principle on which colonialism rested: the notion of white racial superiority.

governors and their military advisors looked rst to the security of their own colonies and then to seizing Germany’s African ports and wireless stations in Togoland (Togo), Kamerun (Cameroon), German South-West Africa (Namibia), and German East Africa (Tanzania).

mobilization of imperial resources included not only manpower reserves but also the drawing on the economic and nancial resources of the colonies

fter the defeat and withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire from Europe, Austria–Hungary, a multinational state with a slight Slav majority, was concerned that it was the next “sick man” and a target of a future Serbian attack, which helps to explain Vienna’s uncompromising position in the July crisis of 1914.

The imperial frame also makes it easier to see that the mass violence of war did not end with the Armistice of 1918 and to see how the violence that preceded August 1914 and continued after November 1918 was in fact part of the same process of the realignment of global patterns of power and legitimacy.