The First World War was an unprecedented catastrophe that toss off trillion and set the continent of Europe on the path to further calamity two decade by and by . But it did n’t come out of nowhere . With the centenary of the irruption of hostilities do up in 2014 , Erik Sass will be looking back at the lead - up to the state of war , when seemingly minor moments of friction accumulated until the situation was quick to explode . He ’ll be covering those event 100 years after they occurred . This is the 73rd installment in the series .
June 11-13, 1913: Grand Vizier Assassinated, Serbia and Bulgaria Prepare for War
On Wednesday , June 11 , 1913 , Mahmud Shevket Pasha , who was dish up as both Grand Vizier ( kin to prime minister ) and Minister of War for the Ottoman Empire , was on his means to the War Ministry in Constantinople when his car broke down on the engaged Divan Yolu boulevard running through the old city center . After the driver pull over to make repair , another capable - go past car — one of just 100 in role in the city at that clip — pulled up alongside Shevket Pasha ’s gondola and two Man , each holding revolvers in both hands , stood up and unleashed a fusillade which hit both the Grand Vizier and his aide , Ibrahim Bey . The audacious assassins then jump out out of their gondola , approached the Grand Vizier ’s cable car , and fired ten more nip before drive off . Shevket Pasha ’s suppose last words were appropriately dramatic : “ My state ; alas , my land ! ”
Judging by newspaper reporting , the brazen slaying of the Ottoman Empire ’s elder solon ( Shevket Pasha had play a central part in launch inherent political science ) elicited expressions of sympathy in Europe – but not much surprise . Political murders were all too common in the geezerhood leading up to the First World War , as demonstrated by theassassinationof Greece ’s King George by an nihilist just a few months before , and there was a long tradition of Ottoman Grand Viziers coming to sorry ends . It was widely believed that Shevket Pasha ’s assassination was revenge for the execution of the previous War Minister , Nazim Pasha , in thecoupin January 1913 , with one newspaper publisher note : “ It has been generally believed that ever since Nazim Pasha ’s murder Shefket Pasha has been virtually under sentence of death . ”
The lot of the crime were obviously suspicious , start with the allege dislocation and the fact that Shevket Pasha ’s number one wood apparently escape unharmed . Equally fishy was the fact that the third passenger , Echref Bey , “ break loose as if by a miracle ” and then had not one but two handgun dud when he tried to fritter back at the assassins . In their haste to escape the attackers left one assassinator behind , a “ lame innkeeper ” who handily implicate a group of known gangster and bookies . On June 24 , 1913 , the innkeeper and eleven other “ genuine or alleged mapper ” were discover shamed and promptly hang .
Whoever killed Shevket Pasha , his demise was view as a gust against the Committee of Union and Progress , or Young Turks , who supposedly rely on his reputation and prestigiousness to rule ; it was also seen as a major setback for the Ottoman Empire ’s efforts to straighten out its military machine come after its humiliating frustration in the First Balkan War .
In fact , both of these present-day depth psychology turned out to be awry . After Shevket Pasha ’s expiry the Young Turk triumvirate – Enver Pasha , Taalat Pasha , and Djemal Pasha – simply appointed a weak - willed Egyptian extremity of the CUP , tell Halim Pasha , as a figurehead Grand Vizier , and consolidated power in their own deal . Shortly afterwards , in January 1914 , the energetic , charismatic Enver Pasha take the rein as Minister of War and pushed military reform at an even fast pace , including a purge of old officers who were no longer fit to overlook , a newfangled structure for Turkish sectionalisation based on the press cutting - bound Germany poser , and new , more effective plan for conscription and mobilization . As a upshot of all these reform the Ottoman Empire , viewed by Europeans as a trifling quantity after the First Balkan War , gift a much greater terror than any of its opponents realise in the come conflict .
Serbia and Bulgaria Agree to Arbitration, But Prepare for War
In fountain 1913,tensionsbetween Serbia and Bulgaria reached a stewing stop , as the former allies turned on each other over the spoils of the First Balkan War . By June 1913 , the situation was so alarming that the indecisive Russian foreign minister , Sergei Sazonov , felt compelled to use Russia ’s traditional theatrical role as patron of the Slavic states to force a passive resolution on its feuding node kingdoms . On June 12 , 1913 , Russia demand that Serbia and Bulgaria agree to put forward to arbitration by Russia over the division of conquered Turkish territory in Macedonia . Both side naturally tally – one did n’t just say “ no ” to Russia – but as common Sazonov ’s efforts were too little , too later .
The rival claim of Serbia and Bulgaria were simply unreconcilable : their affixation to Macedonian territory wasemotional , dating back to the medieval flow , and neither Serbia ’s King Peter nor Bulgaria ’s Tsar Ferdinand could afford to be seen as weak by their own subjects . Thus even as they agreed to take to Russian arbitrament , Serbian and Bulgarian US Army continued to concentrate near their partake in border ; meanwhile Serbian diplomats cemented a military coalition with Greece aim against Bulgaria , and Serbian police officer organize paramilitary units in Bulgarian - controlled soil to sow topsy-turvyness once fighting began . The Second Balkan War was less than three weeks off .
U.S. Senate Committee Recommends Women’s Suffrage
The years before the First World War were a time of political and social upheaval in the New and Old Worlds likewise . In the U.S. , the maincausesof tumult were the change balance of power between rural and urban area , industrial undertaking fermentation , and a huge influx of immigrants from southerly and eastern Europe . But the U.S. , like Britain , was also divide by the issuance of women ’s suffrage .
Women on both side of the Atlantic had been demanding more legal rights , including the right to vote , since the mid-19th century , if not before ( Abigail Adams was preach woman ’s rights as early as 1776 in private letters to her husband ) . In Britain , the women ’s right to vote apparent motion developed as part of the broader button to decimate attribute demand and extend the franchise to the act upon class ; in the U.S. , it was closely touch base with the emancipationist motion , with female Quakers and evangelical Christians ( many from New England ) play a cardinal role in advancing both case . Notable events in the U.S. included the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 , while in Britain the London Society for Women ’s Suffrage was organize in 1867 .
After the Civil War , the American suffrage movement received novel impulse from the Progressive Movement as well as from trailblazing Western states and territorial dominion . Those granting cleaning lady the rightfulness to vote in local and state elections included Wyoming in 1869 , Utah in 1870 ( subsequently lift ) , Colorado in 1893 , and Idaho in 1896 ; they would later be joined by Kansas ( 1910 ) ; California ( 1911 ) , Oregon and Arizona ( 1912 ) , and Alaska ( 1913 ) . But most Department of State still deny women the right field to vote , and women ’s suffrage advocates turned to Congress in hope of a federal amendment .
On March 3 , 1913 , the day before Woodrow Wilson ’s startup , suffragists paraded in Washington , D.C. , where they were chevy by raging mobs . They convoke on the capitol again on April 7 to present petitions demanding a women ’s suffrage amendment : the “ Anthony Amendment , ” after Susan B. Anthony . This finish seemed even more plausible after the 17th Amendment , providing for direct election of the U.S. Senate , was officially take up May 31 , 1913 . Democracy was in the air ; maybe it would now include cleaning lady as well .
The trophy seemed within compass on June 13 , 1913 , when the U.S. Senate ’s Select Committee on Women ’s Suffrage published a report that recommend giving women the right to vote . The written report observe that adult female already possess place and paid taxes , spotlight the embarrassing fact of tax revenue without representation . The Senate also recommended creating a parallel commission on women ’s suffrage in the House of Representatives , which would remove the issue from the purview of the House Judiciary Committee which had “ tabled ” ( disregard ) several earlier suffrage laws .
It was n’t going to be that easygoing , however . In addition to their traditional prejudices , Congressmen were simply mistrustful of grant such a Brobdingnagian expansion of the franchise , which would force them to take into score the need and desires of a Brobdingnagian new constituency . Thus the Anthony Amendment run into the political sand in 1913 and 1914 , when America ’s attention sour to cataclysmic events unfolding abroad . woman ’s right to vote would also be delayed on the other side of the Atlantic , as the British House of Commons voted down a law which would have given womanhood the right field to vote on May 7 , 1913 .
But the struggle was far from over , and suffrage advocates were increasingly war-ridden . On June 4 , 1913 , the ultra suffragist Emily Wilding Davison was trampled after sample to block a horse own by King George V at the Epsom Derby ; her death on June 8 made her a sufferer for char ’s rights , and her funeral procession on June 14 draw tens of thousands of mourners . In the remainder it would take the destructive upheaval of the Great War , which laid barren the bankruptcy of all the older political organisation , to breach men ’s resistance to adult female ’s suffrage in the U.S. , Britain , and Europe .
See theprevious installmentorall entries .
