Beijing has recently voiced its concerns with Washington’s behaviour in the continuing conflict in the Persian Gulf. Lin Jian, current PRC head for Foreign Affairs, stated in an interview earlier today that “Sanctions and pressure tactics are not the solution”, reflecting Chinese policy in the region and their willingness to see Iran and most importantly their resources restabilise within the global market.

This statement made on the 21st of August 2026 goes much further back in regards to its importance in understanding Chinese policy in the Middle East, even predating the Iran war as a whole. The roots of this position can be traced clearly through the development of Sino-Iranian relations over the past decade. China has consistently viewed Iran as a gateway between East Asia, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, all regions with growing Chinese influence.

This became particularly evident in March 2021, when Beijing and Tehran signed a 25-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The agreement envisaged extensive Chinese involvement in Iranian energy, infrastructure, telecommunications and transport in return for continued Iranian oil supplies to China, and even at a much lower price than the international market. Although many of the headline figures surrounding the agreement were never fully realised, its strategic significance was considerable. It demonstrated that Beijing was willing to deepen its economic relationship with Tehran despite the continuing American sanctions on the regime.

This relationship has become particularly important because of China’s enormous dependence on Middle Eastern energy. Iran holds approximately 12% of the world's proven oil reserves and about 17% of the global natural gas reserves, (making it the 3rd largest producer in the world) while its geographical position gives it access to the Strait of Hormuz, through which 34% of global petroleum supplies traditionally passes, with China buying approximately 22% of the oil. For Beijing, therefore, instability in the Persian Gulf represents a direct threat to Chinese economic security, explaining why China has repeatedly advocated de-escalation while simultaneously maintaining economic relations with states targeted by Washington, (although relations have been strained following President Trump’s tariff war beginning in 2018 and continuing until now).

China’s behaviour during the period of the American “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran provides an important precedent. Rather than completely abandoning Tehran in response to American sanctions, Chinese companies, banks and intermediary networks continued to facilitate Iranian oil exports and trade. By 2026, China had become the overwhelmingly dominant destination for Iran’s remaining oil exports. A March 2026 assessment by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission described Chinese networks as helping Iran mitigate the effects of international sanctions through oil transactions, financial networks and intermediary companies.

This does not mean that Beijing is simply acting as Tehran’s unconditional ally. China’s relationship with Iran is fundamentally transactional. Cheap Iranian crude is valuable to Chinese refiners, while Iran benefits from having one of the world’s largest economies willing to continue purchasing its oil despite American pressure. Indeed, reports in August 2026 indicate that more than 80 percent of Iran’s shipped oil has been going to China.

The current US blockade and sanctions campaign as aforementioned has therefore created a direct economic confrontation between Washington and Beijing over access to Iranian energy, with Washington’s capture of Venezuelan President Maduro in early 2026 allegedly enabling the United States to gain a faster, unimpeded oil resource while simultaneously controlling who receives Venezuelan oil. This therefore indicates that the war presents a vastly more significant threat to Chinese and China-aligned states in regards to oil consumption than it does to the United States.

Subscribe now

You’ve all heard of the Hundred Years War, the all-encompassing conflict that spanned ironically a little over 116 years and dominated Western Europe. Even if you haven’t the impact of the Anglo-French rivalry that would make itself known through a further five centuries of competition has been felt the world over.

However! A power struggle that was just as prominent in shaping Europe’s geopolitical and cultural landscape and yet you may’ve not heard of, would almost certainly be the tri-power rivalry that last for centuries. The struggle that led to the foundations of Eastern and Northern Europe indeed!

It consisted of the Swedish Empire, straddling the Nordic region, including modern Finland. Sweden launched habitual incursions into German lands as well as frequently extending its influence into the Baltics, for example in the duchies of Courland and Semigallia in lands now known as Latvia.

South from Swedish Pomerania, the longest Swedish-held German state. The Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth cast a large shadow of influence over the near entirety of Eastern Europe from its inception in 1569 with the Union of Lublin up until its collapse in 1795. By 1700 however Poland-Lithuania was still very much a relevant state, holding land from western Ukraine to the modern borders of Poland on the Baltic coast and posing a significant threat to both the Swedish, Austrian-Habsburg, Russian, and even Ottoman spheres of influence.

The (relatively in 1547) newly formed Tsardom of Russia then, was about to undergo a seismic change in its foreign policy and dramatically rise out of its simple “gunpowder empire” status, to become a true, European power. The Tsardom had long been in wars with both Poland and Sweden, notably with the former taking advantage of the “Time of Troubles” period from 1598 with the death of Feodor I and ending in 1613 with the succession of Mikhail I to the throne. A period wherein Russia had a succession of pretenders attempt to seize power. Poland used the opportunity to attempt to install a puppet in Moscow, known as the false Dmitry by historians, and made to seem as the true Dmitry I, last son of Ivan the Terrible, founder of the Tsardom who had actually died about a decade prior in 1591.

A map depicting the battles and troop movements of the Great Northern War 1700-1724, with Sweden in orange, Poland-Lithuania in yellow, and Russia in green, Wikimedia Commons

By 1700, Russia was a prominent player in Eastern Europe, but still barely known by nations of the West like England and France and likened to an Asian state not unlike the Mongol hordes that had devastated the continent in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Sweden

Three years after the Swedish regency and court had declared that young Charles XII was of age to rule, him and his court received news in February of the new century that the charismatic Augustus II “the Strong” of Poland-Lithuania had launched an invasion of Swedish Livonia (around the city of Riga, Latvia). This coincided in the weeks to follow alarms were raised as Denmark sent troops into allied states of Schleswig and Holstein in northern Germany, commencing the siege of the Tönning fortress in March and advancing further. Russia also declared war with its allies and began military offensives from Novgorod into Estonia and Ingria (the area around modern day St. Petersburg between greater Russia and Finland).

The Swedish army responded most suddenly to the Danish invasion, as their proximity to big cities like Malmö and Helsingborg posed a significant threat to Swedish war support as well as logistical support for soldiers fighting in the Baltic states and Germany through the Navy. Primarily however, was the removal of Danish ships from the Sound, an economic chokepoint between Sweden and Denmark which allowed ships from trade partners such as England and the Dutch Republic to drop anchor in the ports of the cities aforementioned. Controlling the Sound, mean controlling economic inflow from the Mediterranean, England and the Netherlands to the entire Baltic Sea.

A map of the Sound (or Øresund), the channel separating Sweden’s southwest and Denmark’s capital islands, By Boeing720 - Own work, Wikimedia Commons

Sweden managed to break through the blockade with the help of the English and Dutch fleets, at war for a separate reason with Denmark for closing off the Sound’s trade. The Empire made landings in Germany by August of the same year and forced Denmark out of the war with fewer than 15 casualties in the battles of Humlbæk and Reinbek, signing the Peace of Travendal on the 18th of August 1700, securing Sweden’s western flank. Meanwhile, Russia and Poland made advances into Swedish territory, however even with the element of surprise and vastly larger forces, in the early stages of the war both Poland-Lithuania and Russia failed to dislodge the stalwart Swedish soldiers from their positions at Riga and forts in the regions around Ingria such as Nyenskans (a Swedish fort situated in modern St. Petersburg).

To understand the significance of this, Sweden’s population of the time was around 1 million, and within that figure 100,000 men or about 10% of the entire country were enlisted into the Swedish army. Compared with the Russian population of around 15 million men about 170,000 men composed the Russian army or around 1% of the national population. This indicates that while Sweden was dwarfed demographically, its army had to be incredibly well-equipped and disciplined to be able to stand a chance on the Great Power stage. This unprecedented success is chiefly the result of the military systems and reforms set in place by Gustavus Adolphus, the original great Emperor who established the regimental system, with precise specifications for equipment as well as advanced leather cannonry, used during the Thirty Years War to inflict devastating losses on Poland-Lithuania at Breitenfeld 1631.

Subscribe now

After Sweden’s swift neutralising of Denmark, young 17 year old Charles XII now had the perfect opportunity to prove himself on the battlefield against the struggling Russians being held in Ingria. The Swedish Navy, now free to act at its own volition in the Baltic with no clear rival, aided in the transportation of about 5,000 men from Germany to Parnu, Estonia. There they proceeded to meet up with the rest of the company, made up of a similar amount of men from Finnish, Estonian and Swedish regiments, including the famous “Carolean” infantry and cavalry forces of which Charles XII was active commander in.

Charles moved up towards Ingria and prepared to engage the vastly larger Russian forces besieging about 1,400 men in the small town of Narva.

On the 30th of November 1700, Charles XII along with around 10,500 men, descended towards the fortified town, assaulting the Russian forces situated in fortified positions outside the city walls, surrounded by defensive ditches.

The Swedish victory at Narva amounted in part to luck, thanks to a blizzard blowing southward and permitting the Swedes to approach the Russians much closer than any army would usually manage before being spotted and fired upon. The Swedish also employed the use of “fascines” to fill the ditches and permit a fast crossing. The bravery of the Carolean forces that employed the “Gå-på” tactics cannot be understated, with quick and efficient melee battles decisively rolling back Russian conscripts onto the city bridge, which was promptly blown, causing thousands of deaths and the rout of all but two elite units, which promptly surrendered or fled the battlefield.

To Russia’s 20,000 surrendered, and from 8,000 to 9,000 casualties. Sweden suffered only about 700 losses, and about a thousand injured men as a result of battle, a feat that a military general would call, decisive.

Sweden however made an arguably world-changing blunder which indeed cost them the totality of the war, even after their decisive battle at Narva. The Swedish forces under Charles XII, instead of pursuing and destroying the remaining Russian forces which had evacuated Ingria, effectively neutralising all Russian threat and potentially even capturing Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia since 1682. The Swedish forces moved south and focused on Poland-Lithuania, a nation that arguably didn’t pose much of a threat to either the Baltic region nor Germany thanks to the divisive nature of the administration in the Commonwealth often paralysing executive decision-making, required to run a war effectively.

Thus, as you may imagine, and as will be detailed in the next article. Russia would return to the front of the war, and in one of the most spectacular examples of a comeback that history hadn’t yet witnessed, with a seemingly destitute "horde” Kingdom reforming its military strategy so significantly, that it would be able to inflict a devastating defeat on arguably the most professional army in Europe at this time. And these reforms would come from no other, than Peter the Great.

Subscribe now

Note: (If ever I mention “German” before Germany is unified I am referencing the collective armed forces of Prussia, Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony… etc)

On 26 February 1871, the treaty to end the devastating Franco-Prussian War was signed at Versailles by the French statesman Adolphe Thiers and Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the victorious German state. Versailles had served as the German base of operations during the siege that had ravaged Paris for much of the preceding year, but its selection was also deliberate symbolism, a statement of military supremacy and a calculated humiliation of France.

The moment carries a dark historical symmetry. It was in this same palace that, in 1919, the victorious powers of the First World War would gather to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, imposing a settlement that would ultimately help bring about the destruction of the German Empire itself.

For the French government in 1871, however, the future looked bleak. The German Empire had just been proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors, marking a triumph of German nationalism and the arrival of a new European order. France was forced to pay five billion francs in war reparations and to cede the predominantly German-speaking regions of Alsace and Lorraine, losses that soured any chance of reconciliation between the two powers, and paved the way for one of the most famous rivalries between nations in modern history.

Somewhat predictably, the formation of one empire in Germany also saw the downfall of another in France. Louis-Napoleon III’s reign came to an end in 1870 out of the incredible discontent thanks to the loss as well as his capture by Prussian forces, resulting in France deposing their last monarch up until this date and establishing the Third Republic.

Subscribe now

But enough on the context with which the German Empire came into existence, now more on its position on the European continent and exactly why Germany’s founding was so fundamentally important.

If its proclamation in January 1871 marked the culmination of decades of Prussian statecraft, its true significance lay in the rapid and calculated assertion of Germany as the central power of continental Europe, which came in years to follow as we shall see. Unlike the romantic nationalist visions that had animated earlier revolutions in 1848, (which Prussia’s king was humbly brought to his knees by so to speak after revolutionaries protested outside his palace) the new Reich was not born of military victory, and a new, exploitative nationalism which I discussed in my “The many faces of Nationalism” article, wherein I examined the strategic genius of Otto von Bismarck and his usage of “conservative nationalism” to his advantage, uniting Germany under Prussian rule rather than a great republic or constitutional monarchy as was the popular vision of 1848. What emerged in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War was a state engineered to disrupt the European balance of power without immediately provoking its collapse. Hence, conservative.

Internationally, Germany’s position after 1871 was both formidable post-unification, contrary to the previous Prussia. It possessed the strongest army on the continent, forged through the reforms of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder and the organisational innovations of Albrecht von Roon. Its central location in Europe, long considered a vulnerability, was transformed into a strategic advantage, allowing rapid mobilisation along interior lines. Yet this same geography also ensured that Germany was surrounded by potential adversaries. To the west lay a revanchist France, humiliated and eager to reclaim Alsace-Lorraine; to the east, the vast and unpredictable Russian Empire; and to the south, the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose stability was far from guaranteed, but one that was incredibly important for the retention of “Prussian” control over Germany.

This was due to the fact and logic used by Prussian “Junkers” (the vast majority of German lawmakers in the Empire were from old West and East Prussian landowners, whom were Protestant and hostile to both Austria and the South German states’ Catholic influence) to

Bismarck understood this dilemma with remarkable clarity. His foreign policy in the 1870s and 1880s was therefore defensive in its architecture. For example in the Treaty of Berlin 1885 being organised to insert Germany into the heart of the African colonial debate, and effectively supervising the “Scramble for Africa.”

Subscribe now

Similarly in the Congress of Berlin 1877, Germany took control of the Great Eastern Crisis between the collapsing Ottoman Empire, Russia as well as their allies in Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro. Germany effectively seized the opportunity to clip Russia’s influence in the Balkans, by devising a plan to cut off East Rumelia from the massive “San-Stefano Bulgaria”, which was essentially the vast, Balkan hegemon Bulgaria that was effectively ensuring Russia’s access to the Mediterranean. Through simultaneously curbing Russia’s dominance and maintaining the Ottoman Empire, as well as keeping peace in the Balkan region, Russia found itself diplomatically isolated, and Russia’s hegemony in the Balkan was swiftly and effectively prevented.

A map of the Balkans 1877, Wikimedia Commons, (Blue line indicates borders of San-Stefano Bulgaria)

Through a complex web of alliances, he sought to isolate France diplomatically while maintaining cordial relations with both Austria-Hungary and Russia. The League of the Three Emperors (1873-87) and later the Dual Alliance (1879-1918) were not ends in themselves, but instruments designed to prevent the very scenario Germany feared just as much as France: a two-front war. In this sense, the German Empire after 1871 until about 1890 was less an aggressor than a carefully balanced hegemon, exerting dominance through stability as the United Kingdom had done in the centuries prior.

Economically, however, Germany’s rise was nothing short of transformative. Prior to unification, the German states had already benefited from the Zollverein, a customs union that facilitated internal trade and industrial growth (having simultaneously been used to knock Austria out of Germany economically). After 1871, these foundations were consolidated into a single national market, free from internal tariffs and supported by a unified currency, the Mark (not to be confused with the Reichsmark, introduced in 1924 to combat the Great Depression in Germany following the hyperinflation of the Papiermark).

Subscribe now

The result was an economic expansion of extraordinary speed and scale, contributed to by the Prussian acquisition of the already very industrialised Rhineland. By 1880, Germany had surpassed France in world manufacturing output from 4.9% in 1860 to 8.5% (compared with France’s 7.8-7.9% in the same period) and was rapidly closing the gap with the United Kingdom’s 22.9%, long the world’s leading industrial nation since the 1830s.

The statistics illustrate the magnitude of this shift, especially from a Prussian perspective. Between 1871 and 1913, Germany’s coal production increased nearly fivefold, while steel output rose from under one million tons to over seventeen million, overtaking Britain by the turn of the century. Industrial regions such as the Ruhr became the beating heart of European heavy industry, supplying not only domestic demand but also international markets. German firms like Krupp and Siemens became synonymous with technological innovation, particularly in chemicals, electrical engineering, and precision manufacturing of steel and military equipment.

This industrial growth was matched by demographic expansion and urbanisation. Germany’s population rose from approximately 41 million in 1871 to over 65 million by 1910, providing both a vast labour force and a growing domestic market as well as overtaking France as the most populous European nation beside the Russian Empire. Cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich expanded rapidly, becoming centres of finance, culture, and administration. The state as well as the large industries aforementioned, played a crucial role in this transformation, investing heavily in infrastructure, particularly railways, which facilitated the movement of resources with efficiency.

Railway expansion underpinned Germany’s industrial surge, with coal output rising from roughly 37 million tons in 1871 to 277 million by 1913 and steel production increasing from under one million to nearly 18 million tons, as dramatically reduced transport costs aided by the German state, by as much as 70–80%, enabled the efficient movement of bulk resources from the Ruhr to industrial centres and ports such as Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland) and Rostock, thereby integrating national markets, and enhancing export competitiveness for German industry.

Politically, the German Empire presented a paradox. It was, on paper, a federal constitutional monarchy, with a parliament (the Reichstag) elected by universal male suffrage. Yet real power remained concentrated in the hands of the Kaiser and his chancellor, who were not responsible to the parliament but to the crown. This hybrid system allowed for a degree of popular participation while preserving the authoritarian core of the Prussian state.

The Congress of Berlin, Anton Von Werner, 1881

Under Wilhelm I, the empire maintained a political structure that was deeply conservative, and focusing more defensively thanks to the more balanced power pentarchy emerging in the 1870s. Europe was characteristically balanced until about the 1890s wherein Germany, with the deposition of Bismarck in 1890 by Wilhelm II, a new era was ushered in for Germany, with sights set on establishing a great colony, “Mittelafrika” as well as threatening Britain’s naval domination by investing in Germany’s new “High Seas Fleet,” causing a major upset to the balance of power.

Bismarck himself sought to manage the internal tensions of this system through a combination of repression and reform. The “Kulturkampf”, aimed at reducing the influence of the Catholic Church, and the Anti-Socialist Laws, designed to curb the rise of socialist movements, reflected the regime’s suspicion of alternative sources of loyalty. This, thanks to the vast Catholic majorities in German Poland during the period, also meant that to secure control, Germany would have to remove the Polish identity. Thus through laws in 1873 and 1899 respectively, Bismarck progressively removed the Polish language from schools and workplaces (i.e mines) to facilitate cohesion, echoing his famous quote.* Yet at the same time, Bismarck introduced pioneering social welfare measures, including health insurance (1883), accident insurance (1884), and old-age pensions (1889), in an effort to integrate the working class into the state and undermine support for the Social Democratic Party of Germany, by demonstrating the monarchy was more than capable of providing for the lower classes.

On the global stage, Germany’s emergence as a major power had far-reaching consequences. Although initially cautious in colonial affairs (i.e through Bismarck’s reluctance), the empire began to acquire overseas territories in the 1880s, including the now countries of Cameroon, Namibia, Tanzania and Togo as well as in the Pacific, with Wilhelmsland in northern Papua New Guinea, and the in Marshall Islands to name the prominent sites. While these colonies were modest compared to those of Britain or France, they signalled Germany’s growing ambitions beyond Europe, emphasised under Wilhelm II. More significant, however, was Germany’s impact on the international system itself. Its unification disrupted the balance of power that had prevailed (generally) since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, introducing a new and dynamic actor whose economic and military potential far exceeded that of any single continental rival.

By the time of Bismarck’s dismissal in 1890, the German Empire stood as the preeminent power in Europe, its influence extending across diplomatic, economic, and military spheres. Yet the very success of Bismarck’s system contained the seeds of future instability. The delicate network of alliances he had constructed required careful maintenance and restraint, qualities that would prove increasingly scarce in the decades to come.

Subscribe now

In this sense, the German Empire after 1871 can be understood as both a masterpiece of statecraft and a structural turning point in European history. It demonstrated how a state, through calculated diplomacy, economic modernisation, and military efficiency, could ascend to dominance within a remarkably short period. At the same time, it altered the strategic landscape in ways that made long-term stability more difficult to sustain. The new world order that emerged after 1871 was, in many respects, a German one, but it was also one whose tensions would ultimately culminate in the catastrophic conflicts of the twentieth century.

As we move into the new year, my library has accumulated more and more books of cultural, economic, and political significance for a whole plethora of different nations and events. I’ve found myself loving the flow of writing articles that have pertinent facts down to as much detail as possible, for people to experience the fascinating works I read in a more condensed and vivid way, to try to bring these periods to life and to get more and more people interested in learning about these amazing topics has been a brilliant and rewarding experience.

So! Today I thought I’d compile five books that i’m going to be reading as we head into 2026, these are books that I started reading last year, got back into, and have recently bought for article and personal leisure.

I hope you enjoy!

1: The Age of Empires, Various authors, edited by Robert Aldrich

This book is a whole voyage in itself around one of the most prominent notions of the 16th through to the 20th century, Imperialism, and empire-building, and it deals with this vast subject brilliantly!

Arranged in digestible sections on each colonial empire from the period mentioned, the chapters go through economic and demographic statistics of both the metropole and the colonies to evaluate the relative gains that imperialism gave to each empire, as well as the socio-political implications of territorial expansion and the events that led to the eventual decline of their empires as a whole.

I adore this format and come back to it often when writing about any one of these states, particularly when I’m looking for a precise overview of an empire, I’ll take a look in this book to see if it corroborates the precise data I’ve identified in another work, with its overall condition at the time, enhancing my historiographical analysis considerably.

The empires mentioned in this book are:

• The three first empire builders, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands

• The “gunpowder empire” of Russia

• The traditional empires of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire

• The two champions of late 19th century imperialism, France and Great Britain

• The newcomers in the colonial front, the United States (yes it did have an empire) , the German Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy

• Guest appearances from the Kingdom of Belgium with their single colony, and the Scandinavian Kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark

The Age of Empires as a whole is an amazing introduction for people looking to get a succinct understanding of each major colonial empire and how they functioned throughout the many centuries of their existence, and I highly recommend it to interested people!

2: The Penguin History of the USA, Hugh Brogan

The history of the United States is a subject that I’ve always been more interested in immersing myself in. Having focused a lot of my time on European Modern History, I felt there’d been a considerable lack of (apart from the big events like the Revolutionary War and the Civil War) knowledge in regards to essentially the most successful ex-colony in history.

It sets out the context of each chapter in different stages of the development of the American colonies, then further with the development of the United States, the stages from layer cake federalism to marble cake federalism in the government, and the nation’s establishment as a Great power and indeed the only regional hegemon in the entirety of Modern History.

I’ve been loving this book so far, and its a good sign considering I’m only 78 pages in! This book has a quite unique way in which it describes the events leading up to the establishment of the Thirteen Colonies, Brogan makes references to patterns such as general human migration, and links it to the mental reasoning behind the first expeditions to America by English colonists. Not just the “What/How” but the “Why.”

3: The Romanovs, Simon Sebag Montefiore

You remember when I mentioned Age of Empires being a brilliant overview of the Modern colonial empires? Well if there was any book that could give you that precise historical information on one particular empire then look no further than the ROMANOVS!

The Romanovs is presented in such an interesting way, it depicts each stage of the expansion of the Russian Empire’s power from 1613-1918 from the perspectives of the Royal family and portrays it in a theatrical way! There are sections called “SCENE 1: The Brideshows” for example, and cite every member of the nobility discussed in the section as “Cast.”

It goes through the lives of the twenty different Tzars and Tzarinas that ruled during this three century period, mapping their dealing with plots and espionage, their meetings with foreign nations, their decisions to go to war or forge alliances, and all around gives the reader a more intimate understanding of the Russian Empire, by adding that little personal touch.

I’ve got up to page 211, where Catherine the Great has just made her appearance on the stage of the Russian Royal court in 1763, a period where Russia had begun (after Peter the Great) to significantly up their involvement in European politics rather than embroiling themselves in Asian wars with China or Persia (at least for the time being.) The theatrical style of the prose has made it much more enjoyable and easy to read, and I feel its enabled me to retain the information being exhibited far better!

All in all, one of my top contenders for 2026, and I highly recommend anyone to pick it up if they feel like a 660 page adventure through the Russian Empire from the seat of all its power.

Japan; A short history, Mikiso Hane

I started reading this one most recently, I ordered it around two days ago and I have been engrossed in it ever since! Got up to page 40 and found it to be deeply entrenched in structure and the empirical fact of “what” happened in Japan, during this specific time period.

I was a bit surprised at first by how concise the presentation of the book was, reading through the Heian, Chinese influence period for Japan. Hane presents each aspect of how the nation was; economy, arrival of Buddhism, fall of the Taira clan. Every point is made clear, and facilitates my ease of access when I hopefully get the time to write a bit about the “Rise of Samurai Ascendancy” or the Tokugawa period.

I frankly love it, I wanted (much like the US) to get a more thorough understanding of Japan, more expanded than just the Meiji Restoration and the “Era of Empire.” This book has provided exactly that and more, with the added bonus of attempting to find precise data on population and economic records (for example of the estates owned by the Daimyo) which add a further level of security in the knowledge that this is precise information that you can use to understand the culture and the history of this fascinating nation.

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John J. Mearsheimer

There’s so much to say about this book that I absolutely adore, but I’ll try to keep it brief:

Aside from being one of the most interesting new theories to be argued for and established in the field of International Relations, presenting “Offensive Realism” as the primary way in which Great Powers will behave and have behaved in Modern and Contemporary History. Mearsheimer’s book goes through a multitude of different historical examples to make his case for Offensive Realism, from Napoleonic France acting as a revisionist power looking and succeeding to change the international balance of power, to Bismarck’s Prussia which as a Great Power would go on to become a potential hegemon thanks to clever strategy and the harnessing of forces of the time, like nationalism.

I’ve already used some of the theories Mearsheimer puts forward in this very article by mentioning America as the only regional hegemon in Modern History, and I feel it has been such an influential introduction for me into the field and general debate surrounding how states behave in International Relations. This book of course, is not an introduction to the subject, but a serious and succinct work for a theory of state policymaking, however it just so happened to be one of my first books in the field.

I found it obviously great in the way he went through historical nations and corroborated their actions with his theory, however what I found particularly compelling was the comparison between latent and active military power, and how the effectiveness of a state to transfer that latent power in the economy, industry, and general productiveness of the state into military power (the only way for a state to effectively conquer land) is fundamentally linked to how successful that state will be!

Therefore, this is a book for people obviously interested by the theory that goes into these historical figures’ policymaking, but it also does provide an amazing analysis of each state and how it managed to assert power on the world stage while using the resources that it began with or conquered, and so it can interest the average historical enthusiast as well!

That’s it for now!

I hope you all enjoyed hearing about the books that I’ll be reading in 2026, maybe it even inspired you to pick up and try one or two of them! They all have so much to offer and are just waiting for the right motivated and passionate enjoyer of history to crack open, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on what I thought and how you find them if you decide to give a few a try!

Thank you for reading!

-The Historacle

When the First Serbian Uprising broke out in February 1804, it did so in circumstances that appeared profoundly unpromising. The Belgrade Pashalik contained fewer than half a million inhabitants, possessed no independent treasury, and relied on peasant militias armed largely with hunting rifles and captured Ottoman weapons. Yet within four years, Serbian forces had expelled Ottoman authority from much of central Serbia, defeated imperial armies in open battle, and forced the Porte into negotiations. Serbia fundamentally had opened the door for the possibility of Minor States, particularly in the Balkans to win year-long wars against established Great Powers, the Greek Revolution in 1821 certainly taking much inspiration if not in spirit but in the way they conducted themselves militarily, with Maniot militias constantly raiding standing Ottoman armies throughout the decade-long war.

Subscribe now

The immediate catalyst was the rule of the dahije, renegade Janissary commanders who seized power in the Belgrade Pashalik after 1799. Their execution of prominent Serbian knezes in the so called “Slaughter of the Dukes” in January 1804 destroyed any remaining loyalty to local Ottoman governance, not just in Serbia but in other regions of the Balkans as a whole, it demonstrated in full-splendour to exactly what extent the Turkish would go to remain in control of their quasi-colonial possessions. Villages around Šumadija and the Morava valley mobilised rapidly, electing Karađorđe Petrović as commander at Orašac, Croatia within the Austrian Empire, looking on with interest at the geopolitical opportunities that the revolt could potentially afford to Austria. Within months, Serbian forces captured Valjevo and Požarevac, severing Ottoman control of the countryside and isolating Belgrade itself from the empire, wherein Ottoman governors were held under siege by Karadjordje.

By 1806, the uprising had moved beyond local rebellion and into direct confrontation with imperial authority. The Serbian victory at the Battle of Mišar in August 1806, where a peasant army repelled a Bosnian-Ottoman force numbering over 20,000, while arguably indicating the inefficiency of using soldiers of non-Turkish descent thus leading to loyalty issues, demonstrated in greater importance that disciplined resistance could defeat imperial troops in pitched battle and even lead to an Ottoman rout. The capture of Belgrade later that year was even more significant. For the first time since the fifteenth century, an Ottoman provincial capital in Europe fell to a fledging Minor Power’s rebel forces rather than a Great Power like Austria or Russia.

Institutional change followed military success. In 1805, the Governing Council was established in Belgrade (Praviteljstvujušči sovjet serbski) to administer taxation, justice, and foreign relations. This was not a liberal nationalist gesture as had been envisioned by many Greek Romanticist onlookers dispersed across the different European Courts, but a functional response to wartime necessity. Serbia was already behaving as a state, issuing orders, collecting revenue, and negotiating with Russia after the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812 granted it vague promises of autonomy (very vague as would come to be seen in Greece in 1821 and Romania 1856). Although Napoleon’s invasion of Russia the same year, forced Russian withdrawal and led to the collapse of the First Uprising in 1813, the precedent had been set. Ottoman rule had been overturned once and could be challenged again.

The Second Serbian Uprising of 1815 confirmed this reality. Miloš Obrenović avoided large scale confrontations, instead targeting Ottoman garrisons at Takovo and Ljubić while opening negotiations with the governor of Belgrade. The result was a series of informal agreements culminating in de facto autonomy by 1817. Ottoman troops remained in fortresses, yet taxation, administration, and internal security passed into Serbian hands. The firmans of 1830 and 1833 formalised this arrangement, recognising Serbia as an autonomous principality and expanding its territory through the annexation of six districts previously under direct Ottoman control.

Subscribe now

These gains had wider implications. Serbia’s autonomy was not imposed by Russia or Austria but conceded by the Ottoman state itself. This distinction emboldened other Balkan elites. Greek revolutionaries referenced Serbian success during negotiations leading to the London Protocol of 1830. Romanian boyars cited Serbian precedents during the Organic Regulations period in Wallachia and Moldavia, and even Bulgarian intellectuals such as Paisii Hilendarski and later Rakovski pointed to Serbia as proof that Ottoman rule could be rolled back through organised resistance. Bulgarian inspiring would come to be a prominent feature in the Balkans during the 19th century, with the Tzar both being inspired by the administrative advances of the state as well as the military reforms that allowed Serbia to wage organised warfare against Turkey sustainably.

Serbia’s internal development reinforced its regional influence. The introduction of the Sretenje Constitution in 1835, although quickly curtailed under Ottoman and Russian pressure, established principles of legal equality, property rights, and limits on executive power that would be subsequently reviewed by historians as one of the results of the great establishment of republicanism under Napoleon. Subsequent legal codes in the 1840s and 1850s created a functioning judiciary and bureaucracy, and the establishment of a standing army after 1861, armed increasingly with modern rifles and artillery, transformed Serbia into a credible military actor despite its limited population and resources, an incredibly impressive feat for a nation only recently having come out of 600 years of submission and taxation.

Subscribe now

The erosion of Ottoman absolutism accelerated after 1867, when Ottoman garrisons withdrew entirely from Serbian cities, including Belgrade, Niš, and Kragujevac. This withdrawal was the result of sustained diplomatic pressure combined with the empire’s inability to project power effectively in the Balkans. Serbia’s participation in the wars of 1876–1878 further demonstrated this shift, whereby which time Serbia’s army size had risen to around 121,000 active soldiers by June 1876. Although initially unsuccessful against Ottoman forces, Serbia’s alignment with Russia during the Russo-Turkish War and its recognised independence at the Congress of Berlin 1878 confirmed the irreversible decline of Ottoman authority in Europe.

By 1882, when Serbia was proclaimed a kingdom, the transformation was complete. An agrarian principality that had risen against Janissary misrule had become a sovereign state recognised by the great powers. Its economy remained modest, dominated by livestock exports and subsistence agriculture, yet its political impact was disproportionate. Serbia had provided a replicable model of rebellion, negotiation, and institutional consolidation that other Balkan movements would follow into the 19th century, altering the balance of power in a way only the industrial revolution was able to create. Many may debate whether Serbia’s victories or rather the Balkan states’ victories as a whole were down to their own incredibly effective movements for industrialisation and their effective military engagement tactics, or if the Ottoman state was simply too weak to survive.

Subscribe now

In the middle of the nineteenth century the Italian peninsula remained a mosaic of states with distinct institutions, rival armies, divergent economies, and incompatible political cultures. The Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, on the border with Napoleon III’s new French Empire presided over barely five million people in 1850. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies contained more than eight million subjects. Lombardy and Venetia belonged to the Austrian Empire. Tuscany, Parma, and Modena functioned as conservative duchies. The Papal States stretched from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian with roughly three million inhabitants.

Monument to Vittorio Emmanuele, King of Sardinia-Piedmont and then Italy.

Foreign garrisons intervened frequently and economic life moved slowly with railways covering less than 900 km before 1859 and centred exclusively in the North of the Peninsula. The peninsula seemed destined to remain divided and a battleground for foreign powers, however within twelve years Italy secured political unification, established a population of roughly twenty-six million citizens, consolidated its institutions, expanded its infrastructure, and positioned itself within the diplomatic architecture of Europe. This ascent created both the promise of national strength and the pressures that would shape Italian policy for decades.

Subscribe now

The pivot from fragmentation to coherence began with the leadership of Count Camillo Benso di Cavour and began to implement it first in his native state of Sardinia-Piedmont. He understood that statecraft required a combination of diplomatic leverage, controlled military action, fiscal development, and the cultivation of international legitimacy, especially in regards to their historical role as a battleground for Austria and France. He reformed Sardinia’s tax system after 1850, promoted industrial initiatives in Piedmont, granted concessions to railway companies, and opened trade through a series of commercial treaties. By 1859 Piedmont had nearly tripled its railway mileage while cotton mills and metallurgical plants grew in Turin, Biella, and Genoa (the Kingdom of Genoa was annexed by S.P in 1815).

These measures enabled Sardinia to resemble a viable nucleus for national integration. Cavour also recognised the strategic necessity of securing an alliance with a major power, and the Crimean War offered that opportunity. Sardinia committed roughly 15,000 soldiers to the Allied expedition in 1855, and the expeditionary force suffered more than 2,000 deaths from disease and combat, yet its participation won diplomatic visibility at the Congress of Paris in 1856 particularly in the French Court.

Subscribe now

Events accelerated in 1859 when Napoleon III, frustrated with Austrian influence in Italy, reached a secret understanding with Sardinia at Plombières. War followed in April, with Austrian forces crossing into Piedmont with more than 100,000 men to secure their lands from invasion. Franco-Sardinian armies counterattacked with more than 150,000, entailing the twin battles at Magenta on 4 June 1859 and Solferino on 24 June producing heavy casualties and showing up the inefficiency of Napoleon in leading battles, particularly with the near loss at Solferino. French and Sardinian losses approached 18,000. Austrian losses exceeded 22,000.

The campaign forced Austria to cede Lombardy to Sardinia-Piedmont doubling its population and fundamentally fracturing Austria’s centuries-old influence in the peninsula. Napoleon the Third demanded the lands of Nice and Savoy to be transferred to France in 1860 thanks to their participation in the war, validated by plebiscites that produced overwhelming majorities, although critics alleged significant pressure on voters, thus contributing significantly to Italian distaste for France in the years after unification, France’s actions having created a potentially hostile new “Great Power”.

The conflict also triggered popular revolutions throughout central Italy to try and accelerate the speed of unification. Tuscany, Parma, and Modena expelled their rulers and established republic while plebiscites voted for annexation to Sardinia, perceived as the most likely candidate for the fledging notion of a unified Italy. Cavour returned to office in early 1860 to manage this enlarged state of roughly nine million inhabitants.

Subscribe now

Events took a more dramatic turn when famed War General Giuseppe Garibaldi launched his Thousand toward Sicily in May 1860. His volunteers, fewer than 1,100 at landing, defeated Bourbon forces in the southern Italian Kingdom of the Two Sicilies repeatedly and by the autumn his control stretched from Palermo to Naples. These sweeping successes can arguably be linked to the unwillingness of the soldiers and population to fight against the snowballing tide of nationalism. Victor Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia-Piedmont, marched south to intercept him, unwilling to allow a radical commander to set the political direction of the peninsula, and thus while Garibaldi was of republican values he reluctantly ceded his conquests to the monarch in a symbolic meeting at Teano on 26 October.

Photo of Giuseppe Garibaldi

Plebiscites in Sicily and Naples delivered majorities for union simultaneously, and by early 1861 the newfound Kingdom of Italy held a population of roughly twenty-two million. Turin became the capital, while Victor Emmanuel II assumed the title King of Italy in March 1861 A constitutional structure was established and based on the Albertine Statute extended to the new kingdom, the Albertine Statute being the 1849 constitution that established a bicameral parliament in the Kingdom of S.P as a result of the revolutions of 1848. Yet unification brought enormous strain, as the new state began to face contained regions with contrasting tax systems, currencies, legal codes, and administrative traditions. Southern resistance, labelled brigandage by the government, absorbed more than 100,000 troops by 1864 with casualties reaching several thousand, the virtual civil war in the south cost the treasury more than 200 million lire across the next decade, setting an initial trial by fire for the new nation.

Despite political turbulence, Italy pursued rapid institutional consolidation, the government unified tariffs and a single currency, the Lira was developed and began circulating from 1862.Railway construction expanded from 1,900 km in 1861 to more than 6,000 km by 1870. Industrial growth remained concentrated in Piedmont and Lombardy. Textiles expanded in Lombard cities. Steelworks grew in Terni and Liguria.

Subscribe now

As you can see, most of the industrial power base for Italy was highly centralised in the North. In the entirety of the country, national debt rose steeply thanks to the differences between the north and the south, combined with the abruptness of unification, surpassing 2.4 billion lire by the mid 1860s. Agricultural reforms spread slowly as well, with landowners in the Po Valley adopting new drainage and irrigation methods that raised yields. In regards to education, reform was also stunted, illiteracy exceeded 65 percent in the south. Nonetheless the state improved primary provision with more than 8,000 new schools between 1861 and 1870.

Diplomatic challenges defined the next phase of ascent. Italy remained notionally incomplete without Venice and Rome as its capital with Austria retaining Venetia (Venice) despite its defeat in 1859 and France “protecting” the Papal States by stationing soldiers in Rome. Italy required caution to prevent a swift end thanks to pressure from these two established Great Powers, however Cavour’s successors, Bettino Ricasoli and Urbano Rattazzi, lacked his ability to balance foreign alignments. The turning point arrived in 1866 when Prussia sought allies before war with Austria. Otto von Bismarck recognised that Italy could distract Austrian forces, and diligently engineered a mutual understanding with Prussia.

Italy entered a treaty with Prussia in April 1866 wherein it stipulated that the Italian army would mobilise roughly 210,000 men, and deploy naval forces to affront the Austrians from the south. Italy suffered defeats at Custoza on 24 June and at Lissa on 20 July. Casualties exceeded 8,000 and losses at sea included three ironclads. However, despite military setbacks, Prussian victories in Bohemia compelled Austria to yield Venetia to Italy, although ironically Austria, feeling Italy didn’t deserve the land, gave it to France, which promptly gave it to Italy. Thus, Italy acquired region with more than 2.6 million inhabitants, a major port at Venice, and an agricultural hinterland of significant value, being one of the Austrians prized regions.

Subscribe now

The final step toward Great Power status involved Rome. French troops had protected the Papal States since 1849 as aforementioned, and Garibaldi had attempted two incursions toward Rome in 1867 in an attempt to solidify the nation’s independence from France, where French forces halted him at Mentana and superior French firearms, including Chassepot rifles, inflicted heavy casualties. Italy refrained from further attempts until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and Napoleon III withdrew his garrison to reinforce French armies on the Rhine. Italian leadership seizing the opportunity moved swiftly. The army advanced in September with roughly 50,000 soldiers, and Rome resisted briefly, but Italian artillery managed to breach the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia on 20 September 1870.

Casualties remained limited, roughly fifty Italian dead and a similar number among Papal defenders. Plebiscites in October returned overwhelming results for union within the Papal States which subsequently collapsed. Rome entered the kingdom in 1871, the same year Prussia unified Germany in its entirety after its devastating victory over France, collapsing Napoleon III’s regime. The population reached twenty-six million and the seat of government transferred to Rome in July, with the Pope still claiming illegal invasion into the region until the 1920s, where Benito Mussolini, head of Fascist Italy, came to an agreement with the Pope which led to the creation of a microstate, the microstate of the Vatican City.

By 1871 Italy occupied a new position within Europe. The kingdom controlled a continuous territorial state from the Alps to Sicily, and possessed a unified, modern and constitutional system thanks to the Albertine. It commanded an army of more than 400,000 men with a modernised structure inspired by Prussian methods after 1866 as well as French structure. Naval expenditures increased with new ironclads at La Spezia and railway networks approached 7,000 km by the end of the 1870s. Foreign ministries in London, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and St Petersburg began to recognise Italy as a Great Power though as an astute theorist put it thanks to their economic and military shortcomings..

The transformation of 1859 to 1871 created a modern state that sought international stature while confronting deep structural constraints. Italy gained prestige through military campaigns, diplomatic manoeuvres, annexations ratified by plebiscites, and institutional consolidation. It also inherited the burdens of rapid expansion, fiscal fragility, social disparity, and contested legitimacy. The kingdom emerged as a Great Power by virtue of population, territory, strategic location, and the new European balance after Prussia’s triumph over France. It achieved this status through action that mobilised armies, capital, diplomacy, and popular sentiment. It also discovered that such accelerated state building produced tensions that would define Italian politics into the twentieth century. Italy entered the European system with ambition, although also with the legacy of the incomplete integration that its formation had produced, and which continues to interact meaningfully with today’s Italy.

Subscribe now

When Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte seized power on 2 December 1851, overthrowing the unstable Second Republic, he claimed not merely to restore an imperial title but to usher France into a new age of prosperity and national greatness. The resulting regime, the Second Empire, proclaimed on 2 December 1852 ruled a France of more than 36 million inhabitants, stretching from the bustling industrial centres of northern France to the Mediterranean ports of Marseille and Toulon, and presiding over a growing overseas empire in Algeria, Senegal, Indochina, and the Pacific. To many contemporaries, it seemed a state poised for a renewal of French grandeur after decades of internal division and diplomatic frustration following 1815. Yet beneath this new façade lay contradictions that would both fuel the Empire’s modernising dynamism and ultimately contribute to its calamitous downfall in 1870.

Even before the Empire’s proclamation, Louis-Napoléon had shaped a political vision at once Bonapartist and modern. Like his uncle, he insisted that authority must stand above partisan strife. Unlike the first Napoleon however, he argued that economic development and social improvement were the foundations of national power. When the Constitution of 1852 granted him sweeping executive authority, including control over ministers, legislation, and the army, Napoleon III sought not simply autocracy for its own sake but a stable political order capable of realising what he called the “programme of the Napoleonic idea”. Economic modernisation, state-led development, and the restoration of France’s prestige in Europe. The early years of the Empire, 1852 to 1859, thus became a period of intense centralisation and state activism.

Subscribe now

At the heart of this project lay the ambition to transform France into an industrial and infrastructural powerhouse. The Emperor championed an enormous expansion of the railway network, which grew from 3,500 km in 1852 to more than 17,000 km by 1870, facilitated by state guarantees and the support of the Pereire brothers’ Crédit Mobilier, established in 1852. New lines connected Paris with Lyon, Marseille, Lille, and Bordeaux, binding the national market more tightly than at any previous time. Industrial production surged: coal output doubled between 1852 and 1870, iron production tripled, and by the late 1860s France had become the second-largest industrial power in Europe, behind only Britain. These developments were not spontaneous; they flowed from Napoleon III’s conviction that the state must direct capital, encourage private initiative, and create the infrastructure on which modern prosperity depended.

Nowhere was this more visible than in the transformation of the French capital. In 1853, Napoleon III appointed Georges-Eugène Haussmann Prefect of the Seine, granting him authority to remake Paris into a modern imperial capital worthy of the dynasty. Over the next 17 years, over 20,000 buildings were demolished, more than 60 km of new boulevards were constructed, and vast areas of medieval Paris were replaced with grand avenues such as the Boulevard Haussmann and Boulevard de Sébastopol. The Emperor’s goals were twofold. To improve hygiene and circulation, cholera had killed 18,000 Parisians in 1849, and to prevent the revolutionary barricades that had toppled so many regimes since 1789 in his very nation. These urban reforms, which cost over 2.5 billion francs, created a new Paris that would retain its Victorian grandeur up until the modern day.

Subscribe now

Yet Napoleon III was not merely a moderniser of stone and steel; he was also a reformer conscious of the social question. Influenced by his earlier writings, especially L’Extinction du paupérisme (1844), he sought to reconcile workers and employers. The Empire supported mutual aid societies, expanded public works, and in 1864 legalised the right to strike, an extraordinary measure in an authoritarian state. Though wages rose by roughly 25% between 1852 and 1869, and industrial employment expanded dramatically, the social reforms remained incomplete and often paternalistic. Nonetheless, they distinguished the Empire from earlier conservative regimes, legitimising it among parts of the working class.

If domestic modernisation was one pillar of Napoleon III’s ambition, the other was the quest to restore France’s international stature. The Emperor believed the Congress of Vienna (1815) had shackled France, and he sought to overturn its settlement. He did so with a mixture of diplomacy, strategic war, and an appeal to the “principle of nationalities”, the idea that nations should be governed by their own peoples and a fascinating precursor to what would be developed into American president Woodrow Wilson’s “self-determination” in the next century. His first major test came in the Crimean War of 1853–1856, where France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire confronted Russia. The French commitment of 300,000 soldiers, including the costly siege of Sevastopol (1854–55), resulted in more than 95,000 French deaths, but it restored France to the centre of European diplomacy. The Peace of Paris (1856), concluded largely under French leadership, humiliated Russia and marked the zenith of the Empire’s international prestige. For the first time since 1815, France appeared again as Europe’s arbiter.

Subscribe now

Napoleon III pursued similar objectives in Italy. When the Franco-Piedmontese (Piedmont-Sardinia being the monarchy which would come to unify Italy) alliance defeated Austria in 1859, with French victories at Magenta (4 June 1859) and Solferino (24 June 1859), Austria was forced to cede Lombardy. France gained Nice and Savoy in 1860, territories of deep symbolic value. The Emperor however soon discovered that the liberation of Italy unleashed forces beyond his control. The unification of Italy in 1861 produced a major new power on France’s frontier, contrary to his original goal of a friendly but divided peninsula. Even his protection of the Papal States, secured by the stationing of approximately 10,000 French troops in Rome from 1849 to 1870, could not prevent Italian nationalists from claiming Rome in the very moment of France’s defeat in 1870.

More adventurous still was his attempt to reshape global affairs. French troops intervened in Syria in 1860 to protect Maronite Christians. Expeditions in China during the Second Opium War (1856–60) brought France influence in Asia. But the most ambitious foreign venture was the Mexican Expedition of 1861–1867, where Napoleon III attempted to establish a Latin Catholic monarchy under Archduke Maximilian of Austria. At its height, 35,000 French soldiers were deployed in Mexico. By the end more than 6,000 had died, and the enterprise collapsed under American pressure and local resistance. It tarnished the Emperor’s credibility and drained financial resources.

Despite these setbacks, by the early 1860s the Empire remained prosperous and stable. Exports doubled between 1852 and 1866, and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860 with Britain ushered in an era of freer trade, lowering tariffs and stimulating commerce across the Channel. Yet cracks had begun to appear. The state’s infrastructure spending created enormous debts and by 1868, the public debt had climbed to over 10 billion francs, nearly double the 1852 level. Politically, the Empire faced criticism from both republicans and Catholics. Napoleon III responded with gradual liberalisation, beginning with the “Liberal Empire” reforms of 1860–1870: parliamentary debate was expanded, the press enjoyed greater freedom, and in 1869 Émile Ollivier, a liberal-republican, was appointed to lead a more representative government. The Empire won the plebiscite of 8 May 1870, securing 7.3 million votes in favour and demonstrating substantial popular support. Yet these concessions also exposed the regime to new vulnerabilities.

The greatest of these vulnerabilities was the rise of Prussia. Under Otto von Bismarck, Prussia reformed its army in the early 1860s and pursued German unification through force. Napoleon III, preoccupied with Italian and global affairs, underestimated the speed of Prussia’s ascent. When Prussia defeated Austria in 1866, establishing the North German Confederation, France’s diplomatic position weakened dramatically. Napoleon III attempted to counterbalance this by demanding compensation, first in Luxembourg in 1867, then along the Rhine, but these manoeuvres only isolated France further.

The crisis culminated in July 1870, when the Ems Dispatch provoked France into declaring war. The Franco-Prussian War began disastrously. Although France mobilised approximately 370,000 troops, Prussia and its German allies deployed over 500,000, with superior organisation, railway logistics, and artillery. Early defeats at Wörth (6 August 1870) and Spicheren (6 August) exposed the inadequacy of French preparations. The catastrophe came at Sedan on 1 September 1870, where Napoleon III, personally present with the Army of Châlons, found himself encircled by 200,000 German troops. After losing 17,000 men and suffering 21,000 prisoners, the Emperor surrendered, bringing an end to the Second Empire. In Paris, the Republic was proclaimed on 4 September 1870, and the regime he had built over eighteen years collapsed almost overnight.

Subscribe now

Napoleon III’s ambitions produced a France strong but vulnerable, modern yet divided, prosperous yet increasingly indebted. His regime sought to marry authoritarianism with social reform, grandeur with peace, modernisation with tradition. It left behind a transformed nation, but also the conditions for a catastrophic defeat that reshaped Europe. Like Austria after 1849, France discovered that the pursuit of state power amid rapid modernisation could generate both renewal and fragility. The Second Empire did not fail because it lacked vision. It failed because its vision exceeded its capacity to control the forces it unleashed, nationalism abroad, political liberalisation at home, and the rise of new great powers on its borders. In this sense, Napoleon III’s Empire stands as a monument to 19th-century modernity, being one of the first examples of a dictator elected through democratic means.

The Austrian Empire of the mid-19th century stretched across the vast plains of Hungary, the Alpine fortresses of the Tyrol, the Adriatic coastline of Dalmatia, and the bustling industrial centres of Bohemia. It was a realm so diverse, so polyglot, that the Habsburgs often boasted that the sun never set on the languages of their subjects. But beneath this wealthy tapestry lay a decaying political order one that was tested to its utmost during the revolutionary upheavals of 1848–49.

What followed was not merely another episode in Europe’s Year of Revolutions, but a defining existential crisis for the Habsburg monarchy. It was a moment in which the empire, long celebrated as the last bastion of conservative stability, found itself torn between constitutional experimentation and a desperate retreat toward neo-absolutist authority. The war that erupted with revolutionary Hungary in 1848–49 represented the most serious threat to Habsburg survival since the Ottoman siege of Vienna and the Napoleonic conquests from 1799-1815, and the response of Vienna’s statesmen would determine the empire’s trajectory for the next two decades.

Subscribe now

Even before 1848, cracks had begun to show within the imperial edifice. The legacy of Prince Metternich’s system, constructed after 1815 in a crusade against revolutionary liberalism, had preserved the dynasty’s authority, but at the price of institutional stagnation. While Britain, France, and the German states modernised their economies, Austria clung to the rigid structures of an agrarian empire, dominated by nobles and governed by an ageing bureaucracy. Compounding this were simmering grievances among the empire’s ethnic groups. Hungarians demanded constitutional recognition of their historical rights. Czechs, Italians, Croats, and Romanians sought autonomy or at least linguistic equality. Yet the Viennese court had no coherent solution beyond suppressing dissent and hoping that inherited loyalty to the Habsburg dynasty would hold.

The revolutions of 1848 shattered this illusion entirely. What began in Paris as the “Springtime of Nations” spread within days to Vienna, Prague, Buda, and Pest, and Milan. In March, rioters in Vienna forced Metternich to flee. in Italy, Charles Albert of Piedmont openly defied Austria, and in Pest, Lajos Kossuth’s fiery speeches ignited a national movement determined to break Hungary free from imperial domination. The Habsburg monarchy long Europe’s policeman had suddenly become the patient on life support. In Hungary, the situation escalated rapidly. The Hungarian Diet pushed forward the “April Laws” a sweeping package of liberal reforms which abolished feudalism, established an independent Hungarian government, and created what was, in effect, a dual power structure with Vienna.

To many Hungarian reformers, these laws represented a constitutional renaissance. To Vienna, they represented a direct threat to the unity of the empire. Hungarian ministers demanded control over their own army, finances, and administration. Vienna refused, insisting that Hungary was inseparable from the Habsburg crown and that only the court could determine imperial military policy. But the Hungarian leadership’s greatest weakness was internal, namely, the refusal of many non-Magyar populations (Croats, Romanians, Slovaks, and Serbs) to accept Magyar dominance. These groups appealed to Vienna as a protector of their historical rights, and the court readily exploited these divisions to undermine Hungarian unity. Thus began a bitter chain of mutual mistrust, Hungary pushing for autonomy, Vienna stirring ethnic tensions, and both sides claiming to defend liberty against oppression.

Vienna’s own revolution, though initially successful, collapsed into disorder by the autumn of 1848. Workers demanded broader democratic rights, students armed themselves, and the government wavered. When the Imperial Army retook Vienna in October after heavy street fighting the tide decisively turned against liberalism in the imperial capital. Behind the scenes, a far more consequential decision was taking shape. Emperor Ferdinand I, gentle but politically ineffective, was persuaded to abdicate in favour of his 18-year-old nephew, Franz Joseph. This transfer of power in December 1848 marked a turning point, the new emperor had no intention of allowing constitutionalism to limit his authority. What had begun as a reformist moment now transformed into a struggle for the restoration of imperial control.

The conflict escalated into open war in late 1848. Troops loyal to Vienna, joined by Croatian forces under Ban Josip Jelačić, marched against the Hungarian Honvéds. Yet early imperial setbacks revealed both the weakness of the Habsburg military and the strength of Hungarian leadership. By mid-1849, the Hungarian armies under generals Artúr Görgey and Józef Bem had retaken much of the kingdom, expelled Austrian forces from Transylvania, and even threatened Vienna’s southern flank. The empire was on the verge of collapse. And so, in desperation, Vienna made its most controversial strategic choice of the century.

Franz Joseph’s government appealed to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia for intervention. This was no small request, it effectively invited a foreign autocratic power into the heart of Central Europe to crush a national struggle. But for the Habsburgs, the alternative was unthinkable, the breakup of the monarchy. The Russian Empire responded with overwhelming force. In the summer of 1849, nearly 200,000 Russian troops marched into Hungary. The Hungarian resistance, outnumbered and encircled, fought valiantly but hopelessly. On the 13th of August 1849, Görgey surrendered at Világos, believing further resistance futile.Hungary was defeated not by Austrian arms alone, but by the combined might of two empires, setting thus a dangerous precedent which would come to define Austrian foreign policy for the next 60 years.

Franz Joseph and his ministers instituted a regime of stern centralisation under the neoabsolutist regime, known later as the Bach System in 1852, named after Interior Minister Alexander Bach. Hungary lost all constitutional rights. German became the official language of administration. A vast network of officials, police agents, and military governors attempted to reshape the kingdom in the image of Viennese government in a striking resemblance to the policies so resisted at the beginning of 1848 with Metternich.

Subscribe now

Executions and imprisonments within the lands of St. Stephen followed (the lands of the Kingdom of Hungary including Transylvania, Croatia, Dalmatia), most famously the hanging of the Thirteen Martyrs of Arad in 1849 as retribution for their damage caused in the Hungarian Revolutionary war. The war was indeed over, but Austria’s moral authority in Hungary was broken beyond repair. The regime attempted reforms during this period of Neo-absolutism, for example in modernising taxation, The Reichssteuergesetz (Imperial Tax Law) was introduced in 1849 to create a uniform system of taxation across the empire for the first time in history, creating a centralised bureaucracy in administration around Franz Joseph, and promoting economic development. However, these were top-down measures with little local support. Like the Tanzimat reforms within the Ottoman Empire, they aimed to strengthen the state through modernisation while ignoring the local traditions and identities that resisted it.

In practice, the policies antagonised Magyar and Slavic populations alike, and by the late 1850s Austria found itself diplomatically isolated, financially strained, and militarily humiliated in war with France and Piedmont in Italy.

The crushing of the Hungarian Revolution preserved the Habsburg monarchy in the short term. But it also demonstrated the empire’s fatal limitations. By relying on Russian intervention, Austria revealed its own weakness and surrendered any claim to be a European great power acting independently. The repression of Hungary damaged loyalty to the dynasty for generations. And the refusal to negotiate a workable constitutional compromise delayed the issue until 1867, when Austria, after losing a war with Prussia in 1866, ceding superiority in Germany, was forced to accept the “Ausgleich”, creating the Dual Monarchy and the nation we know as Austria-Hungary, as well as effectively granting Hungary independence in all but strategic alignment politically and militarily. Thus, the victory of 1849 was ultimately hollow. It safeguarded the empire for one final era, but at the cost of alienating its subjects, undermining its institutions, and exposing its structural fragility which would come to be exploited in the fatal Great War, bringing an end to Austria’s fragile hold over Central Europe once and for all.

Austria’s gamble on neo-absolutism resulted in far more issues than The revolt of 1848-49 was not merely a clash between liberalism and conservatism, or between Vienna and Budapest. It was a microcosm of the broader challenge facing all multinational empires in the 19th century. How to modernise politically while preserving imperial unity, an issue which many colonial empires would face a century later through the shockwaves of decolonisation felt by the giants of Britain and France, showing the unignorable significance that Austria’s fight for survival had in defining the 20^th century’s greatest events that were to come.

Subscribe now

The great Turkish Empire of the 19^th century stretched from Bosnia-Hercegovina on the border with Austria, to the Qajar Dynasty in Persia, over 2,000 kilometres of the “Sublime Porte’s” domain. Such a realm owed itself to the historical conquests that the ancestors of modern day Turkey undertook throughout the Medieval and early Modern era. The famous siege of Constantinople which brought to an end the Western Roman Empire in 1453, constituted for many Europeans the imminent death of Christianity as they knew it. With multiple incursions into Europe, two sieges on arguably the heart of Catholicism in Vienna, as well as the solidification of Muslim control over the entirety of South-Eastern Europe, it seemed as if the Ottoman Empire’s dominance would be unbreakable for millennia to come.

However, even at the Turks’ greatest extent, cracks began to show in the authority and notably administrative capabilities of the empire. Wars were waged with two other European powers, Austria and Russia, and slowly but surely the Turkish saw the loss of the Crimean and Southern Ukrainian lands. as well as the vast lands of Hungary. This, coupled with the technological and economic advancements made by Western nations throughout the Industrial Revolution, emphasised the need for reform in the structure of the Ottoman Empire.

A particular notable group of men within the higher ranks of Ottoman governance, the Tanzimatçilar saw the need for a widespread reorganisation of the empire. The factors driving such a need were linked of course to the advancements and pressure of European powers, but more so to the internal pressures and divisions of the country’s ethnically and culturally diverse citizens, whose differences and preservation of individuality led to drastic unrest and rebellion, such as in the Greek war for Independence in 1821 as well as the Serbian Uprisings from 1804 to 1817.

Subscribe now

In 1839, the Edict of Gülhane (meaning “rose house” after the place where it was signed) , was put into place across the empire. It represented the first step towards the new ideological solution for resolving the crises. It was drafted by one of the major players in the Tanzimat, Reşid Paşa, and promised the abolition of tax-farming, which was a practice well-established in all rural areas, but which notably affected Christian peasants of the empire, who had to deal with the haraç, which was a tax for non-Muslim communities within the Ottoman Empire. For example, in Bosnia-Hercegovina the tax-collecting Muslim elite, beys came into open conflict with the Tanzimat reforms, which sought to remove their dominance. They historically supported the old millet system, which was a socio-religious court system that reinforced (through Muslim clerics) the superiority of Islam in the empire. It supported the distinguishing of non-Muslims from Muslims, by forbidding for example a Christian family the right to bear arms, and granting a Muslim tried for murder the right to only pay a “blood-tax” to a Christian family rather than suffer the death penalty.

The Christian elites also viewed the Edict of Gulhane with contempt, particularly in the rich and vast Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, states which would eventually unify to become Romania. These states, while nominally under Ottoman sovereignty, were practically independent since the Russo-Turkish War from 1787-92, and continued to hold massive economic sway within the Ottoman Empire right up until their independence. Similar to the beys of Bulgaria, Hercegovina and Macedonia, the Boyars were Christian lords who presided over the peasants of these Principalities and they too were sceptical in regards to the secular nature of the Tanzimat reforms. They saw them very similarly to the beys, as a threat to both their livelihoods to have practical serfs as well as religious hostility.

Therefore, one of the problems with the Tanzimat reforms was the unwillingness of local elites to cooperate with the reforms that would take their privileges and familiar traditions away, a problem seen also with the abolition of the now influential janissary class in 1826, which led to the Sultan bombarding and killing 20,000 of the Janissary rebels who resisted the reforms.

Politically, the Tanzimat progressed with the general objective of Ottomanism within society. It aimed to create a nation unified in the way they call themselves, rather than ethnically, culturally or linguistically. Basically its objective was to form a unified multicultural society under the same regime. Abdulmecid I, the first Tanzimat sultan oversaw the Edict of Gulhane as he came to power in 1839, and strongly supported the objectives of the Tanzimatchilar to unite the struggling empire. Of course, he too didn’t support the Sublime Porte’s actions altruistically, as he saw the spread of nationalism negatively affect their territorial holding significantly, mainly in the Balkans, however come later decades subsequently in the Khedivate of Egypt as well.

However, Ottomanism had the adverse affect of indeed being seen by the beys as preferential treatment for the Christian majority in the Balkans, as well as minorities spread across the Anatolian peninsula, from Trebizond to Salonica both areas with a Greek-speaking demographic. It upset the millet system by greatly disturbing the unspoken laws which basically guaranteed equality of all subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and officialising it only heightened tensions between all religious populations, with the Sublime Porte officialising these laws secular equality in the “hatt-i-humayun” or Imperial Reform Act of 1856.

Subscribe now

The Hatt-I-Humayun was put into place to solidify Ottomanism as official policy, and it was viewed by the Tanzimatchilar as a way to move on from the Millet system, aiming to create a new loyalty for beys and boyars to their political and geographic region rather than the religious link which the Ulema upheld for centuries prior. It named all citizens of the Ottoman Empire in all regards, meeting the secular nature of most European Great Powers and doing away with the traditional Ottoman “superiority over the infidel” which was so prominent in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. In reality, it severed the link in all regards with the Muslim demographic of the state, and gave no incentive for both Christian and Jewish populations to have loyalty towards the sultan, thanks again to the secular nature of the Reform.

Christians subsequently began to demand more power and say in what happened within the governance of their own province, and the Tanzimatchilar saw it not as an abuse of their already far better rights and more as the natural progression of political modernisation. In 1863 the Armenian National Constitution would be permitted by the Sublime Porte, greatly supporting the nationalistic tendency of the Armenian portion of the empire, and being demonstrated as a symbol of nominal autonomy, thus reinforcing the idea to many other regions in the empire that the state wasn’t strong enough to resist the tidal wave of nationalism which was to come.

The concessions made following the Hatt-I-Humayun 1856 were also used as a placating tool to distract nationalities in the Balkans and the Middle-East from the economic downturn that was to come as a result of the Crimean War (1853-6) that devastated the Ottoman reserves and led to the state declaration of bankruptcy in 1875, where by then the debt neared almost 243 million Turkish Pounds. The establishment of the “vilayet” regions in 1864 only further dismantled the Millet system, exacerbating and providing cause for an armed defence of what was seen by all nationalities, regardless of religious or ethnic divisions, as an affront on their individual culture and traditional heritage.

Economically, many reforms were made to encourage a development of an financially stable middle-class in the richer areas around the Bosphorus. While these were mainly limited in practicality to the richer areas of Constantinople, the introduction of state budgets and reformed ways of taxation in the 1840s, coupled with the creation of the Ottoman state bank in 1856, there was much promise for a Westernized economy, including the freeing of capital to invest in infrastructure such as telegraph poles and railways. However, these reforms came far later than they should have to have the desired effect. In reality, the uncooperativeness of beys, boyars, as well as in many instances the massively influential Greek “dragomans” (meaning translators in Ottoman Turkish) meant that the infrastructure improvements reached only as far as the western borders of Constantinople, since the threat that unrestricted communication as well as mobility which the peasants stood to gain was enough to place the ruling classes staunchly against any economic progress. Additionally, the Ottoman state was bailed out in 1875 by the Western Powers of France and Britain, however at a high price. They now maintained a permanent presence within the empire, and informally took over handling of the Turkish economy, with the establishing the Ottoman Public Debt Administration in 1881.

The boiling pot of nationalistic fervour that had been simmering from 1839 suddenly exploded in the same year that the Ottoman government declared bankruptcy. In 1875, a Christian-Serb revolt in Hercegovina kickstarted a chain of events which would become known as the Great Eastern Crisis (1875-78) and the following year the Bulgarian Revolution was undertaken, with the Bulgarian Horrors which the Turkish irregulars undertook to suppress it in the key cities of Koprivshtitsa and Gabrovo bringing Western opinion, particularly of Britain, onto the side of the Balkan independence movements. Coinciding with the Uprising in Bulgaria, Serbia would declare war on the Ottomans, quickly followed with another revolt, this time in Montenegro, and finalised in the Russian declaration of war in 1877, which for the Sublime Porte brought about the end of any hope to a successful suppression of the crisis.

The Ottoman forces were swept out of Bulgarian lands by the encroaching Russian forces, accompanied with the Serbian and Montenegrin armies (subsequently joined by a renewed Bulgarian uprising) although they did make a desperate and valiant attempt at the Battle of Plovdiv on the 16^th of January, they were ultimately no match for the combined Slavic armies, and with the capture of Adrianople (now Edirne) later that month, it was clear which side would ultimately go on to occupy Constantinople and win the war.

This was the point where Britain and the German Empire stepped in, to prevent a total collapse of the Ottoman Empire as Britain had in 1856 and to prevent total Russian domination. Britain threatened Russia that a capture of Constantinople would mean war, and thus the Russians stopped in the city of San Stefano on the 31^st of January 1878.

The subsequent Treaty of San Stefano, enlarged into the Congress of Berlin 13^th June 1878, would partition the Ottoman lands between the newly created Bulgaria and the freshy independent Kingdom of Serbia. A king was chosen out of the German nobility to rule over Bulgaria and the territory conquered by Bulgarian irregulars and Russian troops was sizeably reduced, with Eastern Rumelia being split off from the new Principality of Bulgaria and the Turks retaining nominal control over the new state. Predictably, the terms did not last, and Bulgaria would go on to unify with Eastern Rumelia and gain unofficial independence in 1885, thus realising Russia’s objective that pushed for Slavic minorities to rise up in the Ottoman Empire, greatly increasing its influence over the highly contested Balkans.

The Ottoman Empire would continue to retain control over Albanian and Macedonian lands for a short period of time, before the next great Balkan War in 1912 would divide up their lands further, they also gained a financial crisis which as discussed, significantly impeded the diplomatic freedom that the Ottoman Empire once had, tying them economically to the three Western Powers. This set a precedent that would go on to lead to the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, the Tanzimat reforms being a shining example of reforms made suddenly and without proper planning nor research, done in the name of liberalisation, however missing the fundamental objectives of rational thought which a state needs if it wants to understand and thus retain control over its people. Arab revolts in the 1910s and 20s as well as the devastation of World War One would prove this point, and the liberal ideas espoused by the Tanzimat reforms would find new usage in the Republic of Turkey, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Subscribe now

Nationalism as an ideology finds its roots in 19^th century Europe, and ever since most notably the “Springtime of Nations” in 1848. Nationalism became the driving force in unity as an identifier. Uniting people not through the abstract idea of an all-powerful state as advocated by Conservatives like Thomas Hobbes, but through common similarities. Language, art, culture, even mannerisms were used in the name of Nationalism. This represented a seismic shock to the old concert of post-Napoleonic Europe, full of absolute monarchies hell-bent on imposing their will upon the people. Not the idealistic opposite of “self-determination” that strove to create nations based on shared heritage, wherever that may be found. “Nationalism” however, as I have been describing it, fails to take into account the modern-day differences between all strands of the ideology. Nationalism presents us with ideas such as the romantic Wilsonian self-determination, while also contradicting itself and demonstrating in the beliefs of expansionist nationalists that this right can justly be suspended for certain “inferior” nationalities.

The idea that Nationalism is more united than divided is certainly a debatable point, as strands such as Liberal and Conservative Nationalists disagree on the method in which it should be employed. However, such is exactly my point, the disagreements of different nationalist strands differ only in their method of achieving their goals presiding over a Nation-State. They do not disagree on the fundamental principles that define core Nationalist principle, nor its goal, and therefore should be considered in fact more united than divided.

Nationalism as an ideology is united quite fundamentally in its views of the nation as the ultimate determinate of any form of government. Therefore, it is diametrically opposed to all forms of rule without consent of the people. The nation as an entity is a group of people whom all have shared values as well as traditions. This can be expressed in the form of language, religion or ethnicity and represent what make up a nation. Civic Nationalists, which lie at the basis of all strands of nationalism, see this “nationality” to be fundamentally linked to the state in a naturally forced cooperation. Jean Jacques Rousseau notably advocated for such a union, calling it the “Social Contract” wherein nation-states are founded by citizenship and legitimise political organisation through an unsaid consensus. Liberal Nationalists also see this legitimisation of the nation-state as fundamental and apply it to a wider scale of nationalities across the world. Employing the idea of self-determination, which means that individuals should found their own state through nationality, thus creating the nation-state. They recognise like Civic nationalists that nations are not based on specific geographical constraints but rather on the shared nature of people’s interactions with one another, through all reasons cited previously.

Democracy and republicanism are fundamental to Liberal Nationalists, and within the 14 points which entitle nationalities to such participation advocated by Liberal Nationalist thinker Woodrow Wilson on the climax of the Great War, such notions are reinforced throughout. Conservative Nationalists also share this view, albeit for different reasons, such as Nationalism’s effectiveness at keeping control of a society. They view Nationalism with vigilance, viewing its tendency to excite intense wars, as in the Greek Revolution of 1821 as apt demonstration of the possibilities it has for violence. Particularly, thinkers like Otto von Bismarck used it to unify Germany, while impressively. Using it simultaneously to maintain tradition, order and societal values. Therefore, as emphasised in this paragraph. Nationalism is remarkably unified in contrast with ideologies such as Anarchism. It represents no matter the strands the basic principles which define the nation-state within the boundaries of popular acceptance, as well as value and tradition-based unity. Thus, it is definitively more unified than divided.

Nationalists however, suffer from great ideological differences between the different strands as soon as you step out of the basic definitions of the nation-state which unite them. In regards to ethnicity it is very controversial for example. Culturalists within the Nationalist spectrum are firm on their emphasis of culture (language, traditions, values) as the defining division between nationalities. Whereas racialists are firmly opposed to any sort of cultural assimilation defining nationality. They believe that nationalities are firmly defined by race and therefore ethnicity. Certain figures in recent French politics for example have allegedly advocated for racialist policies within their party, such as Jean-Marie Le Penn.

Subscribe now

Racialists such as Marcus Garvey have been cited as well, rejecting the notions of cultural assimilation as oppressive to the ethnicity of the so-called “Negro” within American society. Culturalists or Liberal Nationalists would argue against this notion as being divisive and preventing any possibility of union between individuals, simply because of their ethnicity, therefore being incompatible with their idea of self-determination. Liberal Nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, whom advocated for a “United States of Europe” to be the eventual result of Italian Unification. While opposing rationalism and traditional liberal views, as well as being a devout Catholic. He noted that an ideal country would be one united through culture, language and history. Therefore, he obviates a great difference between racialists and culturalists while highlighting the similarities of Liberal, Conservative and Culturalist Nationalists. Where multiracial societies such as the Ottoman Empire are able to exist in harmony in the event of an adequate Nationalist government. Overall, then, Nationalists are de facto divided in their opinions over cultural assimilation. Some deem it to be oppressive, such as Garveyites, and some see it as a natural process in the forming of the Nation-State. The bottom-line however, is that they continue to agree on the fundamental aspects that drive the ideology of Nationalism, such the nation-state being in line with popular consent, and self-determination.

Another drawback of the unified nature of Nationalism is their opinions on the merit of certain nationalities to “deserve” the rights of self-determination. Certain Nationalist groups argue that their culture or right to invade and conquer is the nature way of things, adopting a fundamentally Darwinist approach to nation-states. Expansionist and Imperialist Nationalists, in this regard, differentiate themselves from a lot of Nationalist ideals. Notably in their active encouragement of militarism and chauvinism. Liberal Nationalists would argue that such denies other nations the right to the rights afforded to theirs, while Conservative Nationalists would see the chauvinistic aspect as a deadly threat to societal order and tradition.

A lot of Fascist states take inspiration from Expansionist nationalism, as well as key thinkers in Expansionist Nationalism. For example, Benito Mussolini, “Duce” of Fascist Italy, advocated for the reclamation of a “new Roman Empire.” Claiming Yugoslav lands such as Dalmatia and Istria over arguably baseless facts linked to historical roots as well as their cultural superiority. In this regard, Expansionists often divide the world based on either extreme cultural or racialist views, and use the justification of superiority to go and impose their will on other nations, denying them the right to the Self-Determination they advocate for. Integralism also contributes to the Fascism that came to dominate the first half of the 20^th century. Integralists believe that the nation is an organic unit and the highest and most important part of a society, rejecting individualist theory in place of authoritarian thought. Notably Charles Maurras preached Integralism as the natural next step for achieving a “pure” Nationalist society.

The connotations of which are arguably able to be linked to totalitarian or racialist nature thanks to its rejection of individualism. Thus, again referring to the point of fundamental unity. It is clear that Nationalism is divided in regards to which nationalities are objectively “superior” and which aren’t. And that certain strands of Nationalism are diametrically opposed to such an authoritative disrespect for other nations. However, each strand still retains strong links of varying intensity to the same general thought.

To conclude, then, Nationalism as an ideology is at its base unified, in-fact remarkably so. It arguably presents and outlines vastly clearer foundational premises than ideologies like Anarchism or Feminism. The nation-state being the only legitimate representation of nationality, and nationality being defined by clearly laid out notions of cultural or ethnic links, such as language or race.

The aspects in which Nationalism differs are on which of these links takes precedent over the other, and notably which societies and nation-states deserve to self-determine themselves more than their aggressor. While these differences are legitimate and arguably justify that Nationalism is in fact more divided than unified. It fails to take into account the similarities that the vast majority of strands have with one another, oftentimes simply disagreeing on governance and motivation rather than superiority and militarism, as the minority outliers do. Therefore, it is a valid argument to make the point that Nationalism is ultimately, indeed, more united than divided in both its nature and ideological practice.

Subscribe now

The story of Japan’s fascinating history has oftentimes been similar to that of China, reflecting their terrain and unique geographical situation as well as the influence they retained from contact with Buddhism and the development of a Sino-Japanese culture. Their nation has gone through two major fragmentations (obviously not comparing with China’s seven) however what makes Japan different is the fact that the state stayed fragmented for major periods of its history, possibly linked with the rough mountains and rivers separating huge swathes of the mainland and leaving very small “rice villages”, isolated from the emperor’s capital in Kyoto for centuries.

Speaking of the Emperor, ever since 1336 (the first fragmentation period in the “Nanboku-Cho” antipodal courts war) his status was mostly reduced to one not unlike that of the Pope during the medieval and early modern ages. The emperor’s approval was sought after from faction to faction across Japan as a sign to go ahead and reunify large areas of Japan under their sway. Therefore the Emperor had a sort of political bargaining chip status for a vast period of Japanese history.

Of course, the fragmented state of Japan made unitary decisions impossible most of its history, but that’s not to say that it’s relative technological progress advanced during and after its unification up until the late 19^th century. Its unification in the “Sengoku” or Warring States period which ended in 1603 with the victorious warlord, “Tokugawa Ieyasu” installing himself as Shogun of all Japan . The emperor still existed of course, but remained an accessory to the Shogun, and samurai rule was imposed across Japan. The nation then plunged into arguably a “dark age” for its history. The “Sakoku” closed state era was a period of extreme isolation for the nation, the Sakoku government prevented any foreign influences from affecting the archipelago in any way, no trade, alliances, or even contact. This choice by the Tokugawa government mimicked the decision by the Ming emperor a few centuries ago to close off trade to all other nations and focus on internal trade and establishing autarky. This led to economic stagnation, on a huge scale, combined with the decentralisation of Ming authority leading to disorder and eventually giving an opportunity for the Qing to take over.

In addition, this was during the period of first wave colonialism and the European nations had already been setting up massive empires all across Asia and America since 1513. Spain gained first contact with Japan in 1549 when a Christian missionary arrived in Japan, and subsequently established Japanese-Spanish relations with the first Japanese envoy arriving in Madrid in 1584 of Japanese Christians from the open port of Nagasaki.

Subscribe now

The Dutch were a major feature in Japanese-Western relations when in 1641 they occupied the old artificial island of Dejima off the coast of Nagasaki, which used to be a trading post for the Portuguese to trade with the natives, now taken over. The Netherlands was the Shogunate’s main source of Western technology and art, like flagships, renaissance style painting, as well as clothing trends in Europe and most notably political trends, such as that expressed by the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of England, of which they heard about from the Dutch recounts.

The word “meiji” in Japanese translates to enlightened rule, most likely referencing both the industrial reforms and the efficient rule of the Emperor (posthumously named Meiji) during the entire period leading up to the First World War. Beginning in 1841, (though deep set changes in society could be seen as beginning before even 1800) with the Tenpo reforms being implemented. Although they made a series of economic reforms that benefitted Japanese society, such as forcing the merchants of society to sell their goods for cheaper prices, as well as ending the 1825 edict set by the previous Shogun to disallow any foreign ships to sail into Japanese waters at all, replacing it with forcing them to leave by providing water and firewood. The Tenpo reforms also enflamed a newly-founded rivalry between the ruling shogunate class and the daimyo regional vassals of the Shogun, and later proposed the large cities of Osaka and Edo be controlled directly by the shogun, as well as ordering the construction of coastal fortifications around the Honshu (the largest island of Japan) island.

Another reform was made in the fixed rice stipends, as well as mercantile debt forgiving, which made both the Samurai Warlords vulnerable to fluctuating prices and began an effort towards increasing domain income across the nation. Of course this was all just preamble to the real reforms that came after 1868, where the nation was able to enact serious industrial and agricultural reforms.

To save time and address the Meiji Restoration as a whole, The wars that would unify Japan in the Meiji Empire would begin heating up after the US commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived in 1854 off the Japanese coast in one of the greatest exemplifications of “gunboat diplomacy” and demanded the signing of treaties that would open Japan’s political and commercial economic isolation becoming the “Unequal Treaties” these agreements gave benefits to the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, and to a lesser degree Austria-Hungary. This humiliated and further de-legitimized the Tokugawa regime, and led to a series of wars known as the Boshin Wars, which began with two Daimyo states of Southern Japan, Choshu and Satsuma. These two states fought against the Tokugawa forces in support of the restoration of the Emperor to power in Japan. They succeeded after decisively winning the battle of four roads in July of 1866 before forcing the Shogun to cede rule of Japan to the Emperor in Kyoto in 1867.

Then the Imperial forces under the lead of Emperor Mutsuhito (Meiji) finished off the rest of the Tokugawa forces, in the Boshin Wars that last from 1867 to 1868, and which ended in October of 1868 with the battle of Hakodate, with Imperial forces pushing the last members of the Shogunate into the seas off the Island of Hokkaido.

Subscribe now

The Restoration installed many foundational economic, military, and technological reforms that now constitute the basis of the current Constitutional Monarchy that Japan is. The emperor was crowned on the 3^rd of February 1867, renaming and moving the capital city from Kyoto, to the newly named Tokyo (renamed from Edo and meaning “to” east “kyo” capital) , and embarked upon a rapid and tough campaign to industrialise the nation. This was supported by the states of Choshu and Satsuma who aimed to regain their independence from being a simple trade vassal to the Western Powers and instead a strong participator within the growing global politics of the 19^th /20^th century.

The agricultural modernisation of Japan began with the Land Tax Reform of 1873, which replaced the payment of income tax from rice with paper and coin money. This provided the government with an economic base as well as a connection to the rural areas of the country, providing a vital link that would prove extremely useful in extracting resources for the government. It meant as previously a farmer would give 3% of their income in rice to the tax collectors, they would now have to sell their rice, and use a share of the money to fill the tax, simultaneously stimulating the economy in rural areas.

Subscribe now

In addition, new crops were introduced to specific regions of Japan, such as silkworm plantations in provinces like Gunma, which were transformed into raw silk powerhouses in tangent with the industrial innovations made by Japanese state businesses. By the year 1909 it was the largest exporter in the world, with 80% of its external exports being the precious fabric. Tea and cotton were also staples of the new agricultural push with tea becoming a major Japanese export to the U.S, and cotton as well as hemp helping Japan to etch its name into the textile market. Finally, new schools of Agricultural education meant that eventually Japan would be able to stimulate even the isolated island of Hokkaido’s agricultural base, with the Kaitakushi (Colonial Development Commission) using American-style intensive agriculture to bring potatoes, wheat and dairy cattle to the island for cultivation. From 1870-80 the population of Hokkaido exploded from 54,000 to 240,000.

Industrial production was heavily sponsored by the government in the beginning of the 1870s, with the government creating “model companies” and investing in them with state funds since private capital was short in pre-industrial Japan. Once these model companies were viable and expected to go further, the government would sell them at very low prices to independent capitalists, whom would then continue their section of business in Japan with veritable capital ease. This thus formed the basis of the Zaibatsu “financial cliques” and greatly aided the development of a new elite banker-class of citizens. An example would be Mitsubishi, founded by Iwasaki Yataro and instructed by the government to take over its shipyards and develop a vast naval industry, aided by French officers who used their expertise to design Japanese ships, such as the Matsushima-class cruisers. In the years leading up to World War One, Mitsubishi provided the Japanese government with 38 new and repaired warships.

Subscribe now

Mitsubishi eventually branched into the other largely focused upon industrial sectors of mining during the 1880s. The Takashima coal mine (opened 1881) provided productive resources for the military basis of Japan’s Navy and transportation industries. From 1875 to 1914 the coal production increased from 600,000 to 21 million tonnes. The Bank of Japan, founded in 1882 provided a standardisation of currency across Japan as well as ramping up the possibility of state loans to many members of society, therefore allowing newer businesses to be created and bigger businesses like the Zaibatsu members to take even bigger ventures.

Finally, in one of the most important aspects of Japanese history, the railroads companies, supplied with steel by companies such as Kamaishi Iron Works in the prefecture of Iwate. began production on over 1,400 miles of rail-laying in 1872, to connect the Tokyo-Yokohama rail line to the many outlying districts and regions, instantaneously connecting a third of Japan’s population and encouraging economic migration across the nation. From 1872 to 1914 the miles of track lain went from a relatively pathetic 17, from the Tokyo-Yokohama line to 7,100 !

The standing army of Japan was founded in 1871, with the male conscription act 1873 permitting a massive increase in the reserves of the army. This was far different to the previous system of local daimyos having their own specific army. Soldiers were also trained in traditional European style tactics by French and later German generals on artillery and line-infantry. The first indigenously produced Japanese rifle, the Murata 13, was developed in 1880 by the state industrial business of Koishikawa. Many doctrines were put in place for the production of machine-guns, artillery cannons, pistols rifles and all sorts of military technology, as well as investing in the Imperial University of Tokyo to train future scientists and engineers to aid the war effort of the nation. between 1880 and 1914 the Japanese Army increased from 71,000 to 306,000 men.

Subscribe now

The vast amount of effort placed into military actions was put into full force in the first Sino-Japanese war that last from 1894-95. The Qing Dynasty, historically having been a dominant force in Eastasian culture, was thoroughly devastated by the Japanese Army in a series of fast paced pitched battles across the Kingdom of Joseon Korea (occupied by China until the end of the war). For example in the battle of Pyongyang September 1894 Japan suffered a high of 162 men killed compared to an estimated 2,000 Qing soldiers. The war was also characterised by a Japanese desire to acquire far more natural resources found within Korea and notably the Island of Formosa (later Taiwan). The War ended in the treaty of Shimonoseki with Japan gaining a protectorate in Korea (to be annexed by the Empire in 1910) as well as full annexation of Taiwan (renamed from Formosa by the Japanese government).

Japan would go on to attack Russia and surprise all involved great powers by winning, proving definitively that it deserved a seat participating in international law, it would sign a naval treaty with the USA and the UK called the Washington naval treaty in 1922 due to their growing importance in projected influence across southeast Asia. The Japanese Meiji Restoration in many ways prevented it from going down the path of submission and colonization by European powers, and cemented itself as a leading member on the World Stage. The Japanese industrial potential, even having been devastated in World War 2, would make a fast recovery and push towards economic domination in the 60-70s and early 80s which would eventually become so powerful that the United States would step in to make sure they didn’t get eclipsed. All in all, the Meiji Restoration installed a certain work ethos, and pride in the nation, that would agglomerate along with the rest of traditional Japanese traits that make the country great and unique on the globe. “Fukoku kyohei,” (rich country, strong army.)

Subscribe now

In the Modern Day. Imagining China to be a country or nation under any other state or even international alliance’s thumb would be erroneous. China is a modern superpower, rivalling (and surpassing in many ways although we wouldn’t like to admit it) the United States. It is a trading superpower, with 31,6% of the world’s entire manufactured goods being produced and shipped from any one of the many massive cosmopolites such as Shanghai, Dalian or Guangzhou.

However, the contrast, the fundamental contrast arises when comparing the recognition that China has in many economists and politicians eyes now, to the reputation the struggling empire had in the 1830s-50s. If you would have walked up to a man with a silken cloth in your hand and asked him if it was made in China, the man would be stunned and say back. “ Either it was built in one of our factories in London or one of ours in China! The Chinese Empire lost it’s productive dominance a few dynasties ago.”

The Chinese nation in the 1830s was ruled by the Qing Dynasty, a descendant of the Manchu raiders that previously threated multiple different lineages of Chinese Leadership, and whose leader Shunzhi managed to install himself as Emperor of all China in 1643. After his coronation, the Qing would spend the next centuries carving out large swathes of land and bringing them under their sway. Tibet in 1750, Xinjiang in 1760, and Mongolia in 1697, while making treatise with Russia that permitted them territory along the Amur river and the Okhotsk Sea that would eventually be annexed by Russia into Vladivostok and it’s far eastern regions.

Subscribe now

Therefore, for 3 centuries, the Qing ruled an empire that stretched over 14 million square kilometres, and for a long period managed to hold off British Indian ambitions in Tibet as well as Russian claims in its “sphere of influence” of Mongolia and Manchuria, ironically the homeland of the Manchu-ruled China. However this domination would only last so long, as the Qing would begin to grow stagnate in terms of leadership, economics, and most notably, research and military prowess.

This steady decline in power can be linked to a number of problems in Qing administrative systems, as well as infrastructure. For example in the domain of agricultural production, China’s exact production in terms of agriculture, judging by the amount of such products as grain in 1725, which equates to around 283,800,000 kg . This number equating to a population of around 150 million at the time, is tenuous in questioning support capability but plausible. However when comparing with the modestly increased grain production of around 444,000,000 kg, and a population increase of 200% to around 450 million people in 1841, it is obvious to note the near impossible support that the Qing Emperors had to deal with.

Subscribe now

These glaring capability flaws led to peasant revolts against the inefficient and nepotic Manchu leaders, such as the White Lotus rebellion in 1796, which was an 8 year conflict led by a religious order of Buddhist principle and whom many ordinary Chinese citizens were accused of being in and convicted, which in a sense had the adverse affect of garnering vast amounts of support for the faction, in tandem with the suffering of the nation’s granaries, which affected the military’s performance and motivation.

Therefore when the Western colonial powers arrived in China, they found an easy target to exploit a sad, angry and rebellious population, notably the British in their lucrative sale of a drug being massively grown from the breadseed poppy in the British Indian Territories.. Opium.

The British Empire had long sought to gain further control over China, as their trading rights were restricted to a few ports, and a few sellers, notably in Hong Kong where “Hong merchants” were the only market. Many Chinese goods, silk, porcelain, and most importantly, tea, were exchanged between the two nations throughout the 1830s, however the Qing Oligarchy forbade the Chinese sellers from buying British goods in return, which forced the British to trade in only silver.

This was noted by officials both in the East India Company (EIC), which had recently expanded its opium production in Bengal, and British Officials as potentially leading the economy towards a silver shortage. Therefore they’d make the choice to sell their burgeoning new product, originally used for medicinal purposes, shipping it to covert Chinese merchants who would then smuggle it into China and disperse the drug into the wider market.

A multitude of emperors before the current “Daoguang” emperor of the 1830s had passed edicts prohibiting the use of the drug since 1729, but they were generally inefficient in practice, with corrupt officials and clandestine sellers seeing its value. The Canton system, (where the entirety of trade with the West was centred around the modern city of Guangzhou) was put in place by successive emperors to prevent the overflow of Western goods in Chinese markets, the United States was involved in the Canton system, known during the time as the “Old China Trade”. The old Canton system was clearly inefficient and didn’t prevent the smugglers of Opium, in 1833, 5.1 million tonnes of the drug were transported into China.

The Daoguang Emperor entrusted the Chinese Politician Lin Zexu with the power to shut down the illicit trade in 1839, therefore he sent a letter into the Cantonese British delegates with the intent of reaching Queen Victoria and asking for her assistance in ending the Opium imports. The letter was never received, and therefore Lin charged himself with seizing British cargo and notably throwing opium into the sea, reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party of 1776. Lin then set a deadline for the foreign companies and governments of Canton to cease the trade and to hand over token amounts of opium to the Chinese authorities to then be destroyed. The admiral and superintendent of British trade in Canton, Charles Elliot arrived 3 days after the deadline and was forced to pay for all the chests and chests of opium to be destroyed after Lin’s pressure on credit from the British government. almost 3 million pounds of opium were destroyed at Humen in 1839.

The standoff last for a few months, during which many crises occurred that solidified the happening of an armed conflict between the two nations. For one, British merchants murdered a Chinese merchant. When Lin Zexu demanded the perpetrators be handed to the Qing authorities, Charles refused and sent a message to London advising the use of military force against the Chinese to resolve the conflict.

Armed conflict began on the 4^th of September 1839, as a result of heightened tensions between the two nations, in a skirmish off the coast of Kowloon. Ending in a stalemate, but with a psychological victory for the surviving British fleet in the northern peninsular of Hong Kong, proud of having “beaten” the Chinese in China. Thus began in 1840 a widespread moral debate in Britain. Many individuals came out supporting the Chinese sanctions of the opium trade and condemning it as immoral for the United Kingdom to force the ports to open, others argued (mainly the EIC and British officials in China) that the government in fact condoned such actions in the opium trade and it was the Chinese that were acting (as was the general consensus with the Whigs in control of parliament) “with despotism and cruelty.”

Subscribe now

A lot of political wrangling happening in the period between the blockades on the Pearl river and the Chinese coast went into place, but in the end the government decided to forward demands and objectives of the war to the Chinese government and Charles Elliot’s forces. The aims were to take over islands that could be easily provisioned, give the British access to more than just Canton to trade, as well as ensure premiere status of British trade in China as the number one foreign power. These choices were put into effect in February 1840, long after hostilities had actually broken out.

The first proper battle occurred in the Battle of Chusan (Zhoushan) in July of 1840, which ended in a decisive British victory leaving only one man wounded to 13 Chinese killed. The British took the island and from then on used it to resupply their forces for their push into both Hong Kong and up the Pearl river. Charles Elliot then divided the British Navy operations into half sailing for the Pearl river in the south, the others up the Hai towards Beijing, further humiliating the Qing. The new head of Southern China, Qishan, met with Elliot in the North of China to discuss peace terms as the war raged on.

The Pearl river operation began with the British fleet, aided by HMS Nemesis, a new Iron steamer, taking the land bridge connecting the Portuguese colony of Macau to the mainland in August, stoking a wave of British support and giving the British a functional port in Macau. Multiple battles occurred in the epic struggle to gain a foothold within the river that was the British campaign, such as the Second battle of Chuenpi in 1841 which allowed the British a point of access into the river. All the initial skirmishes focused on eventually taking Guangzhou and ending the Chinese fleet’s operations in the region, but Elliot held off on the complete seizure of the region and preferred to negotiate from their current position of power rather than risking it.

The rest of the war continued rather swimmingly for the British, with every capture of a city gaining more and more bargaining chips for Elliot to use against Qishan. The battle of Xiamen on the 26^th August ended in a resounding victory and gave the British a powerful fort in Central China. In 1842 Shanghai was left unoccupied and therefore the British took it with little resistance, greatly aiding the Yangtze campaign and leaving Nanjing, the heart and vital city of the entire region undefended and unmanned.

The Chinese general Hai Ling, amassed around 50,000 soldiers in the fort of Zhenjiang. 3,000 to 4,000 of them fought in the Battle of Zhenjiang, meeting 6,000 Redcoats under the command of Hugh Gough. The Chinese were heaving on the backfoot, with a very minor amount of Manchu green-banner soldiers bearing muskets, the rest with swords and spears. The battle kicked off with the British Third Brigade moving to attack the North gate, while another division moved to occupy the high ground and rain down fire upon the Chinese defenders, who were tired from their travel and saw that the battle was lost. Then the Western divisions made it into the city, and the remaining defenders, seeing the city in flames, surrendered. The British lost 37 men overall, while the Chinese lost around 1,000. A decisive victory that ended the war.

The subsequent treaty of Nanjing, signed on the 29^th of June 1842, opened 5 “treaty ports” to Britain, as well as giving the nation preferential trading treatment in China. Among many different clauses, the cession of Hong Kong for an indefinite amount of time was a central and defining point in why the period was known by the Chinese populace as the “Century of Humiliation.” Hong Kong proved to be a vital source of trade for the British government, and became vastly profitable as investors and factory workers came to the free-market island looking for work and opportunity. Reparations of 6 million silver dollars were paid to the British authorities for the seizure of opium a few years earlier by Lin Zexu, a further insult to Qing power so much so that the Daoguang emperor took a further few months to assent to the treaty’s action.

The First Opium War worried Chinese authorities, as the start of a trend that was already beginning to be seen and felt throughout Africa, the Europeans arriving and subjugating peoples to their distant leaders. Further problematic was the vast technological and military gap in development with the British using Bessie musket rifles and eventually breach-loading models while the Chinese government still employed swords and spears in the army. The Navy played a crucial role in the First Opium War and was the main theatre for which the battles were held, with the development of Ironclad ships and the cannon gunfire both factoring in the gunboat diplomacy surrender of the Qing as well as simple firepower winning both the Battle of Kowloon and Xianmen. An early version of close military support was also seen in the land campaigns which would be taken up by aircraft within the next century.

The century of humiliation would continue on with the Second Opium War, which would solidify China’s losing trend, with the other Western powers subsequently joining in and carving their own land within the fracturing empire. Even Japan after the Meiji Restoration which brought its military up to the level of Europe, would go on to thrash the Qing Dynasty in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 and seize the island of Formosa, (modern day Taiwan) in the treaty of Shimonoseki. The mental effects brought upon the Chinese peasants and merchants (excepting Hong Kong & Macau) of China, as well as the already bolstering economic and infrastructural problems, would lead to many internal problems for the Qing, including to this day the largest fatal civil war in history, the Taiping Rebellion, which led to around 20 million people losing their lives.. A brutal initiation to the Chinese 20^th century.

1850s Europe, a political landscape shaken by the revolutions of 1848 that eradicated the old order of the Concert of Europe enforced by Metternich for three decades prior. France had emerged from the “Springtime of Nations” with a President turned-Emperor looking to prove himself as a competent leader within the new order. Austria’s aptitude had been shown up by the Hungarian revolution which had to be crushed with the help of the Russians.

Prussia emerged from the turmoil almost as authoritarian as it had begun, though the King had won the favour of the people by facing the crowds alone in Berlin, and now had the opportunity for expansion against the shattered Austrian monopoly of Germany. Britain, barely affected by these revolutions, would continue its trade with the outside world and Europe, extending its economic dominance even further over the other Great Powers.

However, it is Russia which I’d like to address in this article, or more specifically, the first great attempt to extend its dominion into the Balkans which was halted significantly by the Western Powers. Britain fearing Russia’s increasing presence in the Mediterranean, and France under Napoleon III (Napoleon’s nephew) looking to prove himself on the theatre of war. Economically and industrially, Russia was falling behind Europe, although progress had been made under tzar Nicholas II, the country’s trebling textile industry was far from enough to keep up with the Western and Central Powers.

Between 1830 and 1900, Russia’s share of world manufacturing output increased by 33%, whereas the German states as a whole (excluding Austria) saw 160%. These factors help to exemplify the unpreparedness of Russia for a war such as the Crimean, especially against the two Western Powers which allied against it, and had by 1860 combined shares of world output 242 times larger. These sources aren’t even taking into account the fact that Russia heavily relied on unexperienced conscripts from all around the Empire, and the concentration of military training was seen barely anywhere outside of the St. Petersburg-Moscow axis.

Subscribe now

The war’s beginning was convoluted with various political machinations in play during the 1850s. Tzar Nicholas was eyeing the lands of Constantinople and the rich Danubian Principalities (modern day Rumania) and trying to exert his influence over the so-called “sick man of Europe” to do so, the Turkish Empire, in serious decline by the 1850s having recently lost a war against its own nominal regions of Egypt. Napoleon III also had clear desires on land within the Ottoman realm, he supported the catholic monks near Jerusalem in order to gain their favour if ever he were to attempt an exertion of influence into Egypt, particularly near the Sinai Peninsula, where he planned to clear way for the construction of a canal.

The Russians, seeing the French moves in order to influence the Ottomans, and the Sultan Abdülmecid I’s inaction in face of the claims Russia made on the predominantly Orthodox regions on the border, invaded the Principalities in July 1853. Russia, crossing the Danube, met the Ottomans in the battle of Oltenița in November, and simultaneously annihilated the Ottoman fleet at the battle of Sinope, marking a dominant victory of Russia in the entirety of the Black Sea.

The British Navy was already deployed in the Black Sea by the arrival of the troops, with ships such as HMS furious and HMS retribution. These ships were placed respectively in positions across from the ports of Odessa in modern Ukraine and Sevastopol, and to disallow any new sorties by the Russian Navy.

Nicholas II, infuriated by the moves made by Britain and France, yet realising the situation was impossible, pulled his troops out from the Danubian Principalities, repositioning hundreds of thousands of them along forts on the coasts both the sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

This was done when the allied powers made landing on Crimea and fought off a Russian attack in the battle of Alma on the 20^th of September 1854. Britain also used its blue-water Navy to harass the Baltic coast and the Gulf of Finland, tying down around 200,000 soldiers in-case of a naval invasion, although Russian military officials advised that 400,000 men were required for a true defence.

The war continued with the French and British making headway in Crimea, culminating in the battle of Balaclava in October 1854, with the charge of the British light Brigade going down in history as one of the major blunders of the war as they charged not at the Turkish redoubts to deny the Russians the Causeway heights, but in a frontal assault at the Russian guns, tearing a sixth of the 600 men to shreds.

During the war, many individuals rose to the occasion of providing critical medical healthcare for the wounded soldiers. Florence Nightingale being the most exceptional distinction, cutting the death rate in the military hospital in Scutari, Turkey, from 42% to 2% by improving the means of sanitation and training 38 nurses to do the same, cleaning up the areas of surgery and the dirty floors, as well as improving ventilation for the soldiers.

Subscribe now

Nevertheless, after a decisive victory for the Allies at the Battle of Inkerman. They approached Sevastopol, destroying the remaining Russian morale to fight for further expansion in a siege of a city that last from the October of 1854 to the September of 1855, and ending with a Russian surrender to France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire in the Congress of Paris on March 30, 1856.

Many factors contributed to the Russian defeat, and it demonstrated just how inept their army really was in the field against the allies’ superior technology and possibility to sustain a long war. With the vast majority of railway tracks ending south of Moscow, supplies to the soldiers were forced to trek for ~ 45-60 days, whereas the allies could supply their forces within a matter of days, especially with the aid from the Ottomans and the established military ports in Constantinople and Varna on the Bulgarian coast.

The Russians suffered from diplomatic isolation that followed with the destruction of the Holy Alliance founded in 1815 to protect the absolutist monarchies from the nationalist revolts that Napoleon had stirred. Austria, (Russia had assumed) would set its forces on the weak Ottoman lands in Bosnia and Serbia, while they were distracted in the Caucasus, and then divide the spoils between them. However, Austria as Nicholas later discovered, was also scared of Russia’s growing influence in the Balkans, which Austria also had desires on. Therefore, they would not only not join the war on the Russian side, but diplomatically condemn the Russian actions, and send “peacekeeping” forces into the Danubian Principalities to prevent further conflict, effectively taking any Russian claims to annex the territories away from the tzar.

Finally, Russia employed the use of outdated rifles, not equipped to withstand the newer technological models of France and Britain, as they were far more used to fighting the even more outdated Ottoman Empire. Russia, using smoothbore muskets, meant that the effective range of their shots was about 70-100 yards, whereas the allied rifled barrels could hit targets up to 7 times further away. Russia also used roundshot and bronze smoothbore cannons, which weren’t up to the efficiency of the allied shell artillery.

The treaty in the Congress of Paris 1856 declared the Black Sea a neutral zone, while returning the delta of the Danube to the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans were admitted into the Concert of Europe and the other nations promised to respect their territorial integrity, while the Danubian principalities, having been demilitarized by Austria, were given de-facto autonomy, representing a sizeable opportunity to influence the region by Russia in the future.

The defeat significantly set back Russia’s territorial ambitions, as well as disallowing their navy a region with which to exert itself in training exercises. It also represented a significant loss for the British and French however, who lost around 250,000 combined soldiers with ~127,000 to 170,000 men succumbing to death due to sickness from the attrition warfare and the lack of adequate medical standards.

All in all, the Crimean War represents a significant shift in the Russian attempt at hegemony, and marked in the minds of the Russian nobility the desperate need of Russia to modernize, an idea which would be implemented by Alexander II in his emancipation of the serfs, as well as Sergei Witte in his economic reforms in the late 19^th century. Britain was placated from the threat of Russia, but still lost a sizeable amount of men to preventable illnesses. France in reality came out as a major victor from this war, Napoleon III had asserted himself as a great leader, and would attempt to use this leverage in the Italian Wars against Austria, where he would be put in his place at Solferino. The war only checked Russian ambitions, didn’t end them, but the Russian people took them to heart, and it will always be remembered as a war that could’ve been avoided, had cooler heads prevailed.

Poland in the late 1830s, didn’t exist, at least not in the legal sense. Instead, it was a vast cultural and linguistic bond between millions of people that spread across the Great Powers of Eastern Europe, divided politically, but united in all else. The artificial borders enforced by these nations, or rather the crucial lack in terms of cultural assimilation, have been some of the reasons that meant, (as well as the ties of the Polish people regardless) that Poland would never lose this individuality.

Of course, there’s a reason that Poland wasn’t able to keep it’s statehood, and one for why it was fully divided during the onset of the Napoleonic Wars. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as it was known as for over four centuries, was one of the most egalitarian and progressive of the monarchies in Europe. The Golden Liberty, as their Parliamentary system was known as, imposed a sort of constitution and enforced the fact that all nobles, regardless of background in Poland, would be entitled to the same rights regardless.

Subscribe now

However this system of constitutional/elective monarchy led to a lot of problems within the governance in the many regions of the empire which spanned over 1,000,000 km² at its height, in terms of organisation and just a general bureaucratic paralysis within the increasingly outdated system when compared with France or the United Kingdom of the 1800s. This also led the three authoritarian powers, Austria, Prussia and Russia, to become very interested in the land that separated them from each other, therefore in 1772 the Great Powers would convene and dictate to Poland exactly how they would avoid collapsing in war.

The First Partition of Poland still left the Commonwealth with a sizeable amount of land with the Russians seizing only up to the Daugava river in modern day Latvia. The other Great Powers took equally sized land, Austria all of Galicia, with its capital in Lemberg (Lwow) and Prussia connecting it’s eastern provinces across to Brandenburg with the seizure of Danzig and Bromberg (Bydgoszcz.)

Subscribe now

The second and third Partitions in 1793 and 1795 respectively , would prove to be far more detrimental however, and would result in Poland’s collapse. Russia took up to the city of Vilnius and huge swathes of the empire’s southern portion. Austria took territories surrounding the cities of Lublin and Krakow, although the latter city remained a free city until it’s failed revolt in 1846 resulted in its annexation. Finally, Prussia took the western and richest regions of the Empire, with soldiers of the Königreich marching into Warsaw and seizing the last remnants of the government. This was the defining moment in 1795, when Poland would cease to exist as an independent political entity until about 1920.

The Polish idea of independence was resurrected by Napoleon very briefly during his wars waged in Eastern Europe, establishing the Grand Duchy of Warsaw with the territory seized from some of Prussia and Austria’s Polish land (and never returned,) in 1807. It would have it’s constitution rewritten to be liberally active in its administration based on the French model, and it’s regions would be organised on the basis of their capital cities rather than historical royal provinces. These revolutionary reforms would be quickly quashed in succession with Napoleon’s deposition and exile, but the mentality left behind would live on, and be exploited to garner support for the tzarist regime in Poland (which took over all of the Duchy’s territory in 1815.)

Therefore Congress Poland would be created the same year, and ironically both the Russian Elite and the Polish Aristocrats were thrilled, the Russian due to the possibility of placating Polish revolutionary thought, and the Polish due to the possibility of being able to have a distinct participation in the nation, rather than being ruled and sitting on wealth without power.

Subscribe now

Congress Poland was far more liberal than their hegemon, it had its own constitutionally organised Diet and administrative system, independent of Russian politics, it’s own regulation of taxes, and even it’s own standing army of a peacetime size of around 30,000 men.

The new tzar to come after Alexander I , Nicholas I, found that these “excessive civil liberties” needed to be quelled significantly, and would install many in the government of Congress Poland to target groups affiliated in part or whole with Polish nationalist groups or the Decembrists, who were a Russian pressure and “terrorist organisation” that had organised the Decembrist Revolt of 1825 in Saint Petersburg, fighting for a constitutional monarchy, of course unsuccessful.

These repressive governmental measures led to the police breaking up numerous rallies and gathering of Polish societies such as the National Patriotic Society, but in all honesty all it did was show the new Tzar’s hostility towards reform and pull the date of any sort of revolt far closer than he would’ve liked. Dozens of members from these secret societies would be sent into exile in Siberia to serve either labour or simple exile and most likely die in the frozen tundra.

Army protests gathered in Warsaw in November of 1830 and attacked the oppressive Grand Duke’s home, finding him and stabbing him, yelling out afterwards “The Duke is dead!” Although it wasn’t the Duke they had killed but the governor of Warsaw, Piotr Szembek, it shows the militance of these revolutionaries and the extreme reactions coupled with a nationalist fervour that would grow to be extremely common in the 1840s, 50s, and 60s.

Subscribe now

The Russian response was to mobilize over 120,000 troops in the coming months, and Nicholas demanded this unacceptable disobedience to be crushed. This led to a series of comically embarrassing diplomatic talks where moderates of Poland would meet with Tzar Nicholas only to get his staunch face not willing to give an inch to the demands of the Congress. It culminated in January 1831 with Nicholas being deposed as King of Poland thanks to his evidently anti-Polish acts during the last decade, the Diet declared full independence on the 24th.

The Poles fought hard, scoring many key victories in the war and accomplishing what the Decembrists couldn’t in Petersburg or 1830, gaining the support of the peasants to rise up against Russia as well. A key problem however for the Poles was of course the military might of Russia against the well organised yet small Polish forces, but also it’s geographical position making it far harder for any liberal nations, such as Britain or France, to support the Polish cause. The Austrians and Prussians, having Polish majority regions in their empires were definitely not coming to their aid, therefore they were left isolated and solely dependent on the comparatively small resources of Poland against the Russian Bear.

The revolutionary army was crushed at the battle of Ostroleka on the 26^th of May, and in the subsequent months lost more and more territory to the vast Russian armies, ending with the capture of Warsaw in September, after 2 days of fierce fighting.

Nicholas of course, after the war, enacted his revenge on the Poles, which he viewed with unreserved disdain, thousands of men were sent to Siberia and the Polish armed forces were sent off to the Caucasus to serve in the Russian Army against the Ottoman forces in the wars to come. 254 men were executed as they were known to have ties with either the Decembrists, the Polish Diet, or the National Patriotic Society, certain constitutional rights were revoked and Poland was brought closer and closer to Russian domination, with the Polish Zloty being replaced with the Russian Rouble as well.

The Revolution sent thousands of Poles to exile themselves towards different more liberal nations, for example Frederick Chopin, the famous pianist, moved to Paris in 1831 never to return, and wrote..

Subscribe now

These Poles helped to keep Polish culture and support of their independence alive in different nations. Thanks to the revolt of 1831, the House of Commons in the United Kingdom passed under popular demand the censure of the Tzar, sparking a long period of Russophobia that would affect the Great Game of the two Empires in Afghanistan and many alliances between Britain and France, United against Russia in the Crimean War to prevent their encroachment into the Mediterranean .

As you can see, the revolt has a fantastically international response that brought the populations of the world into interest in the plight of the Poles, much like the Philhellenes did in the decade previously.

Polish Nationalism survived, battered but still present, and would continue to stage much more resistance in the future. For example in the revolt of 1863 where the Kingdom once again revolted against Russian hegemony, to again be crushed but keeping Polish militancy just as present as 1831, and attracted far more criticism from the Western Powers. Poland would receive independence in 1919 officially in the Treaty of Versailles from Germany and Russia, and would beat back Soviet forces in the Soviet Polish war of 1920, securing a vast amount of their pre-1795 territory in the Second Polish Republic. The Poles’ story of resistance and failure time and time again, only to rise once again and continue the fight, is a period of history that deserve to be brought to far more light.

Notice: This article and the title Historacle are the property of Empress Publications Ltd. Any unauthorised plagiarism, copying or reproduction of any kind without express permission of the company is strictly prohibited. © Empress Publications Ltd 2025

Before the 17th and perhaps the 18th century, The idea that “ Britannia Rules the Waves” hadn’t succeeded in becoming a well known and internationally recognised fact. It was only near the end of the 7 years war that British Naval Supremacy really began to show it’s true colours, and use it’s newfound power to force a colonial Empire the likes of which the Concert of Europe could’ve never imagined in vastness. That the world, wouldn’t see again right up until today.

This rise began during the English Civil War from August 1642 to September 1651, where Parliament, having won , found the need to begin a build-up of Navy, and poured funds heavily into the Navy, for the simple reason of having to defend their new Revolutionary Government against the Monarchies of Europe, just as France would do in 1792.

This build-up in the Navy saw the Commonwealth of England start to threaten already established naval powers such as Spain, and the United Provinces (the Netherlands,) leading the Commonwealth of England to seize one of their first economically influential pieces of colonial territory, Jamaica, from the Spanish in 1655.

Subscribe now

When the Restoration of the Monarchy came , Charles II came into inherit the now massive ( for the time ) Fleet of 400 Ships with over 3,000 crewmembers. This allowed the Monarchy to secure more colonial gains at the expense of the other European Great Powers, such as the taking of New Amsterdam (later new York) in 1664 and the destruction of the rest of the Dutch fleet off Orfordness in 1667, (although they did suffer a defeat in the 4 days battle against the Dutch.)

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was a period that led to the development of better tactics and naval organisation to be honed to a higher degree, and in the battle of Barfleur in 1692 during the nine years war, it was made evident with the decisive defeat the English inflicted on the French.

After the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707, the English and Scottish Naval Industries Merged, Which Permitted Britain an even stronger development of ships.

The 7 Years War proved to be an evident turning point in the strength of British naval power in conjunction with the Rest of Europe, as before that period, all European Nations, had a somewhat possibility to conduct naval endeavours across multiple continents, like the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch.

After the Seven Years War however, It left in reality only one Naval power, Britain. Which during the war managed to eliminate all other nation’s Navies in decisively organised battles such as Quiberon bay 1759, the multiple Naval assaults upon New Spain, on the Islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, and ( perhaps most decisively ) the defence of the occupation of Quebec, capital of New France. Thus proving the French Navy inept to defend their North American holdings.

The Advancement of the British Royal Navy came in conjunction with the increasing Industrialisation of the Island, which in 1792 allowed British Naval power to reach something of a monopoly when compared with other nations, with a full fleet size of 661 with 14,000 cannons and 100,000 crew members, a massive number at the time when compared with the French Navy of only 291 Vessels.

The Napoleonic Wars saw a sort of Reassertion of the Naval Capability of the British Empire, with the Planned Revolutionary funded Insurrection and Invasion of Ireland in 1796 failing tremendously, with the British losing negligible if any men, to 2,000 Frenchmen captured or killed in a storm and by the Royal Navy.

Subscribe now

and of course , we couldn’t describe the Navy’s role in the Napoleonic Wars, without talking about Lord Horatio Nelson.

Having outmanoeuvred the French Admiral Villeneuve in the Caribbean, Admiral Nelson had continued down through the Mediterranean to lay waste to the French fleet Stationed In Egypt while Napoleon was off subjugating the Ottoman Territories to prevent British access to India, which prompted Napoleon to abandon his men and return to France.

In 1805 , Napoleon Imposed the Continental Blockade, Britain responded by increasing it’s trade with other parts of the world, and using it’s navy to prevent French trades with partners such as the United States. Napoleon, wanting to end the stalemate, began the build-up of a massive Franco-Spanish Navy near Trafalgar in southern Spain, for the invasion of the Isles and subjugation of Britain. Britain fearing this, sent down Nelson to perform his best and damage the fleet as he could.

Subscribe now

In a stunning move, Nelson managed to position his vessels in such an unorthodox way, unseen ever before in Naval history, and smashed into the Franco-Spanish fleet, with them unable to fire their cannons in the suitable direction. Nelson’s fleet destroyed and captured more than three-quarters of the Franco-Spanish fleet of 40 ships of the line, placing naval supremacy for the rest of the war, firmly in British hands and dashing Napoleon’s hopes of invading Britain navally.

After 1816, the navy began it’s developments on ships with Iron instead of wood, beginning a period of Ironclads, powered by coal and steam, and being significantly more armoured than their wooden counterparts and in the 1830s steamships were a common sight in the rivers and ports of Southampton and Portsmouth.

Finally, with the development of engines and turbines, the paddle was made obsolete, and steel became the dominating force in this period of relative trading ease where the British Empire Imposed the “Pax Britannica” for most of the nineteenth century, and introduced many countries into it’s economic “informal Empire,” Such as Argentina and the Qing Dynasty, (who’s city of Canton in Guangzhou was subjugated by the British Navy coming up from the Pearl River mouth in 1840 during the 1st Opium War.)

Subscribe now

In the 20th century, Britain saw the newly formed German Empire, begin to become a competitor on the naval front, with the Kriegsmarine, claiming it was time for their “Place in the Sun” to come about, but during the 1st world war, barely any Naval engagement took place apart from the Battle of Jutland In May 1916, where neither side really came out on top and both decided to return their Navies to dock, although Britain did impose a severe Naval Blockade on Germany, which prompted it’s navy to resume it’s unrestricted Submarine Warfare upon British supply.

A similar phenomenon came about during World War 2, where Britain found it’s trade and supply lines, increasingly harassed by Doenitz’s U-boat “Wolf Pack” fleets, although the development of Depth Charges and Radar made their stunning success of the 1940-42 period disappear, notably after 1943 when America began employing much of it’s Navy in the Atlantic as well, to transport troops in preparation for Operation Overlord.

The US Navy after the second world war, began to eclipse the power of the British Navy, in a symbolic passing of the torch from a “Pax Britannica” to a “Pax Americana” (supposedly), with the US pouring far more of its into its defence budget than the war-torn British economy could hope to recover.

However the real downturn didn’t come until March of 1974, where the Labour Government under Harold Wilson came to power, and was determined to cut the defence budget of the Royal Navy. Therefore many of the frigates and carriers were scrapped, with the last one, the Arc Royal, being scrapped in 1979.

Subscribe now

This therefore made it prime opportunity for Argentina to attempt an invasion into the British sovereign territory of the Falkland Islands. This sparking a war which ended with Britain reasserting in some way it’s pride and presence on the globe, with a Blue Water Navy still in working active duty, although incredibly smaller.

In the Modern Day, Britain has signed many different Naval treatise with different Western Nations across the world, such as the reciprocal treaty in 2023 with Japan, which allows Britain to have a military presence in Japanese territory and EEZ, and vice-versa.

Notice: This article and the title Historacle are the property of Empress Publications Ltd. Any unauthorised plagiarism, copying or reproduction of any kind without express permission of the company is strictly prohibited. © Empress Publications Ltd 2025

Alaska is a vast territory of 663,000 square kilometres, containing an abundance of natural resources and retaining an important strategic position within America’s future as an arctic power, which is rapidly becoming one of the most important new routes for international trade.

It is also incredibly sparse, for a state that is larger than France in overall size, it contains 1.10% of France’s population. It exhibits a climate of around -20°C as its mean temperature during the winter and a high of 11°C in July. This is therefore linked to it’s low population, and yet despite that, It boasts 9 military bases across the entire region, with 60,000 troops over all and 3 percent of all of the US’s aircraft stock, but why? Why is it so necessary to defend this territory, or not even defend it but simply have a military presence in Alaska at all?

To understand this, we first have to take a look at how the United States gained Alaska in the first place, and why it was important to acquiesce such land in the first place.

In 1867, Russia’s empire was larger than the federation’s territory is today, yet vastly more underdeveloped than modern day Siberia. They possessed influence over China’s Manchuria region, were pushing down into Central Asia just while the British Empire was pushing up from it’s power base in India. Notably, they also owned a massive and uninhabited territory in North America centred around the city of Sitka, unprofitable and inhabited by little over 4,000 people in total, and named in Russian from an Aleut indigenous word meaning “Great land,” Alyeska.

Subscribe now

Yet this year also saw Russia suffer massive financial setbacks as their Tsar (king) Alexander II, while introducing major social reforms such as the emancipation of forced labour for the lords (serfdom) still had to guide his nation through many protests, martial law in Lithuania and an uprising in Poland, while dealing with the widespread economic issues leftover by the loss of influence and resources in the Crimean War.

So when the now quite well established economic powerhouse of the United States offered to purchase the territory in 1867, Russia saw an opportunity (or at least the Tsar did) to turn a backwater and extremely underdeveloped region of the Empire into a profit of $7,2 million (around $127 million dollars of today’s money.) Therefore a deal was reached rather quickly and Russia signed away all it’s rights to the territory on the 18^th of October.

Subscribe now

From an American perspective, they had recently won a diplomatic victory against the British, gaining the entirety of the rich Oregon territory, which was seen as their “Manifest Destiny.” Therefore any opportunity to gain more influence than Britain in the Americas became a national (unspoken) priority, first with the Monroe Doctrine, effectively placing every state in the two continents under American protection, and then with Alaska. Alaska was deemed as vital as Oregon, for containing British Canada’s ambitions.

America also had the intention of increasing it’s trade with China and Japan, which it thought would vastly increase American influence in the Pacific. It would capitalize on the preparation for this acquisition by participating both in the Boxer Rebellion and taking control of port territories and quarters of cities in China, as well as forcing the Japanese economy to open up in the Harris treaty of 1854.

In the Modern Day, Alaska is worth vastly more than the United States originally bought it from Russia. Russia originally believing it to be of little to no value, has now looked on in disappointment as its oil resources were discovered in 1968. It has lead now to accumulate around 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil, transported across 1,288 kilometres of tundra by the Trans Alaska pipeline, completed in 1977. Alaska’s GDP was evaluated all things considered in 2012 to be sitting comfortably at around $63 billion. Massively beneficial for the US being the 4^th largest producer of oil for the nation.

Fishing also constitutes a massive part of why Alaska is valuable to the US, as well as a large cultural tradition for Alaskans, with an estimated revenue of $6 billion in 2021 and an estimated 2.2 billion pounds of fish are shipped from Alaska per day. However in recent years, notable 2022-23, the Alaskan fishing industry suffered a sharp drop in productivity to about 50% of its previous earnings, representing a loss of around $1,8 billion. Alaska also holds a significant amount of unmined gold in it’s mountains and canyons, about 200 million ounces of such, and many venture capitalist projects and government funded expeditions to mountains near Fairbanks ( the second largest city of Alaska) and further north along the Gates of the Arctic mountain range.

Subscribe now

Geopolitically speaking, Alaska allows American influence along the Northwest Passage, a trading route along and through the Canadian Islands and through which shipping recently has increased by an impressive 32%. The United States also realises the potential of Alaska to use as a basing point for the Naval Icebreaker fleet that they hope to see developed in the near future.

For the moment, there is a plan to use the Alaskan ports of Juneau and Prudhoe Bay to house some new military models of the US coast guard. The United States as of now however only has 2 Polar Icebreakers, the USCGC Polar Star and the USCGC Polar Sea. But this is far behind the Russian Arctic fleet which has more than 20 different Icebreakers, developed from Soviet times and some new ones commissioned by Vladimir Putin to withstand the extreme conditions further towards the North Pole.

This is done by Russia to prevent and place far more strain on the countries with the intention to pass their cargo through the Northern Sea Gate, that stretches all along the length of Russia and down through the Bering Strait to Eastasia, or the other way down through Scandinavia to Europe.

America has realized the opportunity at this crucial economic chokehold between Russian Kamchatka and Alaska, and has troops stationed along the Aleutian Islands between the Pacific and the passage to the Arctic, for example with the base Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island. Therefore in the case of an international crisis, or an enforced blockade, the United States could use its military force to shut off trade through the gap to these routes, effectively making a shipping trip from China ( the world’s largest trading partner) to Europe skyrocket from 7,000 nautical miles to 12,000, with an estimated increase in time from 14 to 25!

Subscribe now

Recently, America partnered with Canada’s efforts to develop security hubs around it’s Nunavut region and gain more than nominal influence over it’s northern regions, and participated in joint military exercises with Canada from across the Alaskan border. However, the same question of sovereignty has been coming up in regards to the Northwestern Passage, with American military forces on a number of occasions passing through Canadian Waters without explicit permission, simply claiming that the UN stipulates that these areas aren’t Canadian EEZs but free trade regions, and therefore can be used by shipping vessels and military ships.

All in all, Alaska was a fantastically lucky gain for the Americans, and represents an important and fascinating economic, military and political region, that will come in to play sometime in the future, and increasingly does so now. As the Geopolitical Axis of power and economic interest increasingly shifts away from Europe , and towards the Pacific nigh on Arctic regions as time goes on.

Notice: This article and the title Historacle are the property of Empress Publications Ltd. Any unauthorised plagiarism, copying or reproduction of any kind without express permission of the company is strictly prohibited. © Empress Publications Ltd 2025

It's 1806 and Portugal, is facing a crisis. This as we all know , is the period where Napoleon is on his revolutionary rampage through Europe and at this time has already subjugated Austria, Prussia, and Russia has decided to align with him. Only the United Kingdom and Portugal stands in the way of his European Domination, and, as aforementioned, Portugal is broke. Its people are in a state of famine and poverty thanks to the War of Oranges in 1801 with the Spanish, while still reeling from the devastating earthquake of 1755 in Lisbon.

Now with Napoleon, having taken over the Spain, invades Portugal to remove any hostile presence on the Continent, and the Portuguese Monarchy had to make a world-changing decision, stay in Portugal and be subject to being a puppet kingdom of France and declaring war on the British, or evacuating them and their Court to Brazil until the war ends. They decided on the latter, and on the 27th of November 1807, Britain sent ships to aid the evacuation of the entirety of the Portuguese Monarchy's entire court from Lisbon Harbour.

This was the first time that a European Monarch had ever visited the new world , and at this time Brazil's maximum population was 3 million and the people were in worse shape than the Portuguese, it was a real backwater of the Portuguese Empire.

Subscribe now

They arrived in Salvador and set up Court in the proceeding weeks.

The flight to Brazil and the saviour of the royal family did come with some drawbacks however, as Portugal was forced to repay Britain for their aid in the expatriation of the Court by promising to exchange goods like sugar, gold and cacao exclusively with Britain, as a sort of tithe, but they were willing to accept and so it was.

The people of Brazil, contrary to the state of the country at the time, were very accommodating of the royal family, even offering to create for Dom João VI a palace, however he refused.

The Royal family during their time in Brazil, actually adored it , Dom João VI particularly, with him going on tours around the country, and promising to make Rio de Janeiro, the new capital of Brazil (before Salvador) an advanced and marvellous city. The transfer of the Court into a new palace, as well as numerous reforms in military and economic society around that region, is considered by many to be the first step towards independence for Brazil.

These reforms continued until in 1815, when the Napoleonic Wars were concluded, and the Portuguese was demanding that the Court return to Portugal.

However João had seemed to fall in love with the colony of Brazil, and he refused to return from his new capital in Rio de Janeiro.

This led to a chain of events wherein the Portuguese, devastated from the Peninsula war, heard of his refusal, revolted and formed a government in the Liberal Revolution of 1820.. Somewhat republican and somewhat like the old "Cortes" societies of the 16th century, which convened in Lisbon and decided to demand the King's return or he would be excluded from the government entirely.

Subscribe now

He decided to return under duress, but when he returned, he raised the status of Brazil in the Empire to a Kingdom in it's own right, and allowed his son, Pedro I to rule over it.

The Portuguese people were furious that the son was left in Brazil however, and they quickly moved to revoke the privileges that Brazil had gained as a Kingdom in 1808 and 1815. Brazilians fearing this reduction, convinced Pedro I to finally liberate Brazil from Portugal.

And so on the 7th of September 1822, Pedro issued the declaration of Independence for Brazil, this started a war between Kingdom and Empire, with many loyalists taking up arms and ravaging the north and south of the massive country, however, similar to the American Revolutionary War, Portugal was unable to keep a campaign supplied for long from across the sea.

Therefore Portugal folded, and officially accepted Brazil as an independent nation on the 29th of August, 1825, Paving the way for a history of conquest, blooming economy , and a republican government that many Brazilians still resent, to this day...

Notice: This article and the title Historacle are the property of Empress Publications Ltd. Any unauthorised plagiarism, copying or reproduction of any kind without express permission of the company is strictly prohibited. © Empress Publications Ltd 2025

Subscribe now

Egypt in recent years has been a major factor in many book, papers, and discussions on the Middle East, despite not being considered to even be a part of the region , or at least not it’s traditional definition. Now to understand how Egypt became so involved in this region of the world, being at odds with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, rather than creating a great African Empire and centralising its dominance over the region where the vast majority of it’s territory lays. We must first look at it’s history, before taking a pragmatic approach towards it’s current, and future geopolitical ambitions.

The great Egyptian civilisation is on par with Iran in terms of age, having been established as the first kingdom around 3100 BC. Egypt in its history hasn’t been traditionally ruled by Egyptians for a long period of its history, which make its resurgence as a state all the more fascinating.

After the Egyptian state was taken over by the Greeks, Romans, Umayyads, Turkish, and British, it finally reasserted its at least nominal independence in 1922 from the United Kingdom. Permitted this political freedom as the Kingdom of Egypt, in part thanks to the effort of the nationalist Wafd party. The Party’s history still now has heavy modern influence on the nationalistic spirit of Egypt, even after Gamal Nasser. He encouraged pan-Arabism, and changed the political spirit when he banned all parties not associated with his own in January 1953.

In the Modern Day, as you may see, Egypt is far more associated with the Middle East’s geopolitical structure , and it has much to do with the historical focuses of the various Pharaohs and Pashas of Egypt. The Nasserist period, from 1952 to 1970 saw Egypt nationalize the Suez Canal and begin to shut it off to any nation without friendly diplomatic relations to Cairo. This prompted Israel to launch an invasion, together with Britain and France (who joined the war to regain the exclusivity rights they had in the Suez Canal), which came to be known as the Suez crisis of 1956.

Egypt was crushed militarily, with estimated total casualties and captives being between 11,550 and 37,900 to the joint allied force being 1,151 casualties and captives during the conflict. However Egypt won a symbolic and political victory, with the United States and the USSR both threatening the French and British with economic sanctions (more so from the US but the USSR imposed diplomatic pressure.) This forced the Western Powers to disgracefully remove themselves from the Suez. Israel stayed and occupied both Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula until Egypt conceded to allow Israeli shipping through the Suez.

Egypt’s combined armed forces stand at around 1.22 million men, making it the largest military force in the Middle East and the 19^th strongest military strength in the world However they’re still behind Turkey due to Turkey's forces being generally more technologically advanced. Its drone capabilities, electronic warfare systems, and modern air defence give it a tactical edge over Egypt’s vast army. Egypt, although advanced, still uses in some cases out of date weapons from the post-Soviet era. such as the missile systems SA-12 SAMs.

Egypt has recently increased it’s military spending from 2022 to 4.82 billion dollars, in an increase of 3.66%. It has also purchased military equipment from the US, at an estimated total cost of around $5,4 billion, with for an example the largest expense of the deal being the purchase of 2,183 Hellfire AGM-114R missiles at a cost of $630 million.

What Egypt plans on doing with this newfound interest in the military domain can change depending on a number of factors. Perhaps the intention of preventing Palestinian refugees from coming into the nation from across the Sinai, although Egypt has already constructed a 12 mile long border between the two volatile regions and has created three zones, each with around 22,000 troops, to protect the peninsula.

Egypt’s relations with Israel were re-established relatively peacefully after the Camp David Accords in 1979, as well as the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982. Recently however, and by that I mean from 2023 to now, their relationship has heated significantly, with the construction of a 5 mile high fence along the Israel-Egypt border in the 2010s, and many cross border conflicts happening in and around Gaza. For example, on the 3^rd of July 2023, an Egyptian policeman in Israeli territory killed 3 IDF soldiers, and incidents of this style have continued in recent years.

Saudi Arabia also represents a geopolitical problem in relative terms to Egypt, being the fourth regional power of the Middle East, with conflicting interests with them in and around the Red Sea in terms of trade and shipping influence in minor nations , (Egypt has the edge with control over the Sinai.) But tensions between the two nations since before 2012 have eased massively , and the two nations seem on the verge of a military alliance, with numerous treatise and economic pacts made.

Subscribe now

On the 10^th of May 2012, Saudi contributed $250 million worth of butane gas to Egypt during it’s fuel shortages. as well as $1 billion towards the nation’s central bank. Egypt symbolically returned the favour by returning the islands of Tiran and Sanafir and diplomatically supporting them in the blockade and condemnation of Qatar’s alleged terrorist support in 2021.

Egypt is very much so in the Saudi alliance in terms of Middle Eastern politics, opposing both Turkey’s interests in the gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as Iran’s Axis of Resistance interfering with trade both in Gaza with Hamas, and the Houthis at the Horn of Africa.

In African politics, Egypt represent one of the largest and strongest nations on the entirety of the continent, the only real threat to Egypt from Africa is the upcoming Great Power of Ethiopia. Already dominating the African Union, Ethiopia’s Lake Tana contributes a significant amount to the River flow of the Nile, which is basically the entire basis of Egypt’s 114 million strong population, settled around the River Delta and Valley of the Nile.

The GERD (Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam) was announced as finished as part of a joint-Chinese agreement to harness the hydroelectric power of the Nile. This puts Egypt at a massive extend, in the pocket of Ethiopia’s goodwill, as at any time Ethiopia could shut the dam and remove freshwater sources for half of Egypt’s entire population.

Subscribe now

Border conflicts have come about between Egypt and Sudan concerning the Halaib Triangle. But conflicts over the region have been mostly settled, with Egypt hooking up the region to the electric grid of the nation and the majority of the world recognising Egypt’s dominion over the region, although Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir stated in an interview in 2010 that he wouldn’t relinquish Sudanese claims on the region at that no concessions have been made.

Egypt’s internal politics have gone through a turbulent decade, with the widespread protests against the former 30 year president, Hosni Mubarak leading to the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 which removed the draconian political system and mass torture of workers across the Nile, instating a new president in 2012 , Mohamed Morsi. Morsi was then removed the following year on the 13^th of July 2013 by the military, after widespread protests that he was abusing the new constitution of 2011, as well as his association with the former political party turned terrorist group the Muslim Brotherhood.

Since 2014, Egypt has been run by Abdel El-Sisi, and after an election that saw him win with a 96,4 majority vote, he has gone about centralizing and securing Egypt’s control around the Gaza zone and the Sinai. Critiques of Sisi’s regime say that he has moved Egypt back into Authoritarianism, with the military taking more political control and his human rights abuses leading to widespread protests in nations with Egyptian minorities all around the world, like the protest against his visit to the United Kingdom in November 2015.

In economic terms, Egypt ( as mentioned before,) is practically completely based as a nation around the Nile river. It has made efforts to remove this economic dependence, by creating Lake Nasser in 1970 to hold a large renewable water source, as well as investing a planned $8 billion into 21 new desalination plants (while operating 90 currently.)

Subscribe now

Egypt also retains control over the most valuable canal in international trade, The Sinai, through which around 15% of world trade passes through per day. Egypt made an estimated $9.4 billion from passage through it in 2023, but it plummeted to a third of that in 2024 , mostly due to conflicts in and around the Middle East, as well as the Red Sea pirate Houthis.

Egypt in terms of mineral wealth, possesses both oil/fuel resources worth up to 25% of the entire Egyptian GDP, contained both off the coast of the Suez, as well as in the Gulf of the Suez. 3.3 billion barrels of oil were expected to be Egypt’s stock in 2018, and Egypt makes not far off $2.37 billion from oil exports every year (from 2023.) Egypt’s mineral resources also consist of Gold and Iron, which are found in over 1,000 ancient mining sites. Egypt’s Gold exports are expected to be worth around $1.63 billion as of 2023.

Egypt is a diversified economy, with a very minimal agricultural export basis due to it’s high aridity. However their main worrisome problem is the threat that Ethiopia (as aforementioned,) poses in regards to the Dam across the Blue Nile, potentially cutting off water supplies if the relations between the two nations deteriorate in the near future.

To sum the Egyptian situation in the world, it has one of if not the best equipped army in the Middle East and certainly the largest, rivalling Turkey’s dominance in the region, (albeit without Turkey’s added benefit of a blue-water Navy.) Egypt also has a diversified economy , capable of outproducing Saudi Arabia in many regards and making massive sums from the Suez canal, although cooperation between the two nations has been encouraged since 2012. It’s tough to say how things will continue in the geopolitics of the Nile Republic, with border conflicts with Israel seemingly bringing them closer and closer to warring like 1967, and their walling off of the Sinai to Palestinian refugees producing scepticism within the Arab League.

Egypt, ever the complicated nation, will most likely aim to gain independence in regards to the Nile being held hostage , and maybe one day therefore, may Egypt’s people conquer their greatest gift, and curse.

Subscribe now

Notice: This article and the title Historacle are the property of Empress Publications Ltd. Any unauthorised plagiarism, copying or reproduction of any kind without express permission of the company is strictly prohibited. © Empress Publications Ltd 2025

When the Ottoman Empire officially collapsed on the 1^st of November 1922, the Great Powers hadn’t even dreamed of a resurgence. Although they won the war for independence thanks to the brilliant military strategy of Mustafa Ataturk, the nation had been severely depleted of its economic and military prowess, due to the millions upon millions of men who left their jobs and agricultural plantations to go and fight in the First World War and the revolution.

All in all, Turkey lost 340,000 men from 1915 to 1922 and spent around 398.5 million Ottoman Lira or over 300 million euros from the year 2015, bearing in mind that the Ottoman/Turkish government during this period was constantly reliant on loans from Germany, France and Britain.

Therefore, as you may imagine, Turkey’s meteoric rise from a war-torn backwater, to a first-class Major Power that is on par with Saudi Arabia economically and outclasses them heavily in military prowess, was about as unexpected as Japan’s rise to Great Power status seemed for the time.

Turkey’s military stands at around 900,000 soldiers and 355,000 active duty men. Its mobilization laws mean that it has the power to put its fighting forces into action and mobilize a war economy at record pace, and this, as well as the high level of military spending put into technology, mean that it can exert its dominance and be a major player in the Middle East, competing with Iran and Saudi.

This influence can be well demonstrated by the recent even of the victory of the now ruling faction of Syria in December of 2024, the TFSA (Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army) entering the capital of Damascus and securing a decisive victory for Turkey’s own faction over Syria’s Ba’athist regime, ruled no longer by Bashar Al-Assad which is supported by Iran.

This event also signalled a loss of influence for Russia in this region, as before December Russia had a habitual stationing of warships in the leased port of Tartus , as the treaty made with the previous Syrian government allowed for 11 warships of the Russian Black Sea Navy. As of February 2025, no Russian vessels have been recorded docking in Tartus , and the Moscow Times posted that the new Syrian government defaulted the original treaty and now block all Russian docking in Syria.

Subscribe now

Turkey has a very powerful situation in regards to nautical trade control, which tie in with its economic power and it’s geographical situation. Having control of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus already give it massive leveraging power over trade in the Black Sea, controlling the nations that have access to exit and entry into the Mediterranean.

Turkey’s trading situation is based heavily on this balancing act that Erdogan plans to continue , between Russia and NATO, with Turkey being one of the only “European” countries to not impose restrictions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine and still imports Russian gas and allows free travel from Istanbul to Russia.

The Turkish economy, 16^th largest in the world, consists of a large car industry of around $12,1 billion with brands like Tofaş. Turkey also has an agricultural basis that remains important in the EU and Europe as a whole, with Turkey being a major supplier of vegetables (fourth largest in Europe) and being the world’s largest producer of apricots and hazelnuts.

Despite being a large exporting power in agricultural goods, accounting for 15% of exports, Turkey continues to import grain and wheat both from Russia and Ukraine, symbolising its balancing act in full swing. In July of 2023 33 million tonnes of grain from Ukraine were granted safe passage from Odessa to Turkey as part of an agreement made between Russia, Ukraine and Turkey in regards to the trading freedom of the Black Sea.

In these regards Turkey has a fantastic head start over its rivals in the Middle East, as the need for a diversified economy is something that Saudi Arabia has only in recent years realised could be a massive problem if not implemented, and Iran has a lot of progress to make in that regard, still relying on the raw materials of oil and gas , which will eventually be fully siphoned and will leave Iran with no interest from neither China nor any other nation.

Turkey’s relationship with Israel has been silently positive in recent years, (albeit the souring of relations in 2010 due to the killing of Turkish activists around Gaza by Israeli soldiers) with the Turkish government taking an interest in the Leviathan gas field located near Israel’s coast and containing 22 trillion cubic feet in recoverable natural gas. The field could take $2 billion to develop, but Turkey sees an opportunity to remove it’s reliance on Russian or (less so) Iranian gas reserves.

Subscribe now

But Turkey isn’t in an entirely positive situation, especially with the people-government relationship, with the President of Turkey, Erdogan, ruling with measures that many deem to be a threat to Turkish democracy and labelling the party “Neo-Ottomanist” which is the idea of the reassertion of Turkish power and dominion of old Ottoman territories, for example in the Balkans or, (as we have seen advances into) Syria and Iraq.

The attempted coup in 2016 reinforced this idea of removal of the freedom of the Turkish people , with the subsequent results having 150,000 people fired from government positions by Erdogan and around 50,000 people arrested. The arrest of the Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu on the 19^th of March 2025 had the EU involved in the worry for freedom of democracy in Turkey , with his arrest being hinged on the idea of his alleged support of the PKK ( Kurdish Worker’s Party) and corruption in office, although many believe him to have been arrested for his critiques of Erdogan’s presidentship.

Mentioning the PKK, the Kurdish continue to be a problem for the Turkish Army, but also an opportunity to justify their encroachments into neighbouring nations such as Syria and Iraq on the basis of National Security. for example , the Operations of Euphrates Shield and Claw Lock in March 2022 made impositions of Turkish military force a priority in Syria and Iraq respectively, with around 40 bases established in Northern Iraq to curb the PKK (in the case of Operation Claw-Lock) and the seizure of the city of Al-Bab in Syria (Euphrates Shield), tying in the aspect of Neo-Ottomanist control.

Legally Kurdish isn’t allowed to be broadcast on public airwaves in Turkey (although this happens anyway as long as there is no animosity towards the Turkish government.)

The Kurdish make up a significant minority in Turkey , of 15 million people living in eastern Turkey , within provinces near Iraq and Syria , and since 1921 this has been a problem for Turkey. The largest events in the conflict most recently have been the evictions of more than 4,000 Kurdish villages by the Turkish government.

This sparked mass protests and assaults on police. The renaming of many Kurdish cities to their Turkish form also proves a contentious point , in an effort to forcefully “Turkify” the population, An example being Dersim being renamed to Tunceli by the Ottomans in 1849, and the more recent opposition of the government to rename it to Dersim in 2012.

It’s clear that Turkey is mastering the balancing act that many nations have to contend with in today’s modern world, and it’s diverse economy and well-equipped military make for a combination ensuring it’s geopolitical ambitions in the Middle East are at least respected and at most extended. Turkey will continue to be a nation between European and Asian cultures, with political intrigue in both worlds, and with the bridge of the Bosphorus will carry out the role with either an iron fist, or a gentle demeanour.

Subscribe now

Notice: This article and the title Historacle are the property of Empress Publications Ltd. Any unauthorised plagiarism, copying or reproduction of any kind without express permission of the company is strictly prohibited. © Empress Publications Ltd 2025

Subscribe now

Iran is a nation of vastly rich culture, that much is indisputable, heralding 9000 years of human civilisation as far as humanity has traced it back thus far. From the great and ancient Achaemenid Empire of the Classical era . The first real global empire, stretching from modern day Turkey all the way to the reaches of India. To the formidable Afsharid dynasty, led in part by Nader Shah, which aimed at establishing reforms to try and seal the rift created between it and the other great Muslim empire of the Ottomans, by restructuring Shia Islam’s practices to bring it closer to the Sunni Turks , in an effort not just to ease hostilities, but to create opportunities for further expansion into Ottoman lands.

Today in the modern world, Iran is greatly hindered in international politics and trade, thanks to (but not only due to) it’s theocratic system of government brought about by the revolution of 1979, which toppled the rule of the Shah of Persia Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The FCDO still advises against all travel to Iran which puts weight to the strained diplomatic relations between Iran and the rest of the world.

The system of Islamic republic in Iran, differs widely from a very many other Muslim states in the Middle East. Under Ruhollah Khomeini, the state and nation as a whole was thrust into a radical reconstruction of political structure. The Monarchy, being an entity in government under one dynasty or another since the 7^th century BC, was replaced by a theocratic system following the Shi’a religious laws with the Ayatollah (religious leader) as the highest religious representative and therefore the supreme leader, aided and advised by a “league of experts” who decide on the new Ayatollah when the current one dies.

The Ayatollah ultimately has the final say in any matters , be it national security or foreign policy, but the President of Iran also serves a significant role, being elected by popular suffrage every 4 years, serving the state while answering to the Supreme leader. The president signs deals with foreign countries, international organisations and appoints governors and ambassadors after having first received approval from the Iranian Consultative Assembly (the parliament of Iran.)

Subscribe now

Therefore when on May 19^th 2024 the helicopter carrying both the President of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi and the foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian crashed in their helicopter near a village in Azerbaijan, there was a mixed reaction both domestically and externally . Domestically the government stated in a speech by Khamenei that.. “The nation doesn't need to be worried or anxious as the administration of the country will not be disrupted at all.”

The funeral procession was carried out in the week that followed, in Tehran, Qom, and Tehran university, until finally ending in Raisi’s hometown of Mashhad . Externally , many foreign countries showed their respect for the death of Raisi, and 60 foreign diplomats representing countries such as China, Russia, Belarus and other Muslim countries regardless of Shi’a or Sunni faith, such as Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan and Tunisia, to be present in Tehran for the event.

This could possibly indicate intentions for an improvement of diplomatic relations with Iran’s government, such as Russia who is the seventh largest trading partner of Iran, and for example have a trade value now of around $3,77 billion.

Speaking of trade and economy, Iran’s system of a centrally-planned economy, has had to adapt to the heavy international sanctions placed on it by the US and other Western nations. Already dealing with a tough geographical situation however, where it’s 86 million people are sandwiched between mountain ranges and deserts and the Persian Gulf. Iran has done well with it’s extraction of it’s vast oil and gas reserves which count for 10% of the oil and 15% of the gas reserves in the world which (like Saudi), turn it into a “energy superpower.”

Also like Saudi Arabia however, Iran has to contend with the fact that it’s economic reliance on these raw material resources (56% of their entire exporting power) will mean that when these resources run out, Iran will have to diversify quickly or run into a major trading block , therefore closing off the economy even more and straining the agricultural foundations of Iran’s economy far more. Efforts to diversify their economy have been far less than in Saudi, however they have still managed to harness their agricultural economy and now have a $5,2 billion dollar export base in agricultural goods.

In regards to international politics , Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has lost influence recently , with the decisive destruction of Bashar al-Assad’s Ba’athist regime in Syria by the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army in December 2024. Such a blow represented a considerable setback to Iran’s Axis of Resistance , which is an Iranian founded group supposedly created to counteract Israel and America’s influence in the Middle East, but often used by Iran to extend their influence in the region. Turkey has been actively making moves to curb the efforts made by Iran to dominate, of course with the capture of Damascus but also by gaining a significant military presence in Iraq’s northern regions , with over 40 military bases stationed there garrisoned by 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers operating against the PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party.)

Subscribe now

On the 17th April 2022 Operation Claw was launched by Turkish forces in Iraq to take down locations under PKK control, however also reducing the influence of the Axis of resistance in the process with an analyst from Washington, Harry Istepanian commenting..

With PMF standing for Popular Mobilisation Forces.

Iran forming this alliance was created with the removal of Israel as a political entity in mind, as their intention has always been to create a “Ring of Fire ” around Israeli borders, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestine’s Hamas, and the Houthis in Southern Yemen, and it has had most likely the most tense relationship with Israel compared with any other political relationship in the Middle East . For example, after the attacks of October 7^th 2023, Hezbollah launched 10,000 missiles into Israel. Subsequently in April 2024, Iran directly launched multiple ballistic missiles which were shot down with a 99% ratio by Israeli, British and American drones.

Israel retaliated by bombing an Iranian radio station with pinpoint accuracy , as a show of force to represent it’s ease of targeting Iran’s nuclear program if they do not cease. So, to reiterate , Israel/Iran relations are tense , and will continue to be hostile for the foreseeable future, at least as long as the current supreme leaders keeps his views on Israel and the Ring of Fire.

Being engaged in a proxy war since the establishment of the Islamic republic, Iran has fought in Iraq , Yemen, Syria and Qatar, either diplomatically or militarily to combat Saudi ambitions, therefore making the relationship between the two regional giants strained. For example , Bahrain is a state that is around 70% to 80% Shi’a , but has historically had ties with Saudi, sending aid to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88. The protests of 2011 in Bahrain calling for an end to the Monarchy’s regime were composed of mainly these majority Shi’a protestors, and were crushed by the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council made up of Saudi, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain), which set off tensions between the Shi’a Iranian government.

Subscribe now

The conflict also has the economic aspect of Saudi and Iran competing for partners to sell raw materials too. In this regard Saudi in ahead, being able to export towards the Global West nations and the BRICS aligned countries. 42% of Saudi’s exports are to the US and Japan, and 21% to China. However Iran is far more beneficial for China, with 92% of Iran’s oil exports going to Beijing, an equivalent of around 1.05-1.8 million barrels per day.

Subscribe now

But it’s clear that this war is still continuing in many ways, and many foreign diplomats now call it the new Cold War of the Middle East, Although there have been efforts made to reconcile , with Saudi Arabian foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud stating in December 2022 that they were “open to more dialogue.”

This has concluded with the reopening of diplomatic relations with Iran in March of 2023, where Ali Khamenei met the Saudi Arabian delegates and proposed to remove Iranian support for the Houthis and abided by the UN arms embargo.

There’s a lot of diplomatic wrangling to be had all in all within the nation-state of Iran, it’s wrestling with many aspects of it’s nation which do not always come together in harmony , however with the efforts made recently with Saudi Arabia and an improvement of trade with Turkey, we might see less animosity and more cooperation in the field of trade and the export of raw materials in the future .

Notice: This article and the title Historacle are the property of Empress Publications Ltd. Any unauthorised plagiarism, copying or reproduction of any kind without express permission of the company is strictly prohibited. © Empress Publications Ltd 2025