Oil and the Origins of the Great War

Abstract This article looks at the strategic if little‐known role of oil and construction of the Berlin to Baghdad railway link between the German Reich and the Persian Gulf through what is today Iraq, in igniting an economic, military, and diplomatic confrontation in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and how it ultimately contributed to the move to war in 1914. This article will set down the background to this contentious issue, and analyze the various interpretations that authors have set down in the past. It will argue that despite appearances, the British Empire was in decline after about 1873 while the new German economic colossus presented an entirely new challenge to British hegemony. To secure future domination of the seas, after 1882 leading British circles around Admiral Fischer and Winston Churchill pushed through the conversion of the Royal Navy from coal to oil. The article goes into how the Berlin‐Baghdad presented an unacceptable strategic threat to that vital strategy. The various phases in the buildup to the Great War will be examined, along with the role of oil within this broad framework. Finally, the author will posit his own conclusions to this debate.