ABSTRACT
The dimensions of Europe in 1914 did not differ significantly from those of 1780. There had been a retreat of Turkish power from the Balkans where the independent states of Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania had emerged. The Russian empire had extended westwards to include much of Poland. But in other respects Europe’s boundaries were much as they had been before the French Revolution. The really significant changes had occurred in terms of population and industrialisation. If Russia is included as a European state, then Europe’s population amounted to 423 million in 1900, nearly four times what it had been in 1780. More significant than this share, however, was the degree of economic dominance exercised by Europe, which in the nineteenth century had become the powerhouse of the world. In 1900 Europe accounted for 62 per cent of world manufacturing output. European empires dominated the rest of the world. By 1900 the whole of Africa had been partitioned between the European powers with the exception of two small states: Liberia, founded in 1822 to provide a refuge for liberated slaves from the USA, and Abyssinia, which successfully resisted an Italian attempt to colonise it in 1896 only to succumb to Italian conquest in 1935.
