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Look up the Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad, and see British oil holdings in Persia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_campaign_(World_War_I) https://en.wikiped
by photochemsyn 4y ago
Look up the Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad, and see British oil holdings in Persia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_campaign_(World_War_I) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_campaign_(World_War_I)
Clearly the transition of global navies from coal to oil around 1906 meant that dominating the world's oceans would require secure sources of oil. Read Daniel Yergin's "The Prize".
- jcranmer 4y agoI did acknowledge the discovery and exploitation of Persian oil holdings in 1906, which is of course three years after the start of the Berlin-Baghdad railway. That makes it still impossible for the Germans to be interested in the Middle East for its oil, since the start of the German interest predates any knowledge by anybody of oil resources. Trying to turn every war into being ultimately based on a war for control over resources is already a task that often overruns available evidence. In trying to turn WWI into a war over Middle Eastern oil, however, you sail so far that you need to invoke time travel.