England had the world’s greatest empire thanks largely to immense coal supplies powering their navy, and coal mines were the biggest bone of contention between France and Germany. But around 1900, a shift in the winds began blowing, as titans of industry realized oil was a more efficient source of energy that allowed battleships to travel farther and faster.
Suddenly, control over oil fields ascended the throne as most valuable resource and there was a world-wide rush to locate new ones. Rockefeller monopolized North American oil, while the Nobels and Rothschilds made deals with the Czar to build refineries in the Caucasus.
Most nations of the Middle East are recent creations, along with those comprising the strategically critical Balkan states. At one time, these countries were united into the Ottoman Empire, and prior to WWI, Germany was their ally, and they were building a crucial Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad through the Balkans. The Balkans are historically the smuggling route through which east and west connect, the drug pipeline into Europe.
The heir to a British goldmine fortune created APOC by investing $500,000 to look for oil in Persia outside the Ottoman Empire. In 1908, he struck pay-dirt in what is now called Iran. Today that company is called British Petroleum.
The discovery of vast new oil fields in the Middle East rearranged the geopolitical agendas of the major powers and ushered in the wars that followed.
War is not some accident or miscommunication, but an extension of economic interests by any means necessary. Vast profits are produced, and winners architect exploitation of crucial resources for decades to come.
This is why a well-funded and highly-organized Balkan independence movement emerged, and two brief wars broke out in the Balkans prior to the start of WWI. These mini conflicts primed the pumps for the invasions and realignments that followed.
British intelligence grew concerned about the rise of a great German empire. And WWI certainly destroyed that possibility for many years.
In 1915, the dominant economic power of North America ( J.P. Morgan), began secretly buying the most important newspapers in preparation to launching a propaganda campaign designed to bring America into WWI on the side of the British.
By the end of the war, the Kaiser had abdicated and Germany accepted responsibility and given harsh fines. The terms were designed to create deep resentments instead of a lasting peace.
POSTWAR SHAKEDOWN
Major General Smedley Butler, the most decorated soldier in our history, revealed a plot by the most powerful men on Wall Street to manifest a coup against FDR and install a military dictatorship. Butler had been enlisted to lead a 500,000 man army that would be raised with $3 million in their coffers. Butler played along for a time in order to collect as much evidence as possible, and then took the evidence to Congress.
Congress did their best to cover it up and the men involved famously laughed it off claiming it had been a joke. And to this day we don’t know if it was a real coup they were planning, or a set-up-to-fail coup that would have allowed FDR to declare marital law.
Meanwhile, thanks partly to the birth of their military industrial complex, the USA was surpassing England as the world’s economic powerhouse, and Wall Street was challenging London as the primary financial center.
Wall Street banks immediately began investing millions into building armament factories in Germany, preparing for the next epic battle, which would be constructed around the elimination of the Czar and capture of the Russian oil fields, a feat that would be achieved by funding the Communist revolution.
George Patton had a bizarre death. Few realize he had been arm-chaired out of any command upon the close of combat in Europe, and put into a minor desk job tasked with historical research when he began investigating the disappearance of a trainload of Reichsbank gold and possibly also the collusion between the Soviet and Allied commands to prolong WWII so that profits could be fully milked and the black gold carefully distributed into secret coffers.