it was the reason for Barbarossa, the first Germany defeat, and it was the only way Germany could replenish the oil used on the Russian offensive, which forced them to squeeze the polish camps dry. they lost it one baku.
it was also where most modern billionaires made their fortune.
Assuming you're talking about stategic defeats, I'm pretty sure the Battle of Britain was earlier. Possibbly North Africa too, but that's more debatable.
The Baku oil fields were capitalized by the Rothschild banking dynasty, which was already immensely wealthy before the oil age. Perhaps others will weigh in, but as I recall this was in response to the fabulous wealth Rockefeller was realizing in the United States. Petroleum had always been present around Baku and elsewhere, but it hadn't been exploited on the same industrial scale. It was sometimes regarded as an inconvenience which devalued land.
Sure - I don't doubt that Baku made some people fabulously rich, I'm more curious about "most modern billionaires", specifically "most". I'm not even convinced that most modern billionaires made their billions through petroleum, much less Baku.
In this case, the Rothschilds were already a powerful European banking dynasty. There are many shadowy speculations about the different branches of this family. Perhaps this is where the confusion originates.
The Nobel family did better relative to their previous station. In the end the Baku concerns were sold to Rockefeller before being nationalized after the Russian Revolution.
I'm not sure what you're trying to get at: where's the irony in "Germany started a war to get some oil. Now someone else starts a war and Germany doesn't want to do business with them because they had enough of warmongering people"? What am I missing?
That is kind of a Pierce Morgan question: "Do you condemn $X"?
Yes, I condemn $X. Does it make a difference? Buying oil and gas from Russia, which is happening anyway by laundering it through India, does not make a difference. Ukraine knew this, so it kept the Russian pipelines open and collected transit fees while brutally criticizing Germany for Nordstream!
No one in the West any longer claims that Russia blew up Nordstream. The latest WSJ article blames it on Zalushny. That is currently the mainstream version, others still believe Seymour Hersh.
Strange that the pipeline (whose existence has been a major problem to both the US and a number of EE nations) happens to blow up, after Biden delivers a little speech on it:
> If Russia invades (Ukraine) ... again, there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it
And when pressed for more information on this rather ominous statement, refused to elaborate.
Its always odd when the 'it would be a shame if anything happened to it' establishment actually burns down. Even odder when the person the German investigation claims to be responsible did the sabotage out of Poland, and then fled to Ukraine.
With no support from the authorities of either nation, of course, despite both of them having Cheshiric grins over the sabotage.
I suppose it's very fortunate that Russia bent over backwards to do Biden, Zelensky, and Poland such a favor.
it was the reason for Barbarossa, the first Germany defeat, and it was the only way Germany could replenish the oil used on the Russian offensive, which forced them to squeeze the polish camps dry. they lost it one baku.
it was also where most modern billionaires made their fortune.