In 1906, the new great crisis of the day began. The Ottoman Empire, long the sick man of Europe and a Russian lapdog for a while less, had come under the control of a new faction known as the "Young Turks", a nationalistic and progressive movement that sought to modernize and reform the Ottoman Empire and save it from collapse. Part of their platform was to break the Ottoman Empire out from Russian control, which it had been under ever since the end of the disastrous Anatolian War.
This did not sit well with Moscow, who began to tighten diplomatic screws on the Empire in an attempt to get it to return to obedience. France, Russia's ally, responded by approving of and even aiding them in their efforts. The result of this was the Young Turks turning to Germany for aid, and Kaiser Wilhelm II was eager to prove Germany's might against the European powers. The two nations surreptitiously signed a treaty that guaranteed that if the Ottomans were to declare independence, Germany would support it. This would be the final bit of tinder that would serve to set Europe ablaze.
For the time being, though, Scotland was existing in what was called the "Era of Good Feelings". The public at-large and the government all felt that nothing was capable of going wrong, with the Scottish Empire standing strong in the world. They had fast allies, a booming economy, and had won their intervention in the American attempt to reconquer New Afrika. It wouldn't have been a stretch to think that mankind had entered a new and free age of thinking, acting, and working. Since the start of the 1900s, new anti-pollution laws had been passed that had seen the results of clearer air and water, saving many lives and improving both the health and environment of Scotland. Progressive legislation had also seen the creation of the first "National Reserves", areas of land that had been underdeveloped for some time, and would be made to remain undeveloped in order to serve as places of relaxation and rejuvenation for the Scottish people.
The first major blow to the Era of Good Feelings was two railroad disasters at once. In 1908, a combination of bad weather and poor maintenance of a railroad bridge over the Firth of Forth lead to it collapsing during a period of high winds at a time when two passenger trains were passing over it. Both trains were sent plunging into the water, and 78 people drowned. Mere hours later, two trains that had been switched onto the same track collided on a viaduct over Loch Ness near Inverness, resulting in the boiler of one engine exploding, and this resulted in the stone viaduct collapsing into the loch, killing 45 people and injuring many more. Public outrage over such catastrophes happening so close together lead to a massive inquiry into the condition of Scottish railroads nationwide by Prime Minister Thomas Shaw, which was spurred on even more when yet another bridge collapsed, this time over the River Clyde near Erskine that killed 51 people, 28 of which were children. The results of the inquiry showed that the railroads of Scotland had been intentionally neglecting maintenance in order to construct what few new railroads could be constructed. The inquiry also determined that the private interests were incapable of properly managing their own railroads, and suggested that drastic action be taken before some new catastrophe completely incapacitated the railroads in Scotland. This directly lead to the passage of the Railroad Nationalization Act of 1908, which mandated the government acquisition of all assets of the three major railroad companies in Scotland and their merger into a new state-owned railroad, which was labeled Caledonian Railways. There was a lot of initial opposition, but the new railroad quickly began to standardize operations and prices. Public opposition to the plan quickly began to fade when prices for railroad travel were slashed nationwide.
In 1909, the bottom fell out of everything. In April of that year, the Russians sent an ultimatum to the Turkish government demanding that it renege on its efforts to wiggle out from under Russian control. This was exacerbated when the Russian Minister to the Ottomans was assassinated by sympathisers to the Young Turks. In response, Germany and Austria-Hungary began to mobilize in preparation for war with Russia, and the Russians and French began to mobilize as well. Scotland, fearing that war was imminent, also began to marshall its own forces in preparation. England, on the other hand, was more nervous that a Scottish mobilization might lead to a surprise attack on itself, and mobilized in tenuous preparation for a war with Scotland rather than a war on the continent. Finally, the deadline for the ultimatum came and went, and Russia thusly declared war on the Ottoman Empire. The treaty they had made with Germany kicked in, and Germany went to war with Russia, bringing Austria-Hungary with it. And following its own treaty, the French Empire declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. The "Great War" had begun.
All at once, the major powers of Europe were at war. France and Russia, confident in a quick victory, did not initially call Scotland into the conflict, giving it just a bit more time to prepare itself. Sensing that it would be drawn into the war in a short time, the Parliament passed the Wartime Preparedness Act, which gave the government the ability to institute a draft as well as the ability to requisition civilian ships for wartime use. The war in Europe quickly ground to a halt, with trench warfare as had been seen in the Invasion of New Afrika suddenly being brought to the fore in Europe. All nations, which had expected a quick and easy victory, suddenly found themselves in a massive quagmire on all fronts, especially that between France and Germany. Desperate to try and gain an advantage, the Germans began an invasion through Belgium just as France called on Scotland to join it in the war. England, who as the United Kingdom had guaranteed Belgian neutrality with the 1840 Treaty of London, was outraged at the German invasion of a neutral nation, and declared war a day before Scotland did. The British Isles were now involved in the war effort.
Initially, it made little difference. Scottish and English forces were moved to Southampton in order to embark for France, and once they arrived at the front, they were put through a meat grinder. The war soon came to be a bloody stalemate on both sides, with the Entente and the Allies both struggling to try and make any headway. Russia in particular suffered, as now that the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus were closed to it, as well as Germany blockading the Oresund, they had almost no ability to export grain nor import supplies it could not produce. Meanwhile, the Germans, even though they were advancing through towards Russia, were already starting to feel the economic pressure of a blockade. The slaughter continued without end through 1910, even as Italy finally answered the calls of Germany and joined the Central Powers, opening a new front in southern France. Regardless, the war soon reached yet another stalemate when the Austro-Hungarian forces proved to be so caught up in Russia that they provided little support for the Italians.
By 1911, the war had been dragging on for almost four times as long as anyone had expected, and members of the Scottish Parliament were calling loudly for peace. James VIII was himself somewhat unbalanced about the issue, as his mother and grandmother had been Italian, and now he was involved in a war against Italy. It was similar to how Edward VII in England felt about being at war with Germany, as his own House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was descended from the German House of Hanover, and how he was now fighting against his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II, and how Kaiser Wilhelm II was fighting against his cousin Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The whole conflict was lampooned in the papers as being "a family dispute gone horribly wrong." Regardless, James VIII declared that he would continue the war as long as was needed. It was to this end that, in late 1911, James VIII was assassinated by a pro-German cabinet member. The intent he gave was to finally get Scotland to withdraw from the war, and surrender. The actual effect, as so often happens with assassinations, was the exact opposite. The Scottish Parliament and the new King James IX declared that they would stand resolute against German opposition, even as a detachment of the Kriegsmarine had slipped through the blockade and managed to shell Aberdeen briefly before being sunk by the Royal Scots Navy.
By late 1911 and early 1912, Scotland, rapidly depleting its manpower at home, began to call on its dominions abroad even further. The whole of the Scottish Empire had been at war along with its mother country, helping to take control of German and Austro-Hungarian colonies in Africa along with attacking the Ottoman Empire, but now, they began to call even more soldiers up to the European Front, especially as Russia withered under the relentless assault. The Sikh Empire happily took up arms with its "European Sister" as it had come to be called. Many Sikh soldiers fought honourably on the fields of France and Belgium, earning them respect of many European nations and cementing it firmly its status of "civilized". No matter how much it helped, though, it did not do enough to make a breakthrough. 1913, the fourth year of the conflict, opened with the war yet continuing. Once, long ago, the people of Europe had marched confidently off to war. Now, though, war had become a dirty word. War had changed once and for all, it had become something that needed to be ended as quickly as possible and then never fought again. People all across Europe wanted it to end. But the armies of the Entente and the Allies continued trying to smash through. An abortive campaign in Thessaloniki ended in failure for the Entente. A German push through Soissons to drive on Paris was destroyed. A combined effort from Scotland and England and Ireland, newly entered the war after much debate, could not break the blockade of the Oresund. Russia's last-ditch effort to push back outside Minsk failed utterly and resulted in the German capture of the city.
In mid 1913, something began to break. On all sides, anti-war protests broke out. The citizens were tired of the endless conflict that was sacrificing their sons for no tenable gain. Berlin was seized by revolts. St. Petersburg, renamed Petrograd, suffered similar riots. France seemed poised to relive the Paris Commune. And even parts of London and Edinburgh were in anarchy. Finally, in September of 1913, a German diplomat traveled to London under flag of truce to negotiate an end to the war. Everyone's ego all over Europe had been bruised. No one was in a mood to try and beat any major concessions out of each other or even claim victory. As such, with everyone equally damaged in the cataclysmic conflict, the war ended with only a few changes. The Ottoman Empire, wracked by revolt and invasion, fell apart into civil war and began to suffer from a new Greek invasion. Russia was about to completely implode in on itself, and were forced to cede the creation of a small Kingdom of Poland as a buffer state under German control. The German-French border was left untouched, and both Belgium and Luxembourg had their independence restored, Germany was in no position to try and annex them. Italy was left unchanged, reeling from what many Italians saw as the "wrong choice" in supporting the Central Powers. Austria-Hungary claimed the annexation of Bosnia, but the breakdown of law and order in its already fragile Slavic territories made this largely moot in the immediate aftermath of the war. And Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, after the complete mess he had made of all of Europe, was more or less forced to abdicate by the ministers in the German government, in favor of his son, who became Kaiser Wilhelm III.
As the sun set on 1916, the war had been over for three years. Almost all diplomacy was reduced to essential only, with nations retreated within themselves to lick their wounds. Scotland, farther removed from the fighting, had almost nothing to rebuild. But the loss in manpower, in irreplaceable lives and citizens, was all-encompassing in its reach. Families had lost fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons in what was now called the "Great War". One thing was now utterly certain. No one wanted a war in Europe ever again.