Causes of world war I Essay
War does not start in a day. The immediate cause of World War 1 (WW1) was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but there were three more underlying tensions that were imperialism, militarism, and nationalism. One of the most influential ideas in Europe during the early 1900’s was imperialism.
Imperialism is the policy of extending a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language).
Germany saw that other European powers were acquiring colonies around the world, and now that there were only a small amount of useless colonies, Germany had to fight the other Europeans for land. WW1 just gave Germany an excuse for battling other countries. Due to the imperialist ideas in Europe, tension was created between the European powers as Germany realized it need colonies. Imperialism was a very important underlying cause of WW1, but there were also other cause, another one of them was militarism.
Militarism was the build up of a nations arms and military technology. This tension was started by Germany, which started to build up its army and navy. This started an arms race between the European nations. Even though an arms race was a reason to build and develop an army, there was another. Countries thought that the larger the army, the less people would think of attacking them. They thought it would produce peace. Militarism is an idea that is still practiced to this day; hopefully it will not end up in world war as the European nations did. Imperialism and militarism are both very affective underlying causes, but the tension that eventually “pulled the trigger” to war was nationalism.
The Essay on Why Did Germany Lose World War Two Despite Its Victories Early In The War
The defeat of Germany in World War Two was due to many factors. All of these factors were influenced by the leadership and judgment of Adolf Hitler. Factors such as the stand fast policy, Hitlers unnecessary and risky decision making in military situations, for example when attacking the USSR, and the declaration of war on the US. Plus other factors, like Hitlers alliance with Italy, despite its ...
Nationalism is one’s strong feelings/emotions or loyalty to its country. All the people in Europe felt this loyalty, but one place that might have felt it the most was in Serbia. The Serbs and the Bosnians wanted to become one country due to their similarities. One person that stopped the movement was Archduke Franz Ferdinand who refused because the Austria-Hungary Empire would be losing colonies, which meant resources. A national group, called the Black Hand, which had strong emotions in favour of creating the new country, did not want anyone getting in the way of the movement. This is why they assassinated the Archduke. Even though nationalism is a powerful emotion that can inspire nations to achieve great accomplishments, it can still be devastating when taken out of proportion, such as in the case of the Black Hand.
Nationalism was eventually the underlying tension that resulted in the spark that started WW1, but the two other underlying tensions, imperialism and militarism, were just as important. A snowball does not appear in an instant, but takes time to roll and accumulate before it is ready to attack, so too is war.
