Explain how 2 of these M.A.I.N. causes of WW1 impacted and influenced each other.

Question

nationalism imperialism alliances militarism

Answer 1

Militarism, or a country’s pursuit of building and equipping an army, led to other countries forming defensive alliances, fearing that the stronger ones, those who had made militarism their goal, would attempt to conquer them. Militaristic countries often built their power on the rhetoric of nationalism, which, in simple terms, is pride in one’s country and the belief in one’s nation's superiority. This belief led to imperialism, on the basis that other nations are inferior and need to be led by a superior one. Imperialism can be defined as a nation's tendency to extend its power over another through conquest, economic influence, or other forms of domination.

Applied to WWI: After unification, Germany began to raise a strong army and build its arsenal of weapons, including some modern technologies such as machine guns and rapid-fire artillery. At the same time, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed a defensive alliance known as the Triple Alliance in 1882. Seeing the rise of such power in a short time, France, Great Britain, and Russia formed a bilateral alliance, which coagulated later into the Triple Entente (1907). When World War I began, all the belligerent countries were engaged in some form of imperialism, including colonies in Africa, the Russo-Japanese War, British domination of India, and the ambitions of Italy and Germany to expand. Nationalism was one of the primary reasons that sparked World War I. When Frantz Ferdinand was killed, the pan-Slavism movement was seeking to liberate the Slavic population caught in other countries and unite them under one Slavic nation.

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