Causes of World War One Imperialism

What is Imperialism?

• Imperialism is when a powerful country claims a different area of the world for itself

• This creates an ‘Empire’• The Smaller Countries are called

‘Colonies’• Canada was once a ‘Colony’ of

Britain

• many nations had looked to expand their economic base and power through the collection of colonies leading up to WWI

• QUESTION:If having a colony brings a nation a bigger

population, what positive effect could this have on selling the nation’s goods ?

• the size of empire was a point of pride for nations

• Britain in particular bragged that the sun never sets on its empire

• Watch the time change in the next diagram – all the countries were colonies of Britain before WWI

• The rotating circle represent the sun at the highest point of the day

• QUESTION:– What does the statement ‘The Sun

Never Sets on the British Empire’ mean to you?

Look at this picture – what do you think it represents?

England

Colony

Colony

Col

ony

Col

ony

Col

ony

• QUESTION:– What do you think this picture says

about the control that England (Britain) had over the world because of its many colonies?

• France had a lot of colonies in Africa • even small nations such as Belgium

and the Netherlands had colonies in Africa, South America and Asia

• Germany had joined the race for colonies late and had some jealousy towards Britain and France – they wanted ‘their place in the sun’

• QUESTIONS:– Looking at the following Map, count how

many colonies each country has– Which colonies are the biggest? Who do

they belong to?

• Germany’s jealousy over not having colonies was a major cause of WWI

• Germany thought their military power could gain them more colonies

• Germany’s ‘place in the sun’ was supposed to look like this: