WWI: Background and Causes

Belle Epoch – Beaux Arts

Nationalism: What is it? How does it make war more likely?

Nationalism:

Nationalism: Austria-Hungry

Nationalism• Nationalism: devotion to national

interests, identity, and/or independence• One of the most powerful forces

animating European politics in the 19th/c.

• Prussia under Bismarck would unify Germany in 1872 through the conquest of France in the Franco-Prussian war.

• Kaiser is named ruler of all Germany in the “Hall of Mirrors” to rub France’s face in her humiliation

• Germany became at once the most powerful nation in Europe and aggressive War was a big part of her story

• Austria-Hungry: the other nationalism!• Is nationalism a good or bad thing? Do

we foster too little or too much?

Imperialism

Imperialism• How could the 19th/C. scramble for

African and Asian colonies contribute to war?

• Fosters an international climate of rivalry• Fosters political conceptions informed by

social Darwinism, exaggerated nationalism, and easy military victory

• Wilhelm II would pursue a “World Policy” so his Germany could rival Britain-oddly in an attempt to win closer alliance with Britain

• Cartoon depicts the “2nd Algerian Crises where Kaiser Wilhelm II sends German warship into a French colony and stirs up trouble? What are German intentions? Can she be trusted? What are her capabilities and can we live with them?

Militarism

General Brunhardi: Germany & the Next War

• APPARTS

• For S, discuss what militarism is and how it makes war very likely when societies embrace militarism

Militarism

• Glorifying the military and military power and focusing societies energies for the purpose of war fighting

• Gen. Bernhardi: ecstatic belief in social Darwinism and progress through war

• All European states were militarized with universal conscription

• Wilhelm particularly was animated by marshal values and experiences

• Germany began a policy of naval construction in the 1890’s that forced Britain to seek alliance with France & Russia in the early 20/c. and a massive arms race

• Do more weapons and military power always make us safer?

Alliances

Alliances

• Bismarck had always carefully maintained his “rule of three”

• “World Policy” and Battleship building pushed Britain to alliance with France and Russia – Called the Triple Entente – in the first decade of the 20th/c.

• The collapse of the Ottoman Empire put Austria and Russia into conflict and Germany in the middle

• How do Alliances make war more likely – how less likely?

• Shade the two alliance systems on your map

Kaiser Wilhelmfrom: “The Great War, Vol. #1”

• What kinds of issues did Kaiser Wilhelm have?

• How could these traits and experiences have destabilized Europe in the era before WWI?

– Militarism as a fetish

– Navel Envy

– Rule of 3

Assassination

Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand

• People of the Balkans are largely Slavic (like Russia) ethnically but had been ruled by the Muslim Ottoman Turks for centuries

• Austria had snatched Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878 from Turks and played the Russians

• By 1913 the Balkans were newly independent countries with Serbia being the largest and dominant

• Slavic Bosnians wish to join (nationalism) Serbia to form an all Slavic greater Serbia

• Toward that end a 19 year old terrorist/patriot shot Archduke Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 (an interesting story)

• Label the concatenation of ensuing events on your map