World War I might have begun in 1914 officially, however, it did not start in just a day. It took decades to a century of ideas and value differences to finally ignite the powder keg that started the First World War. The ideals of nationalism, imperialism, and the sudden growth of countries military and navy are the true long-term causes of World War I.
The first cause of World War I was the idea of nationalism that was in Europe many years before the war started. Nationalism is the “movement to unify a country under one government based on perceptions of the population’s common history, customs, and social traditions” (Cole, Symes Western Civilizations, A47). The countries that are in Europe today used to be many groups of people rather than one state or government under the same name. The fight for control over each nation caused stress and tension all over Europe. Each group wanted to be leaders of the countries that they were forming and that in turn caused strife amongst themselves. With all of this tension in such a small continent, it was only a matter of time before the Powder Keg of Europe blew up, enraging the entire world and starting the war. While many people know that the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was technically the start of the war, it was just the trigger for the spark that lit that powder keg and led to everyone taking arms against each other due to all of the hostility in such a small space such as Europe.
The second cause of World War I was the growing idea of imperialism that occurred during the nineteenth century. “Imperialism is the process for extending one state’s control over another – a process that takes many forms,” (Cole, Symes, 596). Imperialism practically goes hand in hand with nationalism because Part of the growth in this idea was Europe’s race to place colonies in Africa, also known as The Scramble of Africa. The main rivalries were between Great Britain, France, and Germany. Great Britain had the biggest colonial empire with 400,000,000 people in a 33,000,000 square kilometer area (Colonial Empires, 1913. Chart). France had a population of 56,000,000 people a 11,500,000 square kilometer area, only one-eighth of Great Britain. While France and Great Britain were dominating the colonial control in Africa, Germany was filled by jealousy and because it only had 12,000,000 people in a 2,950,000 square kilometer area. Germany did not have as much of an easy time for growing it’s colonial empire and ran into the Herero people in modern day Namibia. The Herero people rebelled against Germany and Germany responded with the ethnic killing of the Herero people, a glimpse into the Germany’s ethnic cleansing background. This resentment towards the struggle of growing their own empire and watching the success of France and Great Britain fueled nothing but hatred and strife between those three major countries.
The final cause of World War I was the growth in the countries’ military and naval arms. After the strife imperialism and nationalism shaping the way the countries thought amongst themselves, which caused tension all over Europe, Germany, France, and Great Britain entered an unspoken arms race. While it took Great Britain and France twenty-four years from 1890 to 1914 to double their army and navy, Germany doubled their military force in only four years from 1910 to 1914 (The Rise of Militarism, 1870-1914). Germany knew that they needed to focus on both on the naval race as well as the arms race. With France’s arm and Great Britain’s amazing naval fleet and history of naval victories, Germany needed to focus very heavily on their military. These countries have had wars between themselves before and that fueled them to race against each other, all while racing to get the most colonies as well. The arms race only created even more distrust and tension between the countries, which put Europe on the brink on an explosion.
Nationalism, imperialism and the arms race of Europe created the tension that all packed into the powder keg that was waiting to explode, sending Europe into chaos. Close to one hundred years of ideals being grown and shared amongst the countries were building up to an unfathomable war and the deaths of many. All that was left was to set off a chain reaction by assassinating Franz Ferdinand.