Nationalism is one of the causes of World War I. Nationalism is what made people become proud of their country. It also makes them support and fight for their country. Including imperialism and militarism, countries started to increase their armies power. Countries like Italy, Germany, Russia, and France became great powers. Nationalism encourage countries to be independent. Other countries that weren’t a great power like Serbia wanted to be independent because of Nationalism. They wanted to form their own country and be separate.
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I agreed that nationalism played a major role in World War I. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian, a wave of nationalism erupted in Austro-Hungary. Nationalism would not have been as strong if the murderer was of Austro-Hungary descent. In addition, by ignoring and letting the incident slip away would be a major blow to the pride of the country and their people. Therefore, it was necessary to wage war with Serbia.
Prior to the start of World War I, many countries were already engaged in a comeptitive battle for power, money, and land. By entering the war, it would provide a chance for countries to prove who was the “fittest” of them all, especially if they won. Nationalism also arose because people believed their country was the best. This sense of confidence would then transcend to the battleground.
Nationalism was one of the four main reasons that WWI occured. One example of nationalism contributing to the start of the war was nationalism in Russia. After Russia lost the Crimean War to Britain and France in 1856, Russia signed the Treaty of Paris and Russia which stated that Russia was not allowed to expand their land into the Balkan area. Russia eventually broke that treaty and began to focus their attention on the Balkan area because Russia was interested in acquiring warm water ports. During the early 20th century, the Balkan area was known as the powder keg of Europe because of a large mixtue of various ethnic groups in that area. One of the ethnic groups in the Balkans were Slavs and the majority population of Russia were also Slavic. Russia used this fact to win over the Slavic support in the Balkan area, claiming that they will protect of Slavsof the Balkans.
This topic seems to be worthy of the midterm not only because of it’s historic significance but because of the similarities we may notice in the modern world. With countries such as China increasing military spending and surrounding countries follow suite, one needs to understand the potential consequences of doing so. As mentioned above, Nationalism encouraged the world to participate in militarism and imperialism which effectively brought upon WWI.