Imperialism, Colonialism, and the Road to World War I

Posted on Feb 7, 2025 in History

Imperialism and World War I

From the 1870-71 war between Prussia and France, the creation of the German empire, and the disappearance of the French empire, several factors contributed to the outbreak of World War I:

  1. Economic rivalry: colonialism.
  2. Political rivalry: Alliances, new powers (the USA and Japan), and the Basque Country.
  3. The Balkans conflict.

Losses Due to Colonialism

  • Between 1811 and 1825, Spain lost its South American colonies.
  • In 1898, Spain lost its final colonies in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

Key events:

  • 1876: Law abolishing fueros (Basque institutions)
  • 1914: World War I
  • 1917: Russian Revolution
  • 1931: Second Spanish Republic
  • 1936: Spanish Civil War/Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country
  • 1939: World War II
  • 1945: First nuclear bomb used on civilians

Consequences of Colonialism for the Colonies

  1. Demographic consequences: Growth due to medical advances.
  2. Social consequences: Destruction of ethnic structures.
  3. Economic consequences:
    1. Mining
    2. No industrialization: the colonies merely provided markets.
    3. Single-crop agriculture serving the colonial power’s domestic needs.

Political Rivalry and the Road to War

Patriotism: People were deeply patriotic and wanted their own country to be the best and most successful.

The Arms Race: Germany and Russia were building up massive armies. Germany and Britain were building up many new warships.

War Plans: War was accepted as a way for countries to get what they wanted. Some wanted a war; others said it was inevitable. This caused a dangerous ‘climate of war’.

Rival Empires: Each European power had an overseas empire. Britain had the biggest, and Germany wanted one.

Alliances: Countries made alliances with each other, promising to protect each other in the event of an attack by an aggressor.

The Kaiser: From 1870, Germany had been growing stronger. Germany’s rivals were suspicious of their ruler, the Kaiser Wilhelm II. They thought he wanted to make Germany even stronger, at any cost.

The Balkans: A Powder Keg

The Balkans were weakened by the Turkish empire. In 1908, Austria-Hungary invaded Bosnia-Herzegovina and annexed it to their empire. The Bosnians were Slavic people, like neighboring Serbia and Russia. Serbia and Russia were therefore very anti-Austrian. This area was called ‘the Balkans’. In 1830, Greece obtained independence from the Ottoman Empire. After that, many other nations began to seek independence, but the borders weren’t easy to determine. The Austro-Hungarian and the Russian Empires wanted to take advantage of the weakness of the Ottoman Empire. These were the most significant causal factors in the outbreak of the First World War.

The Treaty of Versailles

In 1919, Britain, the USA, and France met in Versailles (France) to agree on a peace treaty. Germany wasn’t invited.

They wanted:

  1. Reorganize Europe.
  2. To establish the culprits of the war.
  3. Find a system to maintain the peace.

So they decided:

  1. Creation of the ‘League of Nations’, a peacekeeping organization.
  2. Disappearance of the Empires of Central Europe.

Consequences: The main affected country was Germany. They had to pay for all the damage of the war, reduce their arms, and lost many colonies. They weren’t allowed to join the ‘League of Nations’.

World War I: Causes and Consequences

Causes:

  1. Mutual defense treaties
  2. Economic rivalry
  3. Colonialism competition
  4. Arms Race

Consequences:

  1. Emergence of the USA
  2. Exaltation of nationalism
  3. Disappearance of big empires
  4. Creation of the League of Nations