The Cause Of Genocide: WWI

The Causes of Genocide: WWI World War I was the deadliest war of the 20th century resulting in a death toll of around 16 million and over 20 million injured. However, this deadly conflict cannot be blamed on solely one country, but on many different countries that used imperialism and nationalism to their personal gain. The outbreak of WWI was primarily due to the tensions created by nationalistic ideas, imperialistic actions taken by many European countries, and militarism which is a combination of both nationalism and imperialism. Nationalistic ideas created by European countries before the war can be greatly blamed for the build-up of WWI. Nationalism helped sparked unification of once many separates states into very powerful European
countries like Italy and Germany. Germany used nationalism along with Bismarck’s Realpolitik to overcome the barrier the Congress of Vienna set of unification and quickly became successful countries economically and politically. Italy untied with pure dedication and nationalism, with Garibaldi leading the way to a unified Italy. Every other European country saw each other growing more powerful by the day, and thus many more countries started to use nationalism to promote themselves. They did this because they did not want to fall behind economically and militarily to powerful nations that would become major threats as being the next world power. This quickly turned into most countries’ goal now, which caused tensions between rivaling nations. Before the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire suppressed the independence of many Slavic countries the empire encompassed. These smaller nations within the empire utilized nationalism to receive recognition from all of Europe. A prime example of this would be the event that sparked WWI; the assassination of the Archduke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. They were killed in their car while on a publicity tour by a man named Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist from a rebellious group that strove for recognition of Serbia’s independence known as the Black Hand. Nationalism created tension and the eventual cause of WWI, but imperialism also assisted in creating problems in Europe. During this time many European countries also used imperialism to expand their countries’ power and wealth, which might have seemed beneficial at first but down the road created many tensions between rivaling countries economically.
Many European countries like Britain and Germany were competing for land in Africa to set up overseas empires. Over time, the competition for land in Africa became serious with many countries like Belgium, France, Germany, Britain, and Italy all competing at once. This desire for land by these countries was fueled by the benefits of the natural resources Africa had to offer. The mineral revolution only made matters worse, for when diamonds were discovered countries rushed and competed to own land with potential diamond mines. However, the leader in the diamond industry in Africa quickly became Britain. This led to many countries like Germany and Italy to build resentment for Britain because of the wealth it was reaping from these diamond mines. They began to question at this point whether or not to consider Britain an ally or enemy, and thus lead to the formation of the triple alliance between the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, and Italy. Germany’s economic jealousy of Britain not only rooted from the diamond industry in Africa but in Britain’s success with the utilization of imperialism. Germany did take steps in the right direction towards imperializing places. They built the Berlin-Baghdad Railway to increase relations while receiving oil, but it was never as successful as Britain’s Empire. At one point the British Empire had control of around 25% of the entire world. This allowed for them to not only harvest precious metals and minerals like gold and diamonds, but cash crops as well. Cash crops were popular during this era, and they were crops that were planted on colonized land, for the sole purpose of luxury and income; non-essential to human life and exported out of the area grown in to Europe. This along with the precious
metals that Britain was gaining so much wealth from caused Germany to feel threatened by what they thought was a world power, and thus was another reason which led to Germany siding against Britain and the allies during the war. Militarism caused a major rivalry between countries militarily, which created a competition for power in Europe. Militarism is a byproduct of when nationalism and imperialism are used by a country for personal gain. Militarism is the idea of building ones army to be the biggest and best fighting force than any other country. Once Europe saw Russia and Britain mobilizing and building their armies up, every other European country soon realized that war was going to break out soon. This led to many countries increasing their armies based off of the strength of other neighboring countries’ armies. As one country would increase the size of their army, every other country competing would increase their army to be equal or bigger in order to keep in the same league as everyone militarily. This spark in military advancement also led to the development of new technologies. However, Germany would soon be known as the leaders in military innovations due to the high amount of militarism and nationalistic ideas in the mindsets of many German people. Germany invented many new technologies that made them militarily advanced than almost every other country in the world. An example of German innovation during this time was the invention of the mobile howitzer know as Dicke Bertha which is German for “Big Bertha”. This howitzer was designed by a company called Krupp in Germany. This mobile artillery was the replacement for its predecessor the Gamma-Gerät, artillery equipment that would be transported via railroad. The invention was a key factor that led many Europeans to recognize Germany as a dangerous military force of Europe, and was also another reason why Germany was able to crush through Belgium and Luxembourg’s brittle forts when it was invaded in 1914. When it is examined closely, there are many reasons why WWI broke out and many scholars and historians debate constantly what was the one main reason. However, it is certain that these three ideas of nationalism, Imperialism, and militarism assisted eachother towards causing the Great War. When the war finally ended in 1917 after an armistice, tensions were never really resolved. Germany left the war bitter with the world, any everyone knew it. Another war was predicted to be inevitable, and so it was just twenty years later for almost the same reason; nationalism, imperialism, and militarism.

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