Militarism, Nationalism and First World War

Running head: MILITARISM, NATIONALISM AND FIRST WORLD WAR
MILITARISM, NATIONALISM AND FIRST WORLD WAR
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1
MILITARISM, NATIONALISM AND FIRST WORLD WAR
Introduction:
This essay has aimed to discuss the correlation among nationalism, militarism led to
imperialism, racism, islamophobia and finally terrorism. The imperialism of the European
countries created a feeling of deprivation in the minds of the people for which they used
nationalism as the weapon to fight imperialism but this led to world wars and racism in the later
time. These instances of deprivation, discrimination and powerlessness have taken shape of
terrorism. This essay will be discussing the roots of nationalism and militarism that led to the
development of colonial activities leading to world war. The world war situation therefore led to
the deprivation of the people which created the issues like islamophobia and finally terrorism.
The dominating nature and execution of power ad created the emotional gap among the human
beings that led to racism and islamophobia creating the threat of terrorism in the global context.
Discussion
Nationalism is a great reason of World War as the countries were not ready to negotiate
among themselves and started to act greedy. Nationalism showed that these countries
manipulated the citizens stating that the country we want to be the best hence they should be
proud of their country. The feeling of nationalism created competition among the Nations mainly
of Europe and the Nationalist groups of Austria Hungary and Serbia wondered their
Independence. The Franco Prussian war in 1871 was due to the demand of Alsace Lorraine that
started the collision in an explicit way. The use of nationalism helped the countries rather the
national leaders to give false hope to the people and get their support for aggressive attack upon
one another in the form of War. Even if some of them were not able to win the war as their
strength as well as understanding of the plans could not help them but this lead to imperialism.
All of the countries started to think that their country is the best of all hence they should rule and

2
MILITARISM, NATIONALISM AND FIRST WORLD WAR
not be ruled. This created a feeling of loath towards the culture, society, economy, tradition and
philosophy of the other countries other than the own.
This feelings of nationalism became so aggressive that the people started to feel that they
need to you have a leader who will make them a powerful Nation and exploit one or more
colonies. The major power of Britain, France and other western European nations instigated the
less powerful states of Italy and Germany to grab the opportunity of colonizing the African
states. However, nationalist feeling was so deep at that point of time that two main crisis relating
to the nationalism emerged. In 1905 German Kaiser visited Morocco where Germany had been
building up the empire. In the next year 1906 at the conference he was humiliated as if he did not
have any right to join and speak in the international conference. This made him enraged as he
wanted to see himself as the major power in Africa. In 1911 France aims to take over this place
again and it was supported by Britain. This is due to the fact that Britain was thinking that Kaiser
would be setting up a naval base in that particular area which will affect their own colonies in
Africa. In another conference France and Britain stood up against the imperialistic set up of
Germany. France this time to control of Morocco and Germany was given part of land in Central
Africa as compensation1. This gradually created the ground of militarism that it led the countries
towards the world war.
Nationalism could have been the only cause of world war but this was supported by
militarism. The main event of militarism leading to world war was the rivalry of the super
powers of Europe regarding naval power. At that point of time Britain had the most powerful
Navy but it was threatened by the growth of Germany after 1900s. Kaiser Wilhelm head
announced that he would build a bigger Navy of Germany than Britain which threatened the
1 Laqueur, Walter. A history of terrorism. Routledge, 2017.