Nineteenth Century Geopolitics and World War I

Running Head: NINETEENTH CENTURY GEOPOLITICS AND WORLD WAR I
Nineteenth Century Geopolitics and World War I
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s Note:

NINETEENTH CENTURY GEOPOLITICS AND WORLD WAR I1
Introduction
The period before the World War I and the Cold Wars is considered to be the longest
period of peace which was witnessed across the world but the geopolitical workings in the
undercurrents of the society has been deemed by historians as the factors at work to make war
inevitable on a large scale. The accumulation of power and expansionist policies that was seen to
be extensively followed by great powers and in return the weak and in the British Prime
Minister’s Lord Salisbury’s word, the dying nations were being the target to be integrated and
the most important factor being the formation of various alliances which caused the ultimate
mistrust. The most important and immediate political reason which is considered to be cause of
the outbreak of the war was the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand who was in line to the
throne of Austria-Hungary. The thesis statement of the paper will be the assessment of the
dissolution and the mistrust among the great powers.
The Alliance System
After the Cold War, the prevailing peace was due to the fact that almost all the great
powers have been in the state of war in the past recent years and they were still reeling with the
economic recessions and hence the alliances were formed on the basis of accumulation of
mercenary power to strengthen themselves and to secure themselves from being attacked1. This
alliance system was seen as a defensive arrangement which would only restrain them mediocrely
but would secure themselves of protection from other attacking them or provision of army and
power to defend themselves in case of attack2.
The emergence of great power could be categorized into two parts- the western European
power with Britain, Austria and the United States as the hegemons after the globalization
1 Sempa, Francis. Geopolitics: from the Cold War to the 21st Century
2 Caldara, Dario, and Matteo Iacoviello. "Measuring geopolitical risk."