The First World War was imperialistic war. Discuss.

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The First World War was imperialistic war. Discuss.

 The WWI was an imperialistic fighting from 1914 to 1918. The imperialistic nations like Britain, France and Russia formed triple entente to fight triple alliance which was comprised of Germany, Italy and Austria Hungary. USA joined the war in 1917 to rescue the triple entente after Germany had sunk her ships carrying food and weapons to triple Entente. The war ended with the defeat of triple alliance.
On the other hand imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism in Europe which was characterized by expansionism to other weak nations for extending power, maximizing/making super profit and colonizing weak countries. This means that imperialism was a stage in which the capitalist countries entered into clash over territories. This is manifested through the following reasons which resulted into the occurrence of the WWI. 
N:B, Not all the causes of the WWI were imperialistic. Therefore below explained points are more imperialistic.

 1. The French revenge movement. This can be traced from the Franco-Prussian war (France vs Germany) of 1870-71. In this war France lost and German annexed /took the two provinces of France which are Alsace and Loraine. These provinces were heavily endowed with iron and coal which were necessary ingredients for industrialization. Therefore France wanted to restore these lost provinces. French statesman Raymond Poncaire once declared that “I can’t see the reason for my generation to go on living except to recover the two lost provinces” this statement instilled a sense of hatred to French citizen against German. Thus imperialistic expansion of German led to long term conflict and hatred between the two nations which eventually led to WWI with France ambition of recovering her lost provinces.

 2. The German railway construction project from Berlin to Baghdad in 1890.  German initiated a project of constructing a railway from Berlin to Baghdad crossing so many countries and provinces which were owned by other capitalist powers. British was threatened by this project as it interfered her economic interests in middle east and India. As a result, Britain opposed it strongly igniting the tension between the two and eventually world war I.

 3. Pan German league 1895. This was a movement of German people specifically advocated for expansion of German to Denmark, Netherlands, Luxernburg, Switzerland, Austria, and Poland as far as Warsaw. This German expansionism brought conflicts with other imperialist nations leading to WWI.

 4. Dissatisfaction of territorial arrangements. Imperialists were not satisfied with the colonies hence they needed more. For instance Britain had interest in Mesopotamia and Palestine which were territories of turkey. German was interested in Ukraine and Baltic provinces which were under Russia and in some colonies of Britain and France. Japan was interested in china and Korea. This brought up tensions and quarrels and eventually WWI.

 5. Moroccan crises in 1904 and 1911. In 1904 William II disembarked from a German warship at tangier where he made a speech in favor of Moroccan independence while morocco was a French colony. This intensified conflict between the two powers as German wanted to limit the imperialistic expansionism of France in Africa. Also in 1911 a German gunboat called Panther docked at Agadir trying to urge sultan of morrocco to fight against France for independence of morrocco and promised full support. All these German actions caused tension and eventually WWI.

 6. Formation of millitary alliances by imperialist nations. These alliances aimed at defending members millitarily once they were attacked by other powers. There were two main Alliances namely;
.Tipple Alliance. This was formed by Germany under Bismarck with Austria-Hungary in 1879. Italy joined in 1882.
. Tripple Entente. This was formed by Britain, France and Russia by 1907
These alliances were enemies to each other and competed in the manufacturing of arms. This situation created a state of war between the alliances and eventually world war one in 1914.

 Therefore; the imperialist powers found themselves into the war because of imperialistic expansionism. This expansionism policy was caused by industrial revolution in Europe which compelled the imperialist nations to contest in search for industrial demands like raw materials, market, areas for investments and cheap labor.



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