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How Did Nationalism Cause Ww1

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WWI Nationalism had a significant impact on militarism, imperialism, and the formation of alliances. One can trace the major cause of WWI to nationalism. The critical factors leading to WWI were imperialism, the formation of alliances, and militarism. Nationalism is defined as patriotism or tremendous love for one’s country and their values, however, it can cause a lot of anger, resentment and hatred from countries who want their independence from nationalistic radicals. Due to nationalism, imperialism happened. Imperialism contributed to WWI because of the need by powerful countries to have more resources. Many of the economic causes of the war can be attributed to a growing material dependency of advancing European nations on imperialism. Nations such as Great Britain and …show more content…

For example, Russia had the largest military in the world. Germany, France and Great Britain expanded three times the amount of their military. Countries built military equipment never seen before. The buildup of the country’s military acted as a true and also false protection for them. A strong military did help countries acquire additional lands or colonies. On the other hand, because of nationalism the citizens were overconfident in their country’s military strength and protection against a potential war. Nationalism also influenced the formation of alliances prior to WWI. The most powerful countries already put great trust in their ability to defend themselves, but they needed the added assurance of allies. In the case of Germany, it was a relatively young reformed nation needing some support in the late 1800s. They allied with Austria-Hungary and later with Italy in order to protect against Russia. As a result, Russia formed an alliance with France to protect against Germany and Austria-Hungary. In the end, though, nationalism came to the surface and caused a strain between these allied

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