Why Did Nationalism Cause Ww1 Essay

How did nationalism cause WW1? 1910-1919

Nationalism was the main cause of World War One. The direct result of it led to the militarization of Europe’s countries, nationalistic feelings in Yugoslavia, and the alliances formed before the war. Despite the common idea that the first world war started because of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, it was only a reason for Austria-Hungary to declare war. Nationalism was the driving factor to his assassination, and would not have happened without it.

Militarization of European countries

Strong nationalistic feelings of pride from the citizens of each European power resulted in a militaristic and economic competition. This created a race between different countries. Germany’s Grand

Large alliances formed, such as the triple entre (France, the UK, and Russia) and the central powers (Austria-Hungary, German Empire, and Italy) The alliances gave military support to each member, but would also drag all the countries in one alliance to war if war was only declared on one nation (http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/worldwar1/a/World-War-One-The-Major-Alliances.htm). During the July crisis, the Austria-Hungarian empire asked if Germany would help them in the war against Serbia. Germany replied back and said they’d give them full support. Austria started to mobilize their army against Serbia, and since Russia was allied with Serbia. They as well started to prepare their army, and soon all of Europe was at war. If these large alliances were not formed, two countries would have been fighting their own war, instead of causing a world war. Nationalism helped create these alliances, each country thought they we’re better than each other, this created huge amounts of distrust. To better protect their interests, and to have more security, they joined each other into an alliance