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Imperialism and the First World War - Coggle Diagram
Imperialism and the First World War
Imperialism
:new way of colonialism
Appeared for the first time in the beginning of the 19th century to name the policies of Napoleon.
The economic, political and cultural control of a nation (called metropoli) over other territories (called colonies).
Between 1870 and 1914, most of the world was controlled by European nations, mostly Great Britain and France, but some other countries established colonies as well
They occupied Africa, but also territories in Asia and Oceania
Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, US and Japan.
Causes
Demographic causes
The european population grew 150 millon people in 50 years,which provoked an overpopulation.They needed a way to avoid unemployment,hunger and misery
This the period with the biggest migratory movements (more than 50 million people migrated specially to america )
People moved to the colonies beacause they were concieved as an extension of the metropoli
The unemployment was reduced and the social conflicts in the countries of origin thanks to migration
Economic causes
As European markets were flooded, the colonies were new territories to invest
during the Second Industrial Revolution:
Obtained cheap and rich raw materials
Cheap workforce and new markets were they could sell their industrial products
Even establishing some monopolies
Established factories
Political causes
In some countries, the colonial expansion brought back the lost prestige:
Owning more territories made European rulers regain the support of the
inhabitants of their country after the economic crisis
Nationalism is also an inspiration to expand territories, as
controlling more territories was seen as the greatness of the nation.
They also had military and commercial interests, as colonies were strategic locations that served as bases for military operations and trade routes.
Scientific causes
It was seen as a way of having a greater knowledge of the world
Inspired by curiosity or adventure present in the literature of the moment, as Jules Verne’s novels.
This is also the time of exploration: through the Nile
river, but also the Poles.
Ideological and cultural causes
European people used the racial superiority of the white population as a way of justifying the occupation of the underdeveloped territories.
For them, white people had the right and duty to civilize the underdeveloped countries, inhabited by barbarians, sauvages and primitive human beings.
They based their ideas in pseudo-Darwinist ideas, considering white people as more apt, but it could also be seen as a nationalist idea:
Considering the European
culture as superior to the rest.
Consecuences
For the metropoli, colonialism was a stimulus to industrialisation, because they could obtain cheap and rich raw materials and they found new markets for their industrial products in the colonies.
However, the rivalry between the European
countries for the possession of colonies brought the First World War.
For the colonies
Political consequences:
colonialism created a dependence of the
colonies from the metropoli.
In addition, they were never prepared to
establish democratic systems or ideas
Nationalism arrived in the colonies, some of them
fought against the occupation.
Social consequences:
racial segregation was one of the most important
consequences
bourgeois from the metropoli dominated were the elite of the colonies, while the indigenous population were considered as second class citizens.
Geographic consequences:
changes in maps, as new artificial borders were created, mixing and separating tribes, which created multiple conflicts
some of them, still present today
Cultural consequences:
colonies suffered a process of acculturation: they lost their identity, language, culture, traditions or religions in exchange of adopting the European ones.
Missions brought lower rates
of illiteracy.
Economic consequences:
the exploitation of their natural resources
altered the natural landscapes.
Demographic consequences:
population increased thanks to the
medical improvements,
so mortality decreased and the natality rates
continued being high.
The First World War
Or the Great War, was an armed conflict fought between 1914 and 1918, by various European countries and their African and Asian colonies, the United States, Japan, China and some Latin American republics.
Causes
In Europe, during the Armed Peace, countries competed for control of certain areas that became sources of tension.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire
Competed for control
of the Balkans.
At the same time, Serbia (a Balkan country) was angry about
the expansion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into the area.
France
wanted to recover the region of Alsace-Lorraine (lost to the German
Empire after the Franco-Prussian War).
France and Germany also competed
for control of colonies, important for economic expansion.
Great Britain
saw the supremacy of its merchant navy threatened when the
German Empire,
which had become an economic power during the Second Industrial Revolution, constructed a large fleet of merchant ships in order to dominate international trade.
These disputes created a pre-war atmosphere,
the European powers continued to increase spending on arms to increase their military capability and be prepared in case of war.
This was called the Armed Peace.
Governments, through the press, influenced public opinion in favour of war; while pacifist movements, such as the Second International and the Catholic Church, failed in their attempts to avoid war.
28 June, 1914,
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
He was shot by a young Bosnian Serb nationalist and the Austrian government blamed Serbia for the assassination and sent them an ultimatum, which was ignored.
On 28 July 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire
declared war on Serbia.
Alliances during the War
After the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia, other countries supported one side or the other, based on their own interests and pre-existing alliances
The Central Powers:
the Austro-Hungarian Empire allied with the German
and Ottoman empires and they were joined by Bulgaria.
The Allies:
Serbia was allied with the Triple Entente (France, Great Britain and the Russian Empire).
Later, they were joined by Belgium, Japan, Italy, Romania, the United States, Greece, Portugal, China, and various Latin American republics
In 1915, Italy abandoned its neutrality and joined the Allies in order to recover
Trieste and Istria, Italian territories that the Austrian-Hungarian Empire controlled.
Phases of the war
Incorporation and withdrawal of allies (1917)
In 1917, the United States decided to join the war on the side of the Allies because German submarines had sunk neutral merchant ships.
On 1 January 1917,Germany had initiated submarine attacks, endangering the American merchant fleet
that supplied Britain and France.
In the same year, a political and social revolution in the Russian Empire caused Russia to withdraw from the war after signing the Peace of Brest-Litovsk.
Trench warfare (1915–16)
The Western Front between Germany and the Allies stabilised and as they could not advance, both sides focused on defending their positions.
they built trenches from where they could defend themselves using new weapons, such as machine guns, heavy artillery, tanks, poison gas and flamethrowers.
To break the Western Front, new military tactics were used to wear the enemy down by continually attacking the same place. In addition, they used battleships and submarines.
The end of the war and the Armistice (1918)
The help of the American troops and weapons allowed the Allied forces to advance on the Western Front (the Second Battle of the Marne).
Exhaustion and an ever-increasing lack of resources drove the Central Powers to seek peace. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated, and on 11 November 1918, the Armistice was signed
Initial German offensives (1914)
Germany put the Schlieffen Plan into effect.(consisted of launching a rapid offensive on the Western Front, invading Belgium and the north of France with the aim of reaching Paris.)
Once France
was defeated, German troops advanced on the Eastern Front to fight the Russians.
The German plan did not succeed because the French and British armies stopped
their advance at the First Battle of the Marne.
At the same time, Japan occupied the
German colonies in the Pacific and China.
War economy
During the years the war lasted, the economy was focused, in the industrial sector, in the production of military equipment and supplies: weapons, cannons, planes and uniforms.
This way, agricultural and consumer goods production decreased because there weren't enough labourers so it was very common to suffer from shortages of some products and the increase of the prices.
To solve these problems, governments intervened to control the distribution of basic goods and food such as bread and potatoes. Rationing was introduced and the black market developed.
Society during the war
Most young men were conscripted or recruited into the armed forces, so women had to leave the home to fill the positions the men had left: for the first time, women were allowed to do jobs in economic sectors that had previously only been done by men, such as in industry, transport and offices.
In this moment, in Europe, women would start fighting for their rights, including their right to work and their right to vote.
Peace settlement
Once the war ended, the Allies met in the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920) to decide on the peace conditions that would be imposed on the defeated countries.
The US President, Woodrow Wilson proposed the Fourteen Points: based on creating a League of Nations, establishment of democratic states, freedom of trade and respect for a nation's right to self-determination...but they were rejected by the Allied countries.
At the end, five separate treaties were ratified by the Allied countries and then signed by each of the defeated countries. Germany had to sign the Treaty of Versailles with a large number of harsh penalties:
reduction of its territories: Alsace-Lorraine were given back to France and irs
colonies divided between them
demilitarisation of the region of the Rhineland (on the French border)
payment of huge economic reparations
division of its eastern territories into two parts in order to give Poland access
to the sea
prohibition of heavy artillery, planes and submarines
Consequences of the war
The First World War brought along a decrease in population.
Although official numbers said 20 million people died in the war, other sources calculate more than 50 million people if we take into account civilians and those people that died as a consequence of the conflict, famine...
The destruction of the cities made Europe lose their economic power, so they had to ask for loans to the US. This way, the US became the world's leading economic power.
A new map of Europe was created, as four empires disappeared and new countries were created:
From the German Empire: the German Republic, part of
Czechoslovakia and part of Poland.
From the Ottoman Empire: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, part
of Arabia and Palestine.
From the Russian Empire: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and
Poland.
Italy, however, was not satisfied with the redistribution because it lost some territory to Yugoslavia. In exchange, it received Trieste from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
From the Austro-Hungarian Empire:Yugoslavia (the union of Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia,
Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina).