Background to WWI

1
Background to WWI

• 1859-1871 Nation States consolidate. Germany,
  Italy, Austro-Hungary, Canada, Modern Japan
• Sovereignty old notion(Fr,GB) Westphalia 1648,
  Utrecht 1713, Congress of Vienna 1815.
• Collective destiny (common history, language,
  religion, geography) sometimes fought by civil
  war.

2
Unification Process

• Il Resorgimento left Italy partly united tierra
  irrendenta Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavor
• Germany united through Prussia, Zollverein
  (economic system), Hegel and Otto Von Bismarck-
  junker, ideology was an end in itself-realpolitik-
  blood and iron
• Dual monarchy (AH)multinational state, military
  weakness Francis Joseph

3
Russia and Japan

• Autocratic, huge, mainly peasant
  serfsemancipated only after defeat during
  Crimean War, radical terrorist groups and the
  Tsarist system.
• Japan- 1859-71 isolationist, Meiji Era 1868-1912
  had to modernize to cope with the west, abolish
  shogun, feudalism,legal system, navy modernized,
  foreign trade. Opium Wars

4
Europe 1871-1914

• Nation state had divided Europe
• Rapid demographic changes- urbanization
• Industrial Revolution- inventions, steam,
  railroads, electricity, telephone. This led to
  the need to expand markets.
• Some advancement of liberal democracy-ind
  liberties,constitutions,suffrage, Chartism,
  German Kulturkampf (repress Catholicism and
  socialism)
• Some radical groups read Marx, unions, reformism
• Science lay at the root of industrialization
  (Darwin, progress, reason, cultural superiority,
  art generally followed philosophical trends of
  Nietzsche)

5
The disappearing Ottoman Empire

• Lacked national unity, Crimean War 1856 exposed
  military weakness.
• The Sick man of Europe massive impact, left
  power vacuum, particularly in the Balkans