1) The document discusses several long term factors that contributed to the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914, including militarism, imperialism, nationalism, and systems of alliances. 2) New industrial technologies in the late 19th century enabled mass production of weapons and the modernization of armed forces, fueling an arms race between European powers. Rising militarism and nationalistic sentiment strengthened military aims. 3) Imperialism and competition for resources and global influence intensified tensions between European nations as they raced to colonize Africa and other regions. The "Scramble for Africa" exemplified how imperialism, nationalism, and militarism intersected.

1. HIST A390: Themes in World History
World War I
One Hundred Years’ Later
Tower of London: “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.”

2. Before the War:
Modern Ideas and Challenges
MAX LINDER, PATHÉ FRÈRES, Max Has a Date, 1913, Black &
White. Cinematek, Brussels — © Cinematek, Brussel

3. MAIN Steps that lead to war:
Militarism
Alliances,
Imperialism
Nationalism
Long term
Causes
But
Why July 1914?
HMS Dreadnought launched in 1906

4. 19th century European Industrialization: Industrialized states, economies, and warfare

5. The Growth in Armaments, 1890–1914
Militarism and Technologies: The Factory System gears up for
Battle: Industrialization and machine guns create a new “face of
war”: Brose’s “revolution in military affairs” (RMA)

6. Militarism: Build Me a Bigger Boat!
• German Empire and Naval Race
• British Admiral Sir John fisher pushed for
Dreadnought—ultimate battleship.
• Industrial technology combines with military
aims.
HMS Dreadnought launched in 1906

7. Naval Race by 1913

8. Alliances: Europe at the Outbreak of World War I,
August 1914
The Three Emperors League:
Germany, Russia and
Austria-Hungary alliance,
1873 to 1887. Lapsed.
Kaiser William II (r. 1888-818)
“new course” aggressive
Imperialist policy.
Ties together militarism,
imperialism, and
nationalism

9. 1909 cartoon in Puck shows US, Germany, Britain, France and
Japan engaged in naval race in a "no limit" game.
1907 Anglo-Russian Entente:
Puck Cartoon: Persian kitty!
1904 Entente Cordiale Between France and Britain

10. 1914 Russian poster
depicting Triple Entente
France
Russia
United Kingdom
As allies?!?!

11. Leaders of the Central Powers (left to right):
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany; Franz Joseph of
Austria-Hungary; Sultan Mehmed V of the
Ottoman Empire; Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria.

12. Imperialism: The West and the World,
c. 1890

13. 'Tipu's Tiger' (life-size beast of carved and painted wood,
seen in the act of devouring a prostrate European in the
costume of the 1790s) In 1808 first displayed in the East
India Company's museum (Now at the V & A)

14. Africa, c. 1890: “Scramble for Africa”
“Scramble for Africa”
Imperialism, Nationalism,
Militarism converge
Great Power status
on the line!

15. Africa in 1914

16. Europeans Unabashedly Imperialist
Cecil Rhodes and
the Cape-Cairo railway project.
Founder of the
De Beers Mining Company,
Owner of the British South Africa
Company, and state of Rhodesia
named after him.
“All of these stars ... these vast
worlds that remain out of reach.
If I could, I would annex
other planets.“ (Rhodes)
Such enthusiastic domination pits Europeans
against each other as well as conquered
peoples.
More guns, more ships, more naval bases,
Just More!

17. The West and the World:
Protecting Investments
Conquer markets!

18. Imperialism and Nationalism: Package it up as
a national interest and supply consumer goods
(tea!)

19. Queen Victorian (1837-1901) posing as
virtuous middle-class. (1860)
Justifications used to take over the world:
“most fit to rule”: Have the ideas and the means
(machine guns and vast industrial might)
Science and Christianity join forces to bring
Christian virtue and bloody competition
“Conquest of markets”: Global markets/resources; and
means to control them (military/naval bases).

20. An English editorial cartoonist conceived the
Irish as akin to Frankenstein's monster.
Illustration from an 1882 issue of Punch
Social Darwinism and racism
Social Darwinism: bad “science” used to
legitimize racist ideologies , use of force, and
reinforce nationalism
And a form of distraction—working poor and
wealthy elites can share fears of the “other”
And be proud that they are “British” (by jove!)
and not something else.

21. Nationalism: Languages of Nineteenth-Century Europe

22. Society Before the War:
Prosperity, Progress, and Confidence?
Georges Seurat (French, 1859–1891),
Study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884

23. “Two Nations”
• Between workers and middle class
• Between generations
• Between dominant power and ethnic
minorities
• Between women and men
• Between pacifism and militarism
• Between urban and rural

24. The Working-Class and
Industrialization
• Gulf between the mc factory owners and wc.:
Main issues: social reform, including minimum
wage, pensions, slum clearance. New
militancy in trade unions pushing for social
reform scare gov’ts. Want to co-opt workers.
• Rise of socialism, syndicalism, unionism,
communism. “Class Struggle” as
international movement.

25. The Youth: The generation of 1914
Very self-conscious, aware of itself. Modern,
technological society that is theirs (not their
parents)—motorcars, telephones, telegraph,
cinema. Time of new inventions, sense of
progress. Revolutionary. Energy. Pace of life
had quickened and did not want to be bored,
speed of the essence.

26. Italian Futurists and Others
• Cultural mood that embraced speed and
violence.
• Exalted in a militant masculinity which glorified
conquest and war.
• Youth movement (and urban) that belittled
“stillness” and celebrated violent movement.
Youth feared boredom, constraint, dullness,
opposed the older society and want to express
themselves. Saw the school system and parents
as restrictive.

27. MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM
(Marinetti, 1909), (edited)
• We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
• We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new
beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned
with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car
which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the
Victory of Samothrace.
• We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses
the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.
• Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an
aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the
unknown, to force them to bow before man.
• We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism,
patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas
which kill, and contempt for woman.
• We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism
and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.

28. Giacomo Balla, Abstract Speed + Sound, 1913–1914

29. Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova, Cyclist, 1913

30. Dominant power, ethnic minorities
• “Irish Question” (Home Rule for Ireland)—
Conservatives oppose Home Rule for Ireland and civil
war looks imminent between Prots. Ulster Unionists
and Roman Catholic Majority, by 1914, fear of revolt
in Ireland dominating headlines. Both sides buying
up arms, mostly from private German interests.
• Balkans another hot spot.

31. Jewish Migrations in the Late Nineteenth Century
In Europe,
growing
anti-Semitism,
also in France
with the Dreyfus
Affair (1894-9)

32. Women and men: The “Woman Question”
Domesticity and suffragettes: Pankhurst and others an
ongoing “problem” and increasingly militant. What to
do with unruly women?
The Women's Social and
Political Union
E. Pankhurst :
"[T]he condition of our sex
is so deplorable that it is our
duty to break the law in order
to call attention to the
reasons why we do."

33. Sarah Grand (1854-1943), popularized the
term ‘New Woman.’

34. Domestic Issues
Before the war Domestic Issues center stage--
have led to arguments that politicians sought
war as way to distract public, rally public, or
diffuse situation.
The Scream (1893),
Edvard Munch