This document discusses imperialism and the First World War. It defines imperialism as European powers taking over territories in Africa, Asia, and Oceania between 1870 and 1914 due to their economic, military, and technological superiority. The main causes of imperialism were economic needs for new markets and resources, as well as political, demographic, and ideological factors. This led to the division of the world among European colonial powers, with far-reaching political, economic, social, and cultural consequences for colonized peoples and tensions between colonial powers that ultimately contributed to the outbreak of World War 1.

1. UNIT 6
IMPERIALISM AND THE
FIRST WORLD WAR

2. 1.IMPERIALISM: DEFINITION AND CAUSES
2.IMPERIALISM: THE DIVISION OF THE WORLD
3.IMPERIALISM: CONSEQUENCES
4.THE FIRST WORLD WAR: MAIN CAUSES
5.THE FIRST WORLD WAR: OUTBREAK AND PHASES
6.THE FIRST WORLD WAR: PEACE AND CONSEQUENCES

3. 1. IMPERIALISM: DEFINITION AND CAUSES
1. Definition of Imperialism

4. Historically à process in which the main and
industrialised powers (mostly European) took over African,
Asian and Oceanic territories between 1870 and 1914.
Second Industrial Revolution
Transformation of European
economies
Economic, technical, financial
and military superiority
Conquest of new territories

5. 2. Causes “In the area of economics, I am placing before you[…] the
considerations that justify the policy of colonial expansion,
as seen from the perspective of a need, felt more and more
urgently by the industrialized population of Europe and
especially the people of […] France: the need for exports. Is
this a fantasy? Is this a concern for the future? Or is this not
a pressing need, one may say a crying need, of our
industrial population?”
Jules Ferry speaking to the French Parliament, 1885.
Economic: Economic needs of European
industrialised powers:
• New markets for expanding the sale of
production (there were protectionist
measures in Europe).
• Obtaining of raw materials (coal, iron,
cotton and rubber).
• Buying colonial products at lower prices
(sugar, chocolate, tea).
• Increase of profits because of very cheap
labour force.
• Increase of demand of products (and raw
materials) due to demographic growth.

6. Political causes:
• Prestige and competition among European powers è Rivalry à WW 1.
• Development of trade and industry.
• Powerful armies.
• Distraction from internal problems.

7. Demographic causes:
• Reduction of mortality → from about 210 million people
in 1800 to 450 million in 1900.
• Great migrations → About 40 million people to other
continents
• First from IRE, GB, GER.
• Then Austro-Hungary, RUS, ITA and SPA.

8. Ideological causes:
• Some → Necessity of exploring and
discovering new territories and culture.
• Most → Racist ideology:
• Conservative nationalism è Right to rule
over others.
• European cultural and moral superiority
è Civilisation as mission (helped by
technology) è Imposition to EUR’s
civilisation to the rest of humanity (mostly,
religion)
• Social Darwinism.

10. “Gentlemen, we must speak more loudly and more honestly! We must say
openly that indeed the higher races have a right over the lower races ....
I repeat, that the superior races have a right because they have a duty. They
have the duty to civilize the inferior races .... In the history of earlier
centuries these duties, gentlemen, have often been misunderstood […]. I
maintain that European nations acquit themselves with generosity, with
grandeur, and with sincerity of this superior civilizing duty.”
Jules Ferry, Idem, 1885
“Superior races! Inferior races! It's easy to say it. But I am completely
opposed to this view [...] The so-called superior nations have no rights
over the so-called inferior nations […]
The conquest that you support is the abuse, plain and simple, of the
power of scientific civilizations over primitive ones, to take man for
himself, torture him, and exploit all the strength that he has, for the
benefit of a so-called civilizing project”
Georges Clemenceau speaking to the French Parliament, 1885

11. Europe - 2nd half 19th c.
ASIA
AFRICA
Territorial expansion and
conquests
Second Industrial
Revolution
Demographic growth
Economic
prosperity and
transformations
Economic, technical
and military
superiority

12. 2. IMPERIALISM: THE DIVISION OF THE WORLD
1. Africa
Barely unknown for
Europeans until mid
19th c.→Factories and
ports around the
coastline.

13. New economic needs → France and Great Britain
promoted expeditions to the interior of the
continent.

14. Belgium
Leopold II conquered
Congo.

15. “[...] with my mouth full of Bible and my pelt oozing piety at every pore, and implored them to place the vast and rich and
populous Congo Free State in trust in my hands as their agent, so that I might root out slavery and stop the slave raids, and lift
up those twenty-five millions of gentle and harmless blacks out of darkness into light, the light of our blessed Redeemer, the
light that streams from his holy Word, the light that makes glorious our noble civilization — lift them up and dry their tears and
fill their bruised hearts with joy and gratitude — lift them up and make them comprehend that they were no longer outcasts
and forsaken, but our very brothers in Christ [...]
These meddlesome American missionaries ! these frank British consuls! These blabbing Belgian-born traitor officials! — those
tiresome parrots are always talking, always telling. They have told how for twenty years I have ruled the Congo State not as a
trustee of the Powers, an agent, a subordinate, a foreman, but as a sovereign — sovereign over a fruitful domain four times as
large as the German Empire — sovereign absolute, irresponsible, above all law; trampling the Berlin-made Congo charter under
foot; barring out all foreign traders but myself; restricting commerce to myself, through concesionaires who are my creatures
and confederates; seizing and holding the State as my personal property, the whole of its vast revenues as my private "swag" —
mine, solely mine — claiming and holding its millions of people as my private property, my serfs, my slaves; their labor mine,
with or without wage; the food they raise not their property but mine; the rubber, the ivory and all the other riches of the land
mine — mine solely — and gathered for me by the men, the women and the little children under compulsion of lash and bullet,
fire, starvation, mutilation and the halter.
These pests! — it is as I say, they have kept back nothing!
[...] One of my sorrowing critics observes: "Other Christian rulers tax their people, but furnish schools, courts of law, roads, light,
water and protection to life and limb in return; King Leopold taxes his stolen nation, but provides nothing in return but hunger,
terror, grief, shame, captivity, mutilation and massacre." That is their style! I furnish "nothing"! I send the gospel to the
survivors[...] if they obeyed me I have without doubt been the humble means of saving many souls.”
Mark Twain, ‘King Leopold’s Soliloquy’ (1905)

16. Berlin Conference (1884-5) → Promoted by Bismarck
For avoiding colonial conflicts among European powers.
Agreements:
- No international support for ‘continuous empires’.
- Effective right of conquest: military conquest and
control of territories.
- Free navigation of the Niger and Congo rivers.
- Free trade in Central Africa

18. Consequences: drawing
the map of Africa.
European control except in
Liberia and Abyssinia
Almost continuous empires

20. 2. Asia
European presence during the Modern Age, with France and Britain.
Rivalry also in Asia for controlling strategic locations.

21. INDIA (Jewel of the Crown for the British)
• Huge source of raw materials and huge
market for British products.
• East India Company (from 17th century)
• Tea, cotton, silk, etc.
• Increasing control over the land
• 1857 à The Sepoy Rebellion (Indian
nationalist mutiny) è Direct administration
over the colony (India, Pakistan and Burma),
and abolition of the East India Company →
BRITISH RAJ

22. Independence in 1947
India
Pakistan
Bangladesh

23. RUSSIA
Expanded over
Siberia to the
Pacific Ocean.

24. FRANCE
Indochina: Vietnam, Cambodia
and Laos

25. JAPAN
Meiji Revolution (from
1868) → Huge
industrialisation.
Advanced technologies.
Maritime empire against
China and Russia.

26. CHINA
Attempted to stop the colonial intervention
Opium Wars Vs GB

27. Colonial powers managed to create ‘special economic
zones’ → “Unequal treaties”: favourable tariffs, trade
concessions, reparations and territory to Western powers.
Open Shanghai and Hong Kong became British colony.
百年國恥
Century of humiliation

28. 3. Oceania
Australia and New
Zealand → Great
Britain.
Rest of Oceania →
disputed by GER,
USA and FR.
France: Eastern
islands and
archipelagos
(Polynesia,
Micronesia and
Melanesia)

29. USA, Britain,
Germany: shared
control of Eastern
New Guinea (the
Western part was
Dutch), the former
Spanish colonies
(Philippines, Guam
and some
archipelagos) and
Samoa.

30. THE COLONIAL POWERS

33. Over 450 million inhabitants.
Military and commercial control over the seas.

36. 95 million people

38. BELGIUM ITALY

39. NETHERLANDS → Dutch East India Company
(1602-1800) → Dutch East Indies
GERMANY

40. SPAIN
PORTUGAL

41. RUSSIA JAPAN

43. 4. Superiority and administration of the colonies
Steps:
1) Geographical and scientific expeditions and travellers (Stanley and Livingstone) and religious
missions → Maps and knowledge about indigenous cultures.

44. 2) Western countries sent advisers, economists and soldiers in order to control natural
resources in those areas (economic interest)
1. Occupation by conquest due to military advantage.
2. Political and administrative control (administration connected to the metropolis)
3. Exploitation of the resources (economic organization of the colony).

45. ADMINISTRATION: different types of political and economic organisations of the colonies.
SETTLEMENT COLONIES
Colonies with good climate, small
population and no special resources.
Certain level of autonomy and self-
government.
GB: Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
South African Union; FR: Algeria.

46. EXPLOITATION COLONIES
The most common. Due to the economic value.
Metropolis controlling the colonies → Control and
monopoly over the land and its resources (plantations,
mining), and over their trade. Local labour.

48. PROTECTORATES
Recognised states occupied by a metropolis → their own administrative organisation, but
rule of colonisers over the local government, defence and foreign policy.
Ie. Morocco (FR and SPA) and Egypt (GB)

49. CONCESSIONS
“Areas of influence” or specific enclaves (mostly ports) controlled by Western powers and
obtained from independent countries. Ie. Hong Kong and Shanghai.

50. 3. IMPERIALISM: CONSEQUENCES
1. The impact of European civilisation in the
colonised countries
Really important impact à Effects on today’s word.
• Exploitation of natural resources.
• Modification of the landscape (forests, agricultural
areas, etc.)
• Infrastructures: ports, railways, roads.
• New cities.
• No consideration for the local ethnic, tribal, linguistic or
religious differences.
• Demographic growth (cut epidemics) è Broke balance
population-resources (Africa: 74 mill. in 1820-125 in
1915).
• Exploitation of resources by Europeans à Lack for local
people.

51. 2. Other consequences
Political consequences:
tension, rivalry and
competition among
Western countries →
outbreak of the First World
War.

52. Economic consequences: Imposition of economic interests
(obtaining profits, regardless conditions of indigenous people).
• Land: property of colonisers.
• No traditional crops → Large plantations for European
markets.
• Indigenous workers → adapt to monetary system → Work in
plantations.
• Local artisans and merchants → Ruined because of
monopoly of metropolis.

53. Demographic consequences: improvements in
health and hygiene → decrease in mortality
rates and huge population growth.
Socio-cultural consequences:
• Reduction of illiteracy (schools)
• Imposition of languages, culture and customs
(acculturation) → Broke indigenous social
structures → Loss of identity.
• Social and racial segregation.
• Religious missions → Conversions to
Christianity.