Nationalism is one of the important causes of World War One. It created tension and hostile sentiment to not only the government of the country but the civilians; Civilians started to become warlike in different countries all over Europe and especially in some unstable regions like Balkans, Moselle, and Alsace-Lorraine. In Britain, the song "Rule Britannia" become famous and "Jingoism", which is a form of extreme patriotism, nationalism and a belief in national superiority and glory suddenly become popular, this means the British people were supporting the development of the war. In Germany, the national anthem proclaimed "Deutschland Above all" in the first sentence of its lyrics. It proved that the Germany Government had the intention to popularize Nationalism to its citizen and on the other hand, it has the meaning of Imperialism as well, which will be explained later in this essay. In France and Russia, they all wanted to restore national pride after their defeats to Germany (France) and Japan (Russia). The reason why Nationalism was one of the main causes of World War One is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. On June 29, 1914, a Serbian nationalist murdered the heir of the Austria-Hungary (Archduke Franz Ferdinand), and his wife (Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg) in Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary accused the Serbian government of organizing this assassination; sent lists of demands to Serbia, asked for taking the responsibility. Serbia government refused because the demand was unachievable, and that was exactly what Austria-Hungary want. So after the agreement of supports from Germany, Austria-Hungary ignored Russia's threat and declared war on Serbia. Therefore, Nationalism created the spark, which was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (July Crisis), which triggered the war directly by giving the reason for Austria-Hungary to invade Serbia, which further caused the conflict all over Europe. However, even though the Nationalism triggered the war directly, alliances are still one of the most important factors which lead to such tremendous scale of the war, which made the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia to the global war. In my opinion, the reason why the war spread so quickly in Europe is that the alliances. When all the countries alliance up, it will be much easier to offend other countries indirectly. For instance, the Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia under Germany's support, and Serbia refused the demand of the Austria-Hungary under Russia's support; but even if, there were no conflicts between Russia and Germany before the July Crisis, their relationship will still rapidly deteriorate because they are on two different sides. So spread the conflict indirectly through threatening the opposite countries made alliances more important than Nationalism because it can cause the war faster than ever, and the scale will be
网友评论