Europe in 1914 and Ethnic Nationalism

The World at War

The French Revolution (1789 - 1815)

  • Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
    • Universal Male Suffrage (1792)
  • Nationalism
    • National Convention (1792-1795)
  • Napoleon Remade the Map of Europe
    • Ended Holy Roman Empire
    • Era of Small states Replaced with Large states

Europe 1789

Europe in 1815

Imperialism

  • Old Colonialism
    • Settler Colonialism
    • Replaced indigenous populations
  • New Imperialism
    • Ruled through and over indigenous populations
    • Few settlers
    • Severe inequality between metropole and colony

Britain in India

  • Beginning of New Imperialism.
  • Created market for British goods.
  • Destroyed indigenous industries.
  • 27% → 2% of world manufacturing output (1750-1900).

British India (1823)

Nationalism

  • One of the greates impacts of the French Revolution.
  • Nations are imagined communities.
  • To define who is a part of the community is to also define who is excluded form the community.

National Unifications: Italy (1861-1870)

  • North Italy led by Piedmont-Sardinia against Lombardy (Austria).
  • South led by Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882)
  • 1860, Southern states voted to unify with Piedmont-Sardinia.
  • 1866, war with Austria gained Ventia from Austria.

National Unifications: Germany (1866-1871)

  • Prussia and Otto von Bismarck
  • Denmark, Scheswig (Danish), Holstein (Ger), and Lauenburg (Ger)
  • Austro-Prussian War (1866)
  • Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871)

Ottoman Empire in 1900

  • Multilingual, multiethnic, multireligious empire.
  • Once, the most powerful empire in Europe.
  • Slow decline motivated the Scramble for Africa.
  • The Eastern Question.

Ottoman empire in 1914

Scramble for Africa

  • Scramble for Africa (1880-1900).
  • King Leopold II and the Congo Free State.
  • Berlin Conference (1884-1885).
  • By 1900, only Liberia and Ethiopia were independent.

Africa in 1900

Europe of Empires (1914)

Map of Europe in 1914

Outcome

  • Hypercompetitive environment over territory.
  • Union of National-Ethnic rivalries both within and between states.

Social Darwinism and Nationalism

  • Social Darwinism
    • Survival of the fittest applied to human societies.
    • Justified imperialism, racism, and social inequality.
  • Alignment of Nationalism, ethnicity, and racism.
    • Arthur de Gobineau, Essay on the Inequality of the Races (1853)
      • Mixing of races leads to downfall of civilization.

The Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906)

  • Alfred Dreyfus, Jewish French army officer, falsely accused of treason.
  • Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, real culprit, acquitted.
    • Sending info to German embassy.
  • Antisemitism in France: Dreyfus couldn’t be loyal because he was Jewish.
  • 1905 acquitted, 1906 reinstated.
  • Significance