today we're going to run through the long-term causes of the first world war and we're going to start by by trying to memorize this this acronym that historians and history and teachers have long used to help students keep in in order or keep track of the major long-term causes uh but i as ib students i want you guys to really focus on the idea that all of these are at play at the exact same time they all have an impact to play on the origins of the first world war one thing that the ib exam uh might ask you to do for a war or multiple wars in the 20th century is to address to what extent nationalism or or imperialism or whatever factors contributed to the start of 20th century wars um so you want to be familiar with all four of these but we also want to take an evaluative stand as we go through this this study we want to be able to maybe argue that that one has a bigger role to play than the other uh keep in mind what i've always said in class it doesn't matter what um your answer is you can get equally high marks for saying it is militarism more so than nationalism um but you have to be able to support your arguments why is something a bigger factor than something else so today we're just going to run through what these factors are and as we work through the year you're going to be able to decide for yourself what kind of stand that you would take so we are we're not going to go through these in the order that they are in this acronym on this mnemonic device to help us remember them we're going to mix them up a little bit and i want to start with with imperial rivalries 19th century imperialism is an important theme in world history basically these western european countries primarily britain and france and germany gobbling up colonies around the world there's a number of reasons why these countries were expanding their territories with regard to economic factors they're coming through the industrial revolution so there is a need for resources and raw materials for industrial production there's also a need for markets to sell their finished goods to um there is in addition a push for for countries to feel self-sufficient that they don't have to rely on anybody else for their resources because at any time any country can cut somebody off that's what we call protectionism there are also political and military factors uh to creating overseas empires these these empires created an extension of rivalries that already existed in europe so a rivalry between britain and germany or france and germany in europe can can extend overseas that's a place where these nations might gain a leg up on their adversaries uh colonies also provide strategic military locations uh for for refueling ships for example remember this is the era of the steam ship so ships heading across the pacific ocean or or across from the atlantic ocean to the the indian ocean or even through the suez canal and the mediterranean uh to the red sea they've got to refuel at some point so having colonies located at strategic points can can aid that those naval operations and finally colonies are going to provide increased manpower for their armies if you have a colonial empire you've got a larger well of soldiers that you can lean on and certainly all of the belligerence in world war one that have overseas colonies are going to be using those colonial subjects as soldiers um and and to supply labor in the war this is also an aspect of nationalism empires bring pride into the nation remember the the british saying that the sun never sets on the british empire uh the germans uh a newer country on the scene are going to claim that that that they desire their place in the sun so having overseas empires can lead to a nation feeling more nationalistic pride and if we take a look at the map here you can see that that much of africa south asia southeast asia was colonized by these western european countries and we see a little more green than any other country or than any other color on that map that is the empire of great britain um who um who is um the the largest empire in the world at the start of the 20th century as it comes to these empires we want to focus on on at least one specific incident that that raises the tensions between western european powers and that is going to be the crises that center on the the uh the region of morocco in north africa this was a place that was claimed by france you can see the strategic location of of morocco and north africa just south of spain at the straits of gibraltar so whoever controls that territory in controls or has at least in part control of one of the most important waterways in the world france wanted this as a part of their north african colonies and an agreement between france and britain in 1904 allowed france to control morocco but germany rising in power in western europe at the time was not down with that and so in 1905 germany germany's gonna be be pushing for for the moroccans themselves to clamor for independence this is that idea of nationalism we'll talk about in a moment that a people should have the right to rule themselves and so the french are gonna be bent out of shape that the germans are trying to convince these french colonists uh to to rise up against the french and so we've got we've got a beef ultimately france comes out of this as the recognized controller of of the moroccan territory but it raises the tensions between germany and france this is going to continue a few years later this is going to continue a few years later in 1911 when the germans continue to advocate for uh the independence of the morocco and a moroccan popular uprising once again france sees this as a threat and the tensions rise um ultimately obviously no no war is going to come between these two nations but each side prepared for war so we can see that this push for overseas empires is creating greater tensions between european countries that already had tensions with each other i want to talk for a moment about nationalism as a major contributor to the the push for world war one nationalism is this ideology that is born uh in the 19th century and it spreads and it catches on i like in my class to talk about two different kinds of nationalism there is that nationalism of the country that already exists like the british people and the french people and the german people and americans they already have their countries and they're proud of their countries and they want their countries to exert uh more strength and power around the globe but then there's also those people that don't have a nation of their own maybe they're part of the ottoman empire or they're living with in one of those other great powers empires and they might want to uh to exert their own independence and their own rights to what we call self-determination to determine for themselves how they want to be to be ruled we are going to see this especially strong in the balkan peninsula that is in southeast europe we're going to see that especially strong there in parts that are either controlled by by the ottoman empire or austria-hungary we are going to see germans pushing ideas of german superiority uh russians supporting notions of pan-slavism that all slavic people should be standing together in in some kind of nationalistic pride uh the french are are demanding standing together in solidarity to to demand for territory like alsace and loren to come back to them uh because they feel that the germans maybe illegally took it from them after the franco-prussian war so this notion of nationalism is going to drive a lot of these conflicts in in western europe and in central europe war is deter is seen as a method to demonstrate national power um and so if you are nationalistically proud of your country you might be able to use a war to demonstrate that you can put your money where your mouth is and also the notion of social darwinism this is an idea that was born in the late 19th century on an individual level it was used to justify why some people might find success in life and why other people might lag behind but push to a national level social darwinism would explain at least for the british and the germans why why their countries have a right to to dominate other nations of the world and other peoples of the world um with regard to militarism uh militarism is is is putting a nation's focus behind its military and this is deeply connected with the idea of nationalism as well a state's value is seen in the strength of its military and we're going to see in the years before 1914 the great powers of europe dramatically expanding the size and the scope of their military we're going to see military values in society be seen as desirable and that's why for example uh if we look at an organization like the boy scouts that was born in in england but would spread to other nations um this is pushing martial values or military values on the younger boys in society who would one day grow up and and be soldiers and and if you know anything about the boy scouts you might know that their motto is to be prepared but their full motto um is is pushing these young men to be prepared to fight and die for their country uh pretty intense by by 21st century standards but certainly it was the message that was being pushed uh prior to world war one um military service in many nations was becoming compulsory it means you had to serve and so armies are going to grow farther or go grow larger and larger and this could really only be done because these countries have gone through the industrial revolution and so you can produce the the boots and the uniforms and the weapons that that these massive armies are going to need um we are also going to see new technologies that increase uh the the devastation that a future war could bring uh this is all connected to to a an arms race in the early 20th century as countries develop better uh communications um technologies like telegraphs and and such and and better transportation um increased industrial capacities um countries literally in their factories can now mass produce the weapons of war uh improved weapons of war we're gonna see new things like submarines and airplanes new battleships this is a dreadnought battleship it's a it's a new battleship deployed by the british navy and then the german navy would follow suit with with a similar one um more accurate rifles and artillery self-loading machine guns um just tremendous advancements in the weapons of war and nations were spending huge amounts of money in order to produce those weapons and create more powerful militaries with those militaries nations would would plan for the future war long before that war would ever come to be and i want to highlight a couple of these war plans and just because you have war plans doesn't mean you're going to war but it does give you an option should your your country get to that point where they decide a war is inevitable um germany in the early 1900s 1905 developed their first version of the schlieffen plan uh which was a plan to attack france uh through neutral belgium um and and lead to a quick defeat of france before they might be challenged in the east by russia france themselves had their own military war plan called plan 17 which called for a more frontal assault into germany uh into the region of alsace and loren to regain those territories finally i want to run through a series of alliances you do not need to memorize the years of these alliances i just want you to recognize that they exist and for for decades before world war one the alliance system was born and would grow first in 1879 we've got an alliance between germany and austria-hungary called the dual alliance those countries share a lot of cultural traits with each other but also the notion that that germany and austria-hungary in central europe might find themselves uh kind of divided surrounded or as as we would see uh used in your reading encircled by france and britain that dual alliance would grow a few years later to the triple alliance as italy would would come into a defensive alliance with germany austria and and um and now italy uh please recognize these are defensive alliances this doesn't mean that that if one country attacks someone else they've all got to attack this means if one country is attacked they would all have to defend themselves or they would all defend each other that's going to be important to our story of of the summer of 1914. um the duel on taunt in 1894 that word anton is a french word for agreement basically um and so we've got an agreement between the french and the russians and obviously you can see this this agreement bookends uh the the austrian hungary and german empire alliance that we see in central europe later the british and the uh the russians would sign their own ontant um along with the british and the french these agreements would eventually turn into the triple ontant by the time we get to world war one when all three ultimately agree to to fight against the germans so so there you have it militarism alliances imperialism nationalism we'll talk in a little bit about some of the uh the historiography of this this time period and and what idea some historians are going to argue about which is more important than others but you just make sure you're able to speak on all four of those and you yourself can make a decision on which ones might pull a little bit more weight see you next time