Imperialism Dbq Essay

Words: 443
Pages: 2

A former Venezuelan president once stated, “when imperialism feels weak, it resorts to brute force”. World War I occurred from 1914 to 1918 on European land and seas. Using new technology, the Europeans fought each other after tensions arose from multiple causes, such as imperialism, militarism and nationalism. However, there was one main origin that was behind the destruction of Europe. Namely, imperialism was the fundamental cause in World War I as it shaped political alliances, led to strong tensions, and encouraged a fight for power. The process in which the political alliances were chosen almost directly concerned the countries’ colonies and their imperial views. The triple entente, consisting of Great Britain, France and Russia (Doc …show more content…
Germany had heightened panic, as it was surrounded on both sides by the triple entente, and they would not “want to become the ‘slaves of humanity’” (Doc D). In total, the triple alliance had only accumulated 1,718,000 square miles of colonies, whereas the triple entente had collected 17,180,000 square miles of colonies (Doc F). Feeling threatened, Germany spent the most money out of any country on greatly modernizing and developing their military (Doc C). Britain led the triple entente with a total of 12,740,000 square miles (Doc F), and was only on the hunt for more, and to be the greatest. Many nations had been fighting for colonies around the world, increasing competitiveness for the most power. As Great Britain's naval army was growing to be the greatest in the world, Germany quickly questioned the freedom of their shared seas (Doc E). With Germany’s developed military, they possessed new technologies such as the submarine, they had a large capability of bringing down Britain's navy. Britain had also been referred to as the bloodsucker of the world (Doc E), as they were constantly using their colonies resources, however it was not just Britain that did this. Although militarism and nationalism had a large influence on the world war, imperialism was the primary cause. This was because it formed political alliances, created tensions, and a fight