History

History

The period from 1870 to 1914 in the history of European nations , termed New Imperialism , was characterized by rise of nationalism , the creation of the nation-states of Italy and Germany and unprecedented expansion of colonial empires by the European states . The colonial expansion created extra incentives for competition among European nations and precipitated the start of World War I

Where Britain previously ruled almost alone , it began to face competition from other European rivals , hungry for colonial territories The drive for expansion engulfed in the first place the areas where

br there was still room for colonization , Africa and the Pacific . At the Berlin West Africa Conference , the so-named Scramble for Africa separated the continent into different parts . Southwetern Africa and Tanganyika in East Africa went to the Germans , Mozambique and Angola ended under the control of Portugal , the Congo under Belgium , and France got Senegal , the Cameroons , and several other places in Central Africa , with the rest captured by the British ( The Martian Chronicles

In the Pacific area , there was another mighty player to reckon with - the United States that obtained control of Hawaii and the Philippines Still , there was room for European powers . Indochina was occupied by France , New Guinea by Germany , Burma and Malaya by Britain , and China was separated into different spheres of control ( The Martian Chronicles . The British also took measures to prevent possible Russian expansion in Asia , gaining control of Cyprus in 1878 as a bulwark of warding off a possible Russian attack on Turkey and occupying Afghanistan . The British expansion into Tibet to seize control of the local population was also motivated by the desire to prevent Russian expansion

John Hobson links the colonial expansion , or Imperialism , in the nineteenth century to the rise of nationalism , stating that nationalism , or establishment of political union on a basis of nationality , was a dominant factor alike in dynastic movements and as an inner motive in the life of masses of population (Hobson , 1902 Although there was also a tendency towards the creation of federations of different nationalities like in Norway or Switzerland , the rule of the day was the emergence of the powerful national states centered on the concept of a strong national unity . Examples , according to Hobson can be Greece , Servia , Roumania , and Bulgaria breaking from Ottoman rule , and the detachment of North Italy from her unnatural alliance with the Austrian Empire (Hobson , 1902

Perhaps the most significant event in European history at the end of the 19th century that was to shape the destiny of the continent was the unification of Germany in 1871 . The new state soon wielded considerable industrial , military and political might that the nation 's leader Otto von Bismarck saw as a way to establish dominance on the continent . First reluctant to enter the colonial scramble , Germany in the 1880s changed its position and began to demand its share of the colonies proportionate to its political potential . Struggling to match Britain 's might , Germany discovered that its opportunities were...