Imperialism: The Leading Cause Of World War One

Imperialism, the leading cause of world war one, imperialism is the formation of a nation to an empire for political and economic gain. Imperialism is the leading cause because of two reasons, the sudden uprise of tension and pressure, and how it contributed to other main causes of the war. First reason, tension and pressure, before the war Britain’s and France’s economics and strength prospered through imperialism, which created tension between the other European countries. That tension, then began to put pressure on European countries to be on par with them, the pressure subsequently resulted in some counties attempting to forcibly take over the smaller colonies bringing on even more conflict. An example of such occurring would be how Kaiser Wilhelm felt he wasn’t being recognized enough for as one of the rulers of Europe and then attempted to take land in Africa under the British empire.

What had happened was that the European countries thought they had an obligation to “civilize” their colonies by having the people of those colonies to learn and follow their religion, language, customs...etc, without their opinion or consent about the matter. The second cause that imperialism made more relentless is militarism, as already said Kaiser Wilhelm tried to forcibly take over Britain’s smaller colonies which resulted in Britain putting even more funding in their military defence. Which created a more action based reason rather than just for militarism, but still made militarism much more relentless as