World War 1 Rupture

World War I, the first total war and the first war on a global scale where global powers and colonies were involved. World War I ended imperialism that began in the early 19th century and an end battle for attaining the title of ‘Global Superpower’. ‘Some historians describe World War I as a radical rupture, a total break from the world that existed before it.” The former statement believes World War I was a “break” from the imperialist age, in which it was a radical rupture as in brought together the years of buried anger and anguish together. Allied powers and Central powers concentrated their efforts and their resources both externally and internally to the war. Politics, economic imperialism, and imperialist attitude led to nations competing

As the world began to rapidly urbanize from the Industrial Revolution, new inventions came about that assisted these nations to begin their goals of colonizing lands. Communication and technological advancement in weapons led to the nations being aggressive on one another as it became a race to who will gain critical resources specifically in Africa. Europeans believed they were the dominant powers around the globe and everyone else is inferior. The belief was it was the survival of the fittest and those nations that had built a reputation or had a strong military had the upper hands amongst other nations. This, in turn, angered nations such as Germany and Italy as they were the last nations to begin their conquest of imperialization.

Colonial or imperial issues also brought war but was quickly evaded as both governments from both sides did not want to escalate their dispute to a national level. Politics brought together countries to sign treaties of non-aggression or during times of war, they will support each other. The Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance were created to create a balance of power between nations and for allied nations to not meddle with each other for colonies. Even before these treaties were signed, in 1885, European nations hosted a conference in West Africa to discuss the future expansion of nations and the control of African lands. Europe quickly realized that nations had the same mindsight to compete for control of colonies and so before beginning a race they wanted to even out the playing field that way all nations have an equal footing on colonizing lands. However, Britain held a great superiority as is naval military was one of the strongest of the so it had a clear advantage to the likes of Italy and Germany. Government leaders in Germany changed as terms were finished but to a certain extent, the political leaders of European nations did not want to tilt the balance too much as they also did not threaten the British throne because of their military strength. Because of the imbalance of military strength, that is why the