Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Imperialism
a. Definition: the rule or domination of one country by another, usually through acquisition of
colonies, but the entire country does not need to be colonies in order to dominate it i.e. China
b. Economic factors:
i. (1) industrial countries need colonies because they need raw resources that are reliable
and only theirs i.e. they do not need to compete with other countries for these resources,
they get them for extremely low costs
ii. (2) and a colony functions as a market to sell finished goods to, once they are made with
the raw resources
c. Technological factors: colonies especially in Africa are now easier to dominate for various
reasons:
i. (1) the steam boat allows for countries to travel upstream fast moving rivers because of
their strong engines, allowing for further penetration into Africa (used to be only able to
colonies the coastland),
ii. (2) new medicine and vaccinations allow immunizations to rare and deadly
African/tropical diseases,
iii. (3) new weapons give them an upper hand and because of the industrial revolution, the
repeating rifle and machine gun allows for a small group of Europeans to defeat large
African warrior tribes.
d. Religious (and racist) factors: from Rudyard Kipling: it is the White Mans Burden to educate
the black and yellow people because the white Christian person is superior steps: (1)
Christianize them, (2) uplift them, (3) civilize them, (4) and then educate them seems altruistic,
but cloaked in racism
e. European rivalries nationalism factor the owning of colonies is a representation of power, so
countries attempted to own as many colonies as possible. To help so how nationalistic this race to
colonization is, look at the British saying, The sun never sets of the British Empire
f. Opium War: China had lots of goods that Europeans wanted (silk, spices, china/porcelain,
lackerware, etc), but the Chinese did not want any of European goods except for gold and silver.
This is a poor economic relationship, because it is destroying the European economy, so the
British try to find a good that the Chinese do want. British begin giving opium to the population
of China and because opium is very addictive, the demand for it begins to skyrocket. When the
emperor sees this, he threatens to execute anyone who is selling or buying opium, including
foreigners, so the British go to war with China. The superior British navy (and strategy) led to an
easy victory, and the British forced the emperor to retract the anti-opium laws, as well as open 5
additional ports to trade with, as well as to pay all the costs of war (for both sides), and accept
exterritoriality (which means all foreigners are exempt from Chinese law kind of like
diplomatic immunity but much worse: Europeans can kill Chinese for no reason and face no
punishment) = huge embarrassment and a form of total domination of Chinese
g. Boxer rebellion: Boxers are strong nationalists in China, and they became increasingly frustrated
as more and more ports began to open and how more and more foreigners began to influence the
Qing dynasty, so they began to kill them. The European armies are sent to China and easily
annihilate the uprising. China has to pay an indemnity (damages for the war)
4. World War 1
a. Nationalism: if you are loyal to your own country, you want it to be the strongest and most
powerful, this is done by defeating other countries and increasing/advancing your own increase
your own pride. Examples: (1) Russia wants revenge for Crimean war and want port into
Mediterranean, (2) Austria wants to keep all countries within it intact, while the countries have
something called submerged nationalism. For example, even though the Turks like in the
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
Ottoman Empire, they want their own country of Turkey. (3) Poland is another example and
wants to break out of German and Russian control, (4) Britain and Germany fight for best navy
Imperialism: everyone wants more resources, so fighting over colonies began to happen both
Germany and France fought over who owned the colony of Morocco because the resources will
help make them a strong country. Conflicts typically occurred over border disputes, and this is
important because of money. The money colonies, the more money you can make/save.
Militarism: strengthen army, new weapons, keeping an army during peacetime (conscript
army/draft), and the von Schlileffen Plan plan for how Germany would react is a world war
would happen attach France fast then move to Eastern front for Russian attack
Entangling alliances: want alliances with other countries because it makes you feel safer and
more willing to go to war because you have backup (decreases diplomacy and increases
aggression)
i. Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria Hungry, and Italy)
ii. Triple Entente (France, Great Britain, and Russia)
Immediate Cause:
i. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand (heir to Austria Hungry throne) and his wife at
Sarajevo. Sarajevo was taken (annexed) by the Austria and Serbia felt like the same
would happen to them, so a Serbian peasant kills Franz to send message. (nationalism)
ii. Germany gives blank check to Austria saying we will back you with whatever you do.
iii. Austria gives final ultimatum to Serbia, but
iv. big brother Slav (Russia) mobilizes army to back Serbia.
v. This messes up the von Schlieffen Plan, so Germany declares war on Russia,
vi. then everyone declares war on everyone.
vii. Finally, Italy moves from two the other side because they want the Austrian land.
Trench warfare: new deadly weapons require you to stay underground to be safe
New weapons: (1) poison gas, (2) tanks, (3) long-range canons, (4) repeating rifle, (5) machine
gun, (6) airplanes, (7) submarines
i. Hitler talked about the Treaty of Versailles and how it stabbed Germany in the back
(appeal to nationalism)
ii. Germany had a brand new democratic parliamentary government which was very weak
and did not have the time need to establish, and on top of this, they were facing the death
of money and Great Depression government was inept to fix the problems
iii. The death of money, rapid inflation, bank failures, and the Great Depression was a death
sentence, but Hitler offered new hope. Germans didnt want socialism/communism
because the large middle class was happy with wealth, and capitalism is failing, so decide
to go with fascists.
iv. Hitler also offers a scapegoat to all the problems of Germany = Jews. The Jews were
displaced from homeland of Palestine and were very common businessmen and bankers
of countries, because they came late to the game and have no land. Blame the
businessman/banker.
v. LOTS of propaganda and gathered in large groups. Large groups run on emotion.
Promotes nationalism
vi. Nazi party won a plurality and Paul von Hindenburg elects leader of Nazi party, Hitler, as
chancellor of Germany. He didnt take power by force.
c. Ideas/Goals
i. build a totalitarian state in order to help Germany recover all power in the hands of the
state/one person
ii. eliminate all political opposition
iii. stimulate economy by building expressways (die Autobahn) and create an affordable
automobile for everyone (die Autobahn also helped the German troops mobilize quicker)
iv. increase German nationalism
v. anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews) and Holocaust (elimination of Jews)
vi. expansion of militaristic policy Take places like the Rhineland, Sudetenland,
Czechoslovakia, but wasnt punished. The alliances gave into Hitler saying that he can
take this if he promises to take nothing further, in order to avoid was = called
appeasement. After Hitler invades Poland, cant take it any longer and WWII starts.