How did imperial rivalries impact European powers leading up to World War I? How did these rivalries set the stage for conflict?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: There was no ideological basis to the conflict. European powers disagreed about little except how to distribute power and territory among themselves. Except for France, they were all monarchies. They were all nationalistic and imperialistic. Although most were not democratic, they all had constitutions and parliaments, and they all aspired to mobilize the allegiance of their peoples. They also all used the same rhetoric of chivalry, idealism, and crusade. For Germany, it was an attempt to resolve two obsessions: first, to strike a preemptive blow against Russia, before industrialization and rearmamentturned that country into a superpower; second, to break out of maritime containment by Britain: For France, the war was an attempt to wreak revenge on Germany for humiliation suffered and territory lost in their last war in 1870–1871 . For Britain, despite manifestly insincere claims to be defending the integrity of neutral countries, it was an exercise in traditional British grand strategy: pinning down a world-imperial rival—Germany—in continental fighting. For the old, multinational Habsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary, striving to contain restless and violent national minorities, war was a desperate act of impatience with Serbian subversion, which threatened to detach the empire's southern, Slavic provinces. For Italy, the objective was frontier snatching at Austria's expense. For the Ottoman rulers, who feared Russian expansion, it was a miscalculated gamble to risk survival on an alliance with Germany. Russian ministers also feared that Germany had "a gigantic plan of world domination" that it was vital to preempt.