One of the facts that marked the rise of hostilities between the countries that participated in the World War I it was the nationalism. Created as the identity of peoples during the 19th century, nationalism was used as a form of persuasion of the popular masses for the expansionist desires of the rulers of Empires and others countries. The discourse on the need for civilian citizens to enlist in the army to defend their nation and homeland was a resource used as a way to expand the contingent of armies.
Furthermore, the nationalist discourse served to encourage the territorial expansion of some states, a situation that was presented as necessary to unite peoples. In this sense, some great nationalist movements emerged that would influence World War I.
The first one that can be mentioned is the plan of Greater Serbia, which consisted in extending Serbian jurisdiction over the peoples of the Balkan region, in the center of Europe, using the affirmation of the need for autonomy of this ethnic group in relation to the empires that controlled the region. The aim was to unite the Serbian peoples, and started after Serbia freed itself from the rule of the Turkish Empire in 1878. This proposal would lead to the outbreak of the Balkan War in 1912-1913, inciting nationalist feelings against the domination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the region. The result of this was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, giving reasons for the start of World War I.
Russia's own entry into this conflict was linked to expansionist pretensions based on nationalism. Greater Serbia was a strand of Pan-Slavism, policy defended by Russia. As the Serbs declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian tsar, Nicholas II, decided to intervene in the conflict to help the Serbs, who are as ethnic Slavs as the Russians. But the Tsar's real objective was the expansion of Empire and control of the Balkan region. This Russian expansion was rooted in pan-Slavism, an attempt to unite all Slav peoples under the mantle of holy mother Russia.
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However, there were others interested in the region, who used the same nationalist discourse to dominate the territories. A group of German nationalists had formed the pangermanism, a movement originating in the Pan-Germanic League, from 1895, which advocated the expansion of the German Empire, with the annexation of all territories inhabited by peoples of German origin in Central Europe. This discourse of Pan-Germanism was one of the arguments used by Kaiser Wilhelm II for the participation of Germany in World War I, thus supporting his expansionist policy.
In this intricate web of historically created and politically used national feelings, the french revenge against the Germans. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, the Prussians (originating in Prussia, the kingdom that would lead German unification) defeated the French and annexed the rich region of Alsace-Lorraine. This loss fueled within France a feeling of revenge against the Germans on the part of the French nationalists. This feeling was widely used during World War I to encourage the participation of French citizens in combats against the Germans.
All these nationalist feelings, built over time, served as a political instrument by the ruling classes to gain popular support for their goals of economic expansion and territorial.
By Tales Pinto
Graduated in History
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PINTO, Tales of the Saints. "Nationalism and World War I"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/nacionalismo-i-guerra-mundial.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
