Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to this Lesson 5 of 6.

On Enquiry, did the Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand lead to the outbreak of World War I? Today's title is, "Nationalism and Militarism." And for this lesson, you will need a pen and something to write on, and you'll need to make sure that wherever you are, you're free of any distractions.

I'll give you a moment to write down the title and the we'll move on.

Hello it's me again, Mr Hewitt.

I'm here back for the 5th of six lessons on enquiry to the causes of World War I.

I'm so impressed, you've made it this far it really is fantastic.

And if you're joining us for the first time, you are very welcome, but I would recommend that you go back and complete the other lessons in this enquiry before moving on.

So our pen, ultimate lesson, just this one, and one more to go.

Now in our next lesson, we're going to look at all of the causes that we've studied and see how they fit together before trying to give an answer to this enquiry.

But today we've got two final causes to consider "Nationalism and Militarism.

? I've already told you the fascinating story of how plucky pressure a small Germans state managed to defeat using its army and mobilisation.

The great state of France in 1871.

And how this led the German States to unify and become one nation state.

But, this was not a unique story entirely.

Italy had gone through a similar process and internal conflict rather than one with a different country.

Wherein the famous and controversial General Garibaldi had unified the Italian States, essentially forcing them under one King.

But, why am I telling you this? In order to understand what nationalism is? You need to understand that actually, most countries are nation States today.

The idea of a unified nation will really clearly defined borders.

Would create a thing, even in Europe and even in the 19th century? You see, countries like Germany and Italy have been made up of different states and cities with their own laws, different languages, different types of people, different economies and cultures, and unifying them into one nation state.

As I say, was quite a unique concept.

In fact, this was even quite unique for some of the older States in Europe.

You could go back, for example to the French revolution in 1789, all the glorious revolution in Britain in 1688, in Britain's case, this event separated permanently, the Monarch as the king or queen from the State.

And so it created this idea that actually people could be loyal to a country rather than just another individual, like a king or queen or emperor.

In France is a similar thing.

The French threw off the oppressive King Louis and established a Republic to which people could be loyal on a democratic basis.

Horse the French ended up under Napoleon and then as an empire, don't worry you need to understand all of these stories, to understand the causes of the First World War.

I just want you to take away one reality.

In Europe, in the 19th century, especially in Germany, the idea of nationalism was a new and powerful force that was on the rise and it was going to more likely.

Okay, I'll get my head out of the way so that you can see this story character on the right hand side.

Now you've met this person before it's Gavrilo Princip, the assassin who fired the shots, which killed the Archduke and sparked the July crisis leading to war.

But what motivated Princip? Well, one of his motivations was nationalism.

Princip lived in Bosnia, but he was of Serbian origin.

And throughout the Balkan nations, there was a desire to be respected as independent Slavic States, not States which had to live under the influence of for example, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Princip was even sponsored by the Serbian government.

It's not as though he was some crazed individual working alone, although of course he did commit murder.

He was working with the support of Serbians who wanted Bosnia and other Balkan States to stand up to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austro-Hungarian Empire.

And by doing that, possibly trigger a nationalist movement in the region.

So nationalism was even a cause of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

I need us to do a little exercise, before we go any further.

I'd like you to think.

Is it possible to identify three things which a group of people living in an area might need to call themselves a "nation"? Pause the video, write down your thoughts.

And when you're happy, unpause the video and we can share some of our ideas.

Great work.

Language, fantastic that could be one of them.

That's an important signifier of nationhood.

So, for example, the Germans might've wanted to unite all German speaking peoples.

Clearly defined borders, absolutely, You can't really have a nation state without borders because without borders, it's not clear which area you control or have sovereignty over.

So nations in Europe and peoples in Europe they were motivated by nationalism, certainly would have seen borders as a key feature of a nation state.

Fantastic work.

Third word patriotism, indeed.

Patriotism was an important force, the love of one's nation is what's meant by that term.

And a powerful army to defend those borders.

Both of these things in the minds of Europeans before 1914 were an important feature of a nation state.

New nations like Germany, wanted to establish themselves as true nation states.

They actually relied on nationalism and patriotism, the kind of emotions and passions that make people believe that nation or country is superior to others.

When I say they relied on them, what I mean is the Kaiser encouraged patriotic, and nationalistic displays.

For example, of military power, might, pump and splendour.

Look at the right, these soldiers on parade and the individual inspecting them.

This was exactly the kind of scene that the Kaiser enjoyed.

Not only for himself, but also for other Germans.

Because the Kaiser of believed that nationalism and patriotism were effective ways of unifying and bringing together the new nation of Germany.

The Kaiser wasn't a loneliness, all of the European nations had their own desire to build patriotism and nationalism among that people.

And this was linked to militarism and new word which we're going to explain in a moment.

Because, bringing a powerful army into the mix was one way of inspiring people to be patriotic and to think of their country potentially as superior to another country.

What about that word militarism then? Well, militarism is the idea that or culture that a powerful army is a good way to secure your state, your people and your future.

And one of the ways in which we can growing militarism in Europe is through the story of the arms race, which led up to 1914.

Now an arms race is when two or more different nations compete with each other.

Each trying to build better weapons and recruit more soldiers.

The image on the right is of a dreadnought and very powerful new warship, which was created by the British in 1906.

And the creation of this dreadnought sparked a naval arms race as Germany started to compete with Britain, each seeing who could build more of these deadly ship.

Take a look at this graph, showing dreadnought production.

I want you to study it and answer these three questions.

How many dreadnoughts did the British produce in 1913? Which nation produced the most dreadnoughts in 1908? And tell me generally, what happened to the production of dreadnoughts by both Germany and Britain 1906 to 1914? pause the video and when you're happy, unpause the video, we can share our thoughts.

Incredibly good work.

You're right.

Britain produced seven dreadnoughts.

Seven of those powerful warships, in just one year 1913.

Germany produced more though in 1908.

Across the period, Britain's production outstripped Germany's.

But both you're quite right, rapidly increase their production of dreadnoughts.

And these is just one good example of the arms race taking place before the First World War.

Now this arms race, this attempt to build up a powerful army superior to that of your rival nations was driven by militarism and nationalism.

The idea that your nation should be defended, protected, unified and inspired by a powerful army, that's really what militarism was.

And nationalism again, this notion that your country or nation is superior or more powerful or better than it's rival nations.

Let's take a look at relationship between these new challenging and interesting terms, "nationalism and militarism." We might start with the idea of a country such as Germany being unified in 1871.

And those were our first box there on the right in orange.

Germany as a new nation, would have wanted respect and security.

And they have thought, what's a good way to achieve this? Well, perhaps we should build upon army, why? This guarantees the security of our borders, and it might increase people's national pride.

There you see a link between nationalism and militarism.

Now to the yellow box, where we're halfway through our cycle.

As the army starts to get larger, it has more power in politics and society.

And people, our leaders become excited about the idea of going to war, thinking that their country is sure to win and will gain glory and security and maybe even prosperity, that is wealth while going to war.

Also when having a large army, nation start to rely on this army and feel confident about using it as a way of resolving disputes.

So, it's not the believing your country is superior to another role, having one type of ship that slightly more powerful, would have been enough to send the European nations to war in 1914.

It's more that, with these powerful armies and this strong sense of nationalism, it was more likely that disputes could end up being settled, with force.

Think about it, nationalism, the belief that your country superior, militarism, culture that your army should be powerful and strong.

What did they create in Europe? Armies that we're capable of just the kind of fighting that we see in the First World War.

And populations and leaders, who are willing to take big risks just as the Kaiser was, using their military power.

Outstanding.

we reached that stage in the lesson, where we need to complete some comprehension questions to check your fantastic new knowledge.

I'd like you to pause the slide, complete these questions.

And when you're ready, come back and join us and we look at some of the answers that you could have got.

Wow, I'm so impressed.

You've got to end a series of extremely difficult questions.

Fantastic work.

Let's take a look at those answers then.

So, which nation Britain or Germany produced more dreadnoughts 1906 to 1914? Well, if you studied the graph carefully you'd know it was Britain.

Well done for getting that, right? You could also expand that answer and say, Britain produce more, but both nations are increasing their production to compete with each other.

What terms used to describe a competition between nations, just like the one I referred to in that last slide to build up the more powerful military? If you had an arms race, I'm so impressed, you're learning fantastic new vocabulary.

You could have gone even further and said the term arms race describes a competition between two or more nations or countries, you get the superior army.

This question, can you define the word patriotic? Well, if you asked something along the lines of a love of your country or your father land, which is actually where the word comes from the Greek.

patris, then you've done a great job.

That is what that word means.

You could have said, for example, something like patriotic cultures, but a love of one's nation's state at the heart of their thinking, their behaviour.

And you could have also mentioned that, nationalism as an idea, is of course, linked to patriotism.

How did nationalism make a war in Europe, more likely? Well, if you had nations wanted to defend and to establish themselves, I'm superbly impressed that's a really, really good work, 'cause that is a hard question.

But if you had something like nationalism encouraged nations to assert themselves off the military and to compete aggressively with their neighbours, then I'm even more impressed because that is fantastic work.

And then we're on to how did militarism make a war like in Europe, thinking back to that cycle, graph, that circle that we showed in the last slide.

If you said militarism led to growing armies, that's a really good starting point, well done.

If you said something similar to militarism not only true created these armies, it also encourage people or leaders to think that war could be won and that the military was a good way of bringing unity, security to a nation then you've done a fantastic job, seriously good work.

Well done.

You could even go further because we going to have another extension task where you can have the opportunity to return to your enquiry.

Let's take a look at it there.

What was the relationship between nationalism and militarism in Europe before 1914? Two sentence starters and several key terms, as always.

And of course I would love to see what you come up with for this.

So, if you want to share your work with us, and you've got a parent or carer who can use Twitter, you can tweet us with the details here.

Fantastic.

I look forward to seeing you for a final lesson on the causes of the First World War.

See you later.