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while Europe's leaders were stitching a false piece together by

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making alliances left and right, other forces were at work driving the [heads of state pictured]

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continent slowly but inexorably toward war. those forces were, nationalism

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imperialism, and militarism. and those are three of the big isms.

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fortunately botulism is notably absent from this list. okay so let's start with

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nationalism. way back in unit 2 we talked about how in the early 1800s various

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people's across Europe wanted to join together to form their own countries. at

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last the Nationalists thought, everyone who spoke the same language sang the

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same songs and ate the same food would be able to do all of those things

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together just in a little nation state of their very own. [men waving bread smile]

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while nationalism got squashed after Napoleon's defeat it displayed cockroach

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like tendencies and rose from the dead again and again throughout the 19th

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century. by the 1870s several areas of Europe were ripe for a nationalistic

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resurgence . you had the Austrian and Ottoman empires which covered a lot of

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territory in which featured a whole bunch of different ethnic and cultural

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groups. and on the other hand you had Germany in Italy. as we mentioned in unit

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2. many of the aristocrats ruling Europe were not wild about nationalism. like at [members of ruling class pictured]

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all .if they could have killed it with fire they would have. instead they pulled

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that every trick in the book to try and contain nationalist sentiment. the

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Austrian Empire for example gave itself a new name by sticking the word

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Hungarian in between Austria and Empire the ruling Habsburg family hoped like

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heck people of Hungary would simmer down and not stage a revolt. again.

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austria-hungary also reconfigured itself so that while the Austrian and Hungarian

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states controlled their own domestic affairs a single ruler oversaw all [compromise of 1867 pictured]

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foreign and economic ones. just like every other man in Europe at the time,

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well dude had a huge mustache .well father East Tsar Alexander ii

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implemented a program of Russification - that he hoped would

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magically turn all of his empires minority citizens from rebels into

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russet potato into Russians. other European nations were less terrified of

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nationalism. in fact they did their best to make national pride via in thing. well

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the British expanded voting rights and started paying their elected

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representatives. the French created a new constitution that called for a republic

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with a president and a bicameral legislature . all right well the Germans [legislative document pictured]

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started providing financial aid to the sick and disabled, while retired workers

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gained access to a pension system. after finishing up all those reforms at home

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Europe's leaders began to ask themselves what else they could do to make their

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citizens feel, you know proud. well the answer was to subjugate as many non

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Europeans as possible. yay. for example Italy who really should

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have known better after the whole Tunisia thing and we talked about in the

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last lesson , tried to take over Ethiopia in 1890s and well promptly failed,

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national pride was dented but not to worry third time's the charm! [painting of battle pictured]

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in 1911 Italy snatched Tripoli from the Ottomans, and renamed it Libya. and so

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Africa and Asia were made into Christmas dinner for the countries of Europe. at

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last there was peace at home and you know kind of peace abroad. it was at this

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point that Europe's leaders decided to build up their militaries because well

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you never know when some Archduke is gonna go off and get himself

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assassinated. well between 1890 and 1914 Europe's [picture of assignation shown]

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military forces doubled in size and every country except Great Britain

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instituted mandatory military service for its male citizens. of course this

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increased militarism- meant that military leaders began to have more and more

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power within national governments/ well if you've ever wondered why civilians

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and not soldiers have ultimate authority over the military in many countries

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today this this right here the lead-up to World War one is your answer/ because

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what the German military did was designed these really complex plans for [map of France featuring invasion plans pictured]

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invading France very quickly .once they had those plans and an opportunity well

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went looking for a fight .by 1914 in spite of the alliances Europe's leaders

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thought would keep everybody safe, while the continent was a toxic brew of

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nationalism imperialism and militarism. all the situation needed now was a match-

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or a bullet- you know -whatever works. [flaming cauldron pictured]

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