Imperialism in First World War

Imperialism is when a country takes over new lands or countries to expand their empire overseas and make colonies and makes them follow their own laws. By 1900 the British Empire extended over five continents and France had control of large areas of Africa. The amount of lands 'owned' by Britain and France increased the rivalry with Germany. When Germany emerged as fastest growing economy, it caused considerable anxiety in Britain. New trade markets were made in order to improve the economy and higher salaries were offered to motivate the workers which lead to increase productivity. Later in late nineteenth century Germany acquired a number of overseas colonies giving serious completion to British. These economic and colonial rivalries also lead to lot of mistrust between these countries. These rivalries were not a direct cause of war as most of the colonial conflicts had been settled well before 1914.

Kaiser (German ruler) made new policy called ‘weltpolitik’ which means world policy in English. The Germans wanted to rule the world and they were sure they will win, so they already prepared laws and regulations for the whole world but this didn’t happen which disappointed the Germans. Secondly, German wanted to expand their army into the Ottoman Empire.