Analytical Categories Involved in WWI World War I was filled with many countries who loved and admired their government and nation, yet they all showed their love and appreciation in diverse ways. The behaviors they exhibited included major patriotism, devotion to their country, and lies and propaganda. The analytical categories included nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and alliances of countries. We’ll first discuss the effects of nationalism in countries.
Nationalism is, in short, the belief that your country is superior to others. This is reflected in the documents and in certain countries national anthems, such as an anthem about Britain. “Rule Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves…” This quote comes directly from Document H, which shows two nations songs that strongly reflect nationalism. An analytical category that many countries have is militarism because of the military dependence involved. Militarism is technically the dependence on military to have power.
According to Document O, countries such as Germany were highly affected by this. “…without a strong army and a strong navy, there can be no welfare for us. ” In document K there is a bar graph depicting military sizes based on the amount of money put into it. Of course countries such as Russia and Germany had the largest militaries because of their strong militarism. Imperialism is a propaganda filled category mostly used by countries that we considered our enemies at the time.
Imperialism can be defined as the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination. Imperialism usually involves communist systems. In Document O there was a propaganda poster, most likely produced by Germany, exclaiming “England is the Bloodsucker of the world. ” And portraying them importing from many different countries. Germany was probably one of the largest imperialistic countries.
In conclusion I believe that countries all around the world during this time used different ways to show how they felt about themselves and other countries, whether it was through a strong national anthem, or through propaganda posters that showed other countries as “bad guys” and enemies to the nation. As you read through the documents, these analytical categories become clear almost instantly, from militarism to nationalism to imperialism. All of these countries represented one of these in some way.
