During 1914, the entire Europe was a powder keg filled not with gunpowder, but pride. Finally, it blew up with the assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand in the 28th of June. While Franz Ferdinand was on his way to examine Serbia, he was assassinated by the Serbian nationalist (Sowards). In response to this action, Austrian angrily announced an ultimatum to Serbia, which strictly demanded Serbia to end all anti-Austrian agitation and punish any Serbian official whoever involved in the murder plot. However, the refusal of the demand gives many extreme nations like Germany an opportunity to show and test their army. Meanwhile, nations like Germany has a very strong nationalism thinking in their mind, which helped them to build up the second largest navy through out the entire Europe and to be more aggressive on declaring war on other nations. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was a great chance for Germany to test their army, therefore Germany encouraged Austria to declare war on Serbia and claimed that she would provide help if Austria did that. As a result, this led to the beginning of World War I that at the end led to great damaged on the economy and the government of the entire European nations. Therefore, among all the reasons that led to World War I, nationalism, usually have a positive effect, turn into an evil idea that brought over 5 millions men died in the war. (U.S. Department of Justice)
One of the most important reasons why nationalism is a major cause of total war is that nationalism raised citizens’ desire of gaining independence and dominance (World War I – nationalism). Before nationalism settled in, the war seems to be stuck and neither side of the alliances was able to defeat the opposition. Nation like Russia and Germany continuously send troops to the front line, however, it is not that affective, which they causes many innocent people to die but the war still seems not moving. However, after nationalism settles in,...