would you say that the colonialization of Africa and Asia in the 19th century led to the World War I?

Question

I am writing a history report where we have to state what the consequences of colonialism in Africa and Asia were. Am I looking to far ahead when I say that World War I was a consequnce of European colonialism? Or would a better answer be Anticolonialism?

Answer 1

Yes, the colonization had a direct causation for World War 1


In 1908, the British started converting its Navy from coal to oil. It needed oil reserves to maintain its fleet. It also needed to retain control of the seas in order to continue exploitation of its colonies in India and the far East.

The Germans in response started converting its fleet to petroleum. It had no oil-rich colonies such as Britain did [Nigeria, for example], nor did it have command of the sea to the extent of the Royal navy [with uncontrolled access to the Middle East].

Germany tried to push through the last link of the Berlin to Baghdad railroad. It was called the "Drive to the East." The Berlin to Constantinople section was already completed - it was called the Orient Express. The last section, across the Ottoman Empire [modern Turkey and Iraq] was opposed vehemently by the British, French, and Russians who feared, rightly, that they would be overwhelmed by a Germany with sufficient access to oil.

When Germany's ally, Austria, started consolidating its control of the Balkans using the excuse of the assassination of the Archduke, the Russians rapidly mobilized against Germany [not Austria]. The French and the British rapidly joined in - in effect ganging up on Germany in order to keep it away from oil.

Answer 2

I can think of a number of things the resulted from colonialism in Africa and Asia, which is what you report seems to be about other than WWI. However, isn't the WWI argument that Germany had missed out on the whole colonization thing because it wasn't unified until the mid-C19th, wanted a piece of the action and having a war with the French and the English (and, hopefully, defeating them) was an attempt to do this. In the peace settlement that would presumably have followed if Germany had won, Germany would be passed some colonies just as the English, Spanish, French and Dutch had transferred colonies at the end of wars, depending on the victor, over the previous few hundred years.

However, for me, the most serious consequence of colonialism was the destruction of unique indigenous societies throughout the world, not just in Africa and Asia, making the world a much poorer and less interesting, less happy place and robbing future generations of the ability to learn from these societies. Maybe there is an answer to life, the universe and everything and maybe one of the societies had found or was on the right track to finding it and maybe this knowledge was lost to mankind by colonization destroying the culture of that society. Alot of maybes, true, but given what we have learnt from the few societies that avoided colonization there is a pretty high chance that colonization robbed the world of many good ideas about how mankind can survive on a long-term basis/avoid self-destruction.

Answer 3

Cochise has an excellent answer, and maybe this will add a little.

Colonialism was an attempt to create 'captive markets' where each of the European powers would have a monopoly on exploiting the resources and have the only access to marketing thier own products. This was an attempt to create a system where eventually none of them would have to compete with each other over trade. Since the colonies were set up basically as slave prisons, they could produce the resources but would never become advanced enough to have the wealth to purchase the finished products. In the end, the system was successful in that the powers stopped dealing with each other as much as possible, but it was unsuccessful in that the Europeans ended up competing with each other even more for developed markets and thus became even more paranoid.

Answer 4

Neither. Colonialism was largely positive for Europeans. World War I was caused by imperial powers who became too entrenched in strategic alliances, and then ended up getting hung by them. But the colonies were not the dog of war, but rather the tail.
European aspirations around the world reflected their aspirations on the continent itself. Europe had been involved in huge wars among its nations long before colonialism.
The only real connection between the World Wars and colonialism was later, when WW2 sparked the end of colonialism by weakening colonial powers and by showing how hypocritical the allies were when they cast themselves as democratic, liberty-loving peoples.

Answer 5

Colonialism and slavery were products of white national/racism.

Answer 6

o yeah. the european powers were in a power struggle. it was about who got the most land. they took places just for the hell of it. the consquences, the completely destroyed china with their splitting of the country. shang hai became a place for mob bosses to commit crime then move to another sector and be free. japan became power hungry, africa basically became pretty messed up. germany lost WW1 when the US entered the war because american business men figured out that GB had a lot of land in those places and would be great to do business with them. good luck on your essay

Answer 7

main conseq is it leads to fight for indep n indep itself.so tht leads to self rule gov n own laws..indir. yes,colonis. did cause ww1 but hardly..ww1 more at europe than asia..i dun think japan was in..it was attacking china n russia then..so its a spillover than ww1 involved asia..o'wise..ww1 is just a conseq. of bad econ. in germany n italy aganst bri/fra. doing well..also..bri had col. wealth n germany/hapsburg emp/ wanted to grab it..

Answer 8

Actually, I think it was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that started WWl

Answer 9

yes.