d, Paris was captured in 1871 and the mineral rich Alsace-Lorraine valley was drawn into the Iron Chancellor’s fold. The southern Germanic states were forced to accept Prussian hegemony, and Germany as it is known today was formed. Within the space of thirty years, Germany had gone from being a cluster of insignificant states to the most powerful state in Europe - full of nationalistic sentiment, patriotic people and militaristic Kaisers. It is easily forgotten that Italy, similar to Germany is only a recently created state. Little over a century ago Italy was divided into five main groups, all subject to political arrangements made by their foreign rulers. It took 21 years of resistance in the name of Irredentism, to oust the puppet Autocratic government. Liberal views were enough, Liberal views and the invasion of Austria(1848), and for a second time in 1859, the invasions were used in order to establish the nation, and to expel Austrian emigrants from northern Italy, the theme of “unifying” ones nation through military action has been exemplified again. In order to determine a nation on the global stage, an expansionistic foreign policy has been held by both Germany and Italy, and the result has been successful each time fusing the populace closer together by attaining a sense of achievement through hardship and therefore a joint heritage and culture.Now that the period of self-determination was temporarily complete on a national scale, it was only logical that it be commenced on the global scale. Kaiser Wilhelm II believed strongly in “Kultur”2, this combined with his natural militaristic tendencies, made a policy of “Weltpolitik”3, inevitable. Manipulated Darwinistic4 theories were employed by some as the philosophical underpinning for imperialism, racism, and unbridled capitalism, but as imperialism was “fashionable”, it was an acceptable justification for the subjugation of s...
