Earlier a caller commented that she believed the purpose of WWI was to break up the Ottoman empire. The fact of the matter is this, when WWI broke out, the Ottoman empire chose to join the Central Powers, it was not obligated by previous treaties to do so. Breaking up the Ottoman empire was not an objective of the war by the allied forces, but since it was advantageous for them to do so at the end of the war to keep them from being a threat, as well as being able to dominate the regions resources, doing so was practically a foregone conclusion. They also broke up the Austrian Empire as well as shrinking the German lands and siezing most (if not all) of their remaining colonies.

The causes of the Great War are almost all rooted in nationalism. Much of the propaganda produced in the war was very nationalistic and racist, on both sides. From Russia backing Serbia because of dreams of a pan-slavic unity in Eastern Europe and Russia, Frankish desires to return the Alsace-Lorainne territories to the land of France, to the German expectations of dominating the European continent because of what the believed to be their superior Kultur and divine right. From America's point of view, Europeans are pretty much all the same race... caucasian, but in each of those countries, even regional differences are enough to divide people into groups of "others". Not unlike America's New Englander/East Coast, Mid Western, the South, as well as the Northwest and Southwest regions can look at each other as others.

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