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As we've already talked about as we exit the 1800s and we get to the
early 1900s and we approach World War I
the various powers of Europe are really on this race for empire; it was part of
national prestige and it helped build
national wealth
But of the major powers Germany and Italy were relatively new as unified states.
The British Empire had been building their empire for hundreds of years;
the Germans on the other hand, even though they have a very old culture
going back hundreds, or you could argue thousands of years, as a unified state
they only existed since 1871.
And that's only after the Franco-Prussian War which allowed the Prussians to unify all
of Germany.
And the Italians only became fully unified in 1870, also due to the
Franco-Prussian War
because the French had to focus on the Germans, had to focus on the Prussians,
they couldn't protect the Papal states anymore so that allowed the Italians to
unify it under their rule. So by the time we get to 1914,
the beginning of World War I,
these two powers they were also on the race for empire but there are only about
43 or 44 years old
and so they hadn't been able to build as extensive of an empire as France and
especially as extensive an empire
as Great Britain. But this map right over here shows what was the extense
of their-- how far their actual empires did extend
Italy had control of Libya,
Eritrea,
and parts of what's today Somalia.
And Germany had control -- it also had
holdings in Africa, possessions in Africa:
Togoland, which is modern-day Togo, Cameroon which makes up er...
which modern-day Cameroon is part of;
German Southwest Africa that's now known as Namibia; German East Africa which is
now Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. And Germany also had holdings
in the Pacific and even in China. These are the the Pacific islands that Germany
had possession of
and German New Guinea and it even had control of the town of Tsingtao.
That is actually culturally interesting for those of you watching this video in
2013:
Tsingtao is now a very popular Chinese brand of beer; I think it is
the number 2 in the market - uh... Chinese beer and it's
associated with China but it was actually started by German settlers in
Tsingtao in 1903. So actually its roots are with the
Germans who obviously have a long tradition of producing
beers
and so Tsingtao you could argue it's a Chinese beer, it's produced in China
but it had its roots in German imperial rule.