War does not start in a day. The immediate cause of World War 1 (WW1) was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but there were three more underlying tensions that were imperialism, militarism, and nationalism. One of the most influential ideas in Europe during the early 1900's was imperialism.

Imperialism is the policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language). Germany saw that other European powers were acquiring colonies around the world, and now that there were only a small amount of useless colonies, Germany had to fight the other Europeans for land. WW1 just gave Germany an excuse for battling other countries. Due to the imperialist ideas in Europe, tension was created between the European powers as Germany realized it need colonies. Imperialism was a very important...