With the advent of WWI, however, colonial expansionism was brought to an abrupt halt as fighting erupted in Europe between the Great Powers. This battle, which would later be referred to as ‘The Great War’, saw Empires call upon their colonized subjects for the purpose of fighting on their behalf. The result was that millions of foreign troops came forth from the Empires and converged upon European battlefields; in addition, although the colonies were more than compliant to aid their masters, the war would eventually turn out to have dire consequences for imperialism as empires began to break apart in the decades following the conflict.

Within the colonies, World War I was now seen as being forced upon them; therefore, we can assume that this experience caused an awakening of nationalistic ideals and made them question and oppose colonial rule. This growing hostility against foreign rule was fueled by the emergence of nationalist leaders who claimed that their involvement in the war merited self-rule . These leaders found primarily in Asia were ironically educated in the west and they took the ideas of democracy and equality, and employed them with their situation at home . These leaders used their authority to cause increasing unrest within their colonies by politically exploiting the recruiting of soldiers, confiscation of property and rising prices for consumer goods due to the war in order to cause social discontent . As a result, the Colonial powers, weakened by war, had no choice but to change their policies in order to appease these people.

Prior to the declaration of war in 1914, Europe had enjoyed the comforts of controlling many colonial empires throughout the world. Their economic monopoly of the world’s resources, at the expense of colonized peoples, had given them the ability to expand and industrialize at an accelerated rate. The beginning of WWI, however, brought this trend to an end.

Some topics in this essay:
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