(a) How did the tension in the Balkans region in 1871 become the major cause of the First World War? Explain.

(i) The most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after $\displaystyle 1871$ was the area called the Balkans.

(ii) The Balkans was a region of geographical and ethnic variation comprising modern-day Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro whose inhabitants were broadly known as the Slavs.

(iii) A large part of the Balkans was under the control of the Ottoman Empire.

(iv) The spread of the ideas of romantic nationalism in the Balkans together with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire made this region very explosive.

(v) All through the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire had sought to strengthen itself through modernisation and internal reforms but with very little success.

(vi) One by one, its European subject nationalities broke away from its control and declared independence.

(vii) The Balkan people based their claims for independence or political rights on nationality.

(viii) They used history to prove that they had once been independent but had subsequently been subjugated by foreign powers.

(ix) Hence the rebellious nationalities in the Balkans thought of their struggles as attempts to win back their long-lost independence.

(x) As the different Slavic nationalities struggled to define their identity and independence, the Balkan area became an area of intense conflict.

(xi) The Balkan states were fiercely jealous of each other.

(xii) Each of them hoped to gain more territory at the expense of the others.

(xiii) Matters were further complicated because the Balkans also became the scene of big power rivalry.

(xiv) During this period, there was intense rivalry among the European powers over trade and colonies as well as naval and military might.

(xv) These rivalries were very evident in the way the Balkan problem unfolded.

(xvi) Each power – Russia, Germany, England, Austro-Hungary – wanting to get hold of other powers over the Balkans, and extending its own control over the area.

(xvii) This led to a series of wars in the region and finally the First World War.

(b) Explain the programme for a unified Italian republic put forward by the Giuseppe Mazzini in the decade of 1830.

(i) An Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini, born in Genoa in $\displaystyle 1805$, became a member of the secret society of the Carbonari.

(ii) During the 1830s, he had sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic.

(iii) He was sent into exile in $\displaystyle 1831$ for attempting a revolution in Liguria.

(iv) He subsequently founded two more underground societies, first, Young Italy in Marseilles, and then, Young Europe in Berne.

(v) Mazzini believed that God had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind. So, Italy could not continue to be a patchwork of small states and kingdoms.

(vi) It had to be forged into a single unified republic within a wider alliance of nations.

(vii) This unification alone could be the basis of Italian liberty.

(viii) Mazzini’s relentless opposition to monarchy and his vision of democratic republics frightened the conservatives.

(ix) Metternich described him as ‘the most dangerous enemy of our social order’.

(x) The failure of revolutionary uprisings both in $\displaystyle 1831$ and $\displaystyle 1848$ meant that the mantle now fell on Sardinia-Piedmont under its ruler King Victor Emmanuel II to unify the Italian states through war.