The World at the Beginning of the Century

In Europe, the British Empire achieved the height of its power. Germany and Italy, which came into existence as unified nations at the end of the 19th century, grew in power, challenging the traditional hegemony of Britain and France. With nationalism in full force at this time, the European powers competed with each other for land, military strength and economic power.

Asia and Africa were for the most part still under control of their European colonizers. The major exceptions were China and Japan. The Russo-Japanese War in 1905 was the first major instance of a European power being defeated by a so-called inferior nation. The war itself strengthened Japanese militarism and enhanced Japan's rise to the status of a world power. Tsarist Russia, on the other hand, did not handle the defeat well. The war exposed the country's military weakness and increasing economic backwardness, and contributed to the Russian Revolution of 1905, the dress rehearsal for the conclusive one