In many cases, European powers had an interest in the same place. This led to condflicts among them. For example, France quarrelled with Italy and Germany in North Africa. Britain quarrelled with Germany in West Asia and Africa. All these condflicts created tension among European powers.
Extreme Nationalism
Nationalism is a belief that people of one particular race, language, culture and tradition should form an independent nation of their own. During the Napoleonic Wars, nationalism took an extreme form. It demanded that people should be absolutely loyal to the nation and support its foreign expansion. It em phasized national glory. The following are some examples of extreme nationalism:
Revengeful feeling of the French: After the France-PrussianWars, the French people developed strong revengeful feeling against the Germans. They wanted to defeat Germany and take back Alsace and Lorraine.
Pan-Germanism: Germany and AustriaHungary put forward the idea of Pan- Germanism, which demanded that the German peopleshould expand inEurope.
Pan-Slavism: Russia put formard the ideaof Pan-Slavism, which demaned that all Slav people in Europe should be united under Russian control.
Extreme nationalism was a threat to world peace. Under its influence, European powers would go to war just for promoting their national interests.