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| | World War I |
 | | Following the lead of Britain under Benjamin Disraeli, even the once hesitantly imperialistic Otto von Bismarck was eventually brought to realize the value of colonies for securing (in his words) "new markets for German industry, the expansion of trade, and a new field for German, activity, civilization, and capital". |
 | | The absolutist Central Powers, led by a newly unified, dynamically industrializing German Empire, with its expanding navy, doubling in size between the Franco-Prussian War and the Great War, were strategic threats to the markets and security of the more established Allied powers and Russia. |
 | | After the Sarajevo assassination, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, acting primarily under the influence of Foreign Affairs Minister Leopold von Berschtold, sent an effectively unfulfillable ultimatum containing fifteen demands to Serbia (July 23, 1914), to be agreed to within 48 hours. |
| www.ebroadcast.com.au /lookup/encyclopedia/wo/World_War_I.html (4363 words) |
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