Arms Race

 The Arms Race 

The arms race was one of the key factors causing the First World War. After the 1970's technology rapidly developed and the possibilities to create new and more much devastating weapons continually increased. The improvement in transport options also contributed to the incredible pace of the arms race, as transporting equipment for war via the railway gradually became cheaper. There were several reasons contributing to the arms race, which are going to be explained here.

The main part of the arms race actually took place on the sea. The naval race occurred mostly between Britain and Germany. Grand Admiral Tirpiz was in charge of the German navy and in 1898 his plans to build a great German navy. Meanwhile, Britain was famous for having the strongest naval power especially since in the 1890s she introduced the Two Power Standard, which meant that the Royal Navy should be at least as large as any other two navies together. Eventually though Germany was catching up with Britain, worrying Britain with their naval expansion. The original idea Germany had when they started increasing their naval forces was that Germany wanted Britain to join the Triple Alliance. Germany not only wanted to pressurise Britain but also in away impress them with their growing navy in order to gain their respect. Clearly Germany`s intensions created the opposing effect on Britain. In 1906 Britain introduced a completely new type of battleship called the Dreadnought. This was the most powerful battleship the world had ever seen and of course Germany copied the new creation soon, which threatened Britain`s Two Power Standard.

Another cause contributing to the arms race was the economic interests created by the demand for weapons such as very sophisticated artillery, machineguns, battleships and aircrafts. It wasn’t a rare occasion that firms gave their supplies to opposing countries as long as they paid a certain amount of money. This trade strongly encouraged war spirit and although clearly it would be too easy to just blame such economic interests for the start of the First World War.

Additionally, Germany had useful tactics and plans in order to fight in the case of war. One of them was the Schlieffen plan. This plan meant that instead of Germany having to fight at two frontiers at the same time it would attack France in the west first and then travel to the east in order to attack Russia, assuming that Russia would take about six weeks to mobilize their troops. This way a two front war was avoided and Germany's army would automatically be stronger and more effective.

Moreover, every country apart from Britain introduced conscription especially after 1911. Russia had the largest number of soldiers so in terms of manpower Russia was quite threatening because of its size.

In conclusion, the naval race, the Schlieffen plan and the conscription contributed to the arms race and the arms race is a very well known cause for the First World War.



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