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Arms Race Ww1

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In the early 20th century the strength of a nation’s military was a symbol of the power and wealth of the nation. Pre World War 1 marked the beginning of advance weapons for the army and the navy. The spending of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Britain, France and Russia in their military budged increased by 4x (World War 1). The countries had strong reasons to build their army’s strong to gain more colonies and also protect them, while also protecting their homeland. The rapid growth in military spending prior to World War 1 caused European nations to fear for their safety causing fighting to breakout.

The arms race starting in the 1890’s lead to the increase in military weapons causing the triple entente alliance to be afraid of Germany. Starting in the 1870, many European nations began to engage in a race to …show more content…

France, Germany and England, three big competitors in the arms race all increased their spending in the military by double and six fold. Germany and England developed a fierce compition as who could develop the best naval ship. England developed what was known as the best ship of its time, the Dreadnaught, while the Germans developed sophisticated submarines. Both of these new naval weapons increased the fear in other countries leaders due to how powerful and deadly they were. A popular saying at the time in England was “We want eight and we won’t wait!” (Llewellyn). This quote summarizes the ideology of the military leaders at the time during the arms race. Another country with a big role in the arms race was France. France was coming out of a major rescion at the time witch lasted until 1890. From 1890 the economy boomed growing twice as big as it had been in the last three decades. The boom in the economy right before World War 1 allowed France to

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