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Militarism : The Main Cause Of World War I

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In total, Europe had about 3.43 million men at their disposal. This number represents how militarism was the main cause of World War One. In the early 1900s, there was tension between many of the large European powers, and many of those countries started to build up their armies and navies. They also started to mass produce new weapons that could cause even more damage. World War One had many causes, but the main reason the war started was militarism because of the large increase of standing armies, navies, and weapons.
From 1890 to 1914 the increase of standing armies in Europe was tremendous, proving how militarism was the main cause of World War One. For example, from 1870 to 1914 Germany doubled the size of their already large standing army. Germany did this because they were worried that they were “in between” France and Russia, so they made a decision to make a drastic increase in their army size. This shows how the European powers each wanted to have the strongest army, and that eventually led to conflict. Secondly, in 1914 Russia surpassed Germany and had the fastest growing army(but not the biggest). Russia worried about the force the Germany was gathering, so they acted quickly and starting increasing their standing army size. This shows how the competitive nature of militarism led to conflict. Lastly, conscription was introduced and this forced young men in a certain age range to join their countries army. The introduction of this concept shows that European

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