Essay The Outbreak Of World War One and Germany

Many countries in Western Europe were building up their empires throughout the world. They often got into disagreements about who was to control these areas. Great Britain, Germany, and France competed for economic expansion in Africa after the increase in manufacturing caused by the Industrial Revolution. Although Britain and France got over their conflicts in Africa, several events leading up to the war involved the disagreement of Germany against Britain and France in North America.

Militarism was one cause for the start of WW1. Germany spent millions of dollars to strengthen their military to get it ready for war. Many countries then felt threatened, and this caused them to also put millions into their militaries as well. With having the largest military, Germany was more than ready to to use their army. Germany was so confident that they could win the war with their new army that as soon as war was declared, they didn’t hesitate to be the hammer. But this would be a problem because of the other nations rushing to industrialize their armies. Militarism was a huge factor in the cause of WW1.

From 1890 to 1914, there was a drastic increase in the amount of money nations began to spend on their navy and army advancements. In fact, as the war began to approach, Germany raised the amount they spent towards armaments from 30 million to 120 million pounds and the Triple Entente raised their total money spent to 225 million pounds in 1914 (Document C). The presence of more armaments created an environment ready for war. Their existence meant that the countries are more likely to use them, which only discouraged time to cool off. Additionally, as one country built up their armies more, the others felt they had to do the same which increased tensions. Britain who increased its colonial empire to the largest in the world since the Romans’, caused an arms race where the nations were competing only to have more armaments than the others. Being an island, they began spending more money on their navy, needing to defend its waters. On the opposing side, Germany did not want to get their own feet tramped by any foreign power, fearing to become the anvil rather than the hammer. Bernhard von Bülow, the German Chancellor, said the only way to “keep ourselves at the fore if we realize that there is no welfare for us without power, without a strong army and a strong fleet” (Document D). Using the idea of survival of the fittest, individual countries became stronger in the fear of being destroyed by the aggressors. Clearly, having arms was a

Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism played a huge part in the led up to World War 1. With the threat of war hanging over the heads of many countries, the Arms Race began. Germany, France, and Russia started to recruit a large portion of their male population. This gave the men a taste of war and the military experience. The Arms Race caused every European state have access to a huge army, but these armies ere ruining their economics. The citizens knew that they needed to rid of themselves of these armies before they went into economic ruin, but before this could happen they were propelled into war. Germany created a large, modern navy that threatened Britain. At the time of this threat, Germany was trying to secure Britain

While many factors led to the first world war, militarism contributed the most, because of the arms race of 1890 and the mobilization of the European countries. First of all, the arms race of 1890 allowed France, Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia to stockpile on weapons. One example of the arms race is Britain’s response to Germany’s Second Naval Law. “The next year, in an attempt to compensate for its small empire, Germany enacted the Second Naval Law, intending to build a navy capable of challenging the British Royal Navy in combat. The British responded.” (Doc. D) Because Britain had a powerful naval army, Germany had to strengthen their navy to match them since they were enemies, however, Britain responded by continuing to maintain their strength over Germany. This

One underlying cause of World War I was Militarism. In 1890 Germany and Austria- Hungary spent together about 40 million pounds, and in 1914 increased their spending to 150 million pounds (Doc C). As well as that Great Britain, Russia and France spent 100 million pounds and increased spending to 225 million pounds (Doc C). This shows that a buildup of arms was an important underlying reason for the war. In a speech before the German Congress Bernhard von Bulow spoke about how worried he is about England, France and Russia based on their acquiring of colonies around the world and how he does not want to “Step on the toes of any foreign power” (Doc

Excessive military buildup was a considerable factor for why WW1 broke out. This is true according to Doc C, In the year 1890 Germany army and navy were considerably small with only about 30 million pounds in expenditure spent for their military. While in 1914 Germany’s army and navy were nearly tripled of what it had spent in 1890. The German army didn’t like being sandwiched by its neighboring countries and had a long running rivalry with Great Britain and was looking for the perfect excuse to go to war with them. This caused the Germans to build up their military, “ … there is no welfare for us without power, without a strong army and a strong fleet.” and “... the struggle for existence without strong armament on land and at sea.” (Doc D) This evidence here proves that Germany started building up their arms for the fear and ambition of going to war. The British thought the same about Germany. This caused both countries to increase the size of their militaries so hopefully a balance of power could prevent war from breaking out but instead it did exactly what it did not intend to

They had all these weapons, but didn’t have that many people to use it. Militarism didn’t just lead to military expenses for weapons, but expenses on paying the soldiers they started to recruit. In this world, power always comes in numbers, the more you have the more powerful you are. In this case, the power is in the number of soldiers because all the countries knew that the bigger the army the more intimidating the country seemed. It all goes back to the idea of militarism and how living this way of life gets you what you want. The countries started to believe that if they had a big army, no one would want to fight them or would be to scared to cause an issue with their country. By 1914, Germany’s number of soldiers were 2,200,00, Austria-Hungary’s had 810,000 soldiers, Italy got to 750,000 soldiers, Russia had 1,200,000, France got to 1,125,000 and Great Britain’s number of soldiers were 711,000. Now these were their recent active soldiers, but most countries were so militaristic they trained all young men to be ready to fight for war. Germany had 8.5 billion men to call on, Russia had 4.4 million, France had 3.5 million, and Austria- Hungary had 3 million. As seen from the numbers the country that was most “powerful” in everyone’s eyes was pretty clear, but this didn’t mean that the numbers didn’t keep increasing. The countries kept working to

Foremost we must make clear the reasoning behind the expansion of the German armed forces before the outbreak of World War One. Military expansion was in direct consequence of increased competition among European colonial powers. Unlike Europe’s traditional powers such as England, France, and Russia, Germany was

Every power in Europe was fighting to gain power to prove it’s greatness as a nation, and would do so by whatever means necessary. Germany and Russia were particularly ahead of the others, boosting their egos and even influencing their public policy. Europeans wanted bigger, better militaries because they believed that having more power would prove their strength as a country. This belief would prove to be a great mistake and was, of course, was sprouted under the same notion mentioned previously;

Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism played a huge part in the led up to World War 1. With the threat of war hanging over the heads of many countries, the Arms Race began. Germany, France, and Russia started to recruit a large portion of their male population. This gave the men a taste of war and the military experience. The Arms Race caused every European state have access to a huge army, but these armies ere ruining their economics. The citizens knew that they needed to rid of themselves of these armies before they went into economic ruin, but before this could happen they were propelled into war. Germany created a large, modern navy that threatened Britain. At the time of this threat, Germany was trying to secure Britain as

World War I was a stalemate right from the outbreak of the war as a result of trench warfare. With the introduction of this system, a piece of land stretching from the Belgian coast, through France, and ending in Switzerland, became the venue for majority of the conflict. For almost three years, this line shifted by no more than a few hundred yards. All of this changed when the United States joined the war and prompted Germany to make an all-out drive on the Allies so as to end the war before the American Army reached full strength on the battlefield. The American Expeditionary Force allowed the Allies to take the offensive, thereby ending the static state of war that had settled on the Western Front as a result of trench warfare.

By the fall of 1917, the stalemate in Europe had loosened as Russia Empire collapsed and the Italian army was destroyed and forced to retreat. Thus the European theater was reduced from a 3 - front war to a 1 - front war. This allowed Germany to focus more resources on the meat grinder of the Western Front (MM - 317). Yet, American forces were still preparing and unable to help the impending threat of a German Offensive Campaign.

were on the side of the Central Powers. The alliances were brought into action when

The year is 1914, the world is ruled by superpowers. These powers included the mighty empires such as Russia ( not Soviet union but during the war it will change ), Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France and the Ottoman Empire. One of these powers got extremely mad at a smaller country for a just reason and that set off a chain reaction. That small country was Serbia.