Alliances and WWI

1
Arms Race and the First World War Essential
Background - 1
e.g. the Daily Mail ran MANY stories (such as
this one by William Le Queux) imagining German
invasions. c.f. also John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine
Steps (about German spies).
The Arms Race was as much about nations
INSECURITY as about their NATIONALISM and
EXPANSIONISM.
2
Arms Race and the First World War Increase in
Spending
There was a four-fold increase in defence
spending of the great powers, 1870-1914.
3
Arms Race and the First World War Attitude
towards war
But note that militarism is also a government's
attitude of mind, seeing war as a valid means of
foreign policy.   (GERMANY was especially
militaristic.)
4
Arms Race and the First World War Armies - 1
GERMANY, worried because it was in-between France
and Russia, built up the largest land army. The
German army was accepted as being the biggest and
the best in the world.
5
Arms Race and the First World War Armies - 2
This Russian postcard of 1914 shows Russia
(symbolised by a woman) nailing the German eagle
to a pillory after a war.
But other countries built up their land armies
too in 1914, the fastest growing army was that
of RUSSIA. This worried GERMANY a lot.
6
Arms Race and the First World War Armies - 3
As well as their STANDING ARMIES, the nations
introduced CONSCRIPTION, so they also had large
numbers of trained RESERVES. All the nations
except Britain had HUGE armies.
7
Arms Race and the First World War Essential
Background - 2
This British postcard interprets Kaiser Wilhelms
statement about wanting a place in the sun it
shows him making everybody in the world bow down
to him.
IMPERIALISM led to an arms race in 1900, Kaiser
Wilhelm said that GERMANY wanted a place in the
sun i.e., that Germany wanted an empire as big
as Britains. This TERRIFIED the British.
8
Arms Race and the First World War Navies - 1
If GERMANY was to have an empire, it needed a
navy, so in 1900 Admiral Tirpitz introduced the
German Navy Law, which announced a huge programme
of building warships.
9
Arms Race and the First World War Navies - 2
Both BRITAIN and GERMANY started building
Dreadnoughts the most advanced class of warship
in the world. The Dreadnought essentially
reduced everybody elses number of warships to
zero.
10
Arms Race and the First World War Navies - 3
There was a race between Germany and Britain to
build the most Dreadnoughts. The graph shows
the number built each year.
11
Arms Race and the First World War Navies - 4
Reginald McKenna, First Lord of the Admiralty
1908-11. In 1909 he told Parliament that the
German navy was just about to become more
powerful than the Royal Navy, and he instigated
the press scare-campaign that forced Parliament
to build more Dreadnoughts.
The British government planned to build four
Dreadnoughts in 1909, but the British public
panicked, demanding 'We want eight and we won't
wait'.
12
Arms Race and the First World War Navies - 5
In the end, Britains built many more
Dreadnoughts than Germany.
13
Arms Race and the First World War Effects
The arms race was tied in to both NATIONALISM and
IMPERIALISM. It increased SUSPICION and HATRED
of other nations - and it gave the nations the
WHEREWITHAL to wage war.