The Race to Arms

In the nineteenth century, global rivalries and aspirations for national greatness made constant readiness for war seem increasingly necessary. On the seas and in foreign lands, violence became an everyday occurrence in the drive for empire. Governments began to draft ordinary citizens for periods of two to six years into large standing armies, in contrast to the smaller forces that had served the more limited military goals of the eighteenth century. The per capita expenditure on the military rose in all the major powers between 1890 and 1914; the proportion of national budgets devoted to defense in 1910 was lowest in Austria-Hungary (at 10 percent) and highest in Germany (at 45 percent).

The modernization of weaponry also transformed warfare. Swedish arms manufacturer Alfred Nobel patented dynamite and developed a kind of gunpowder that improved the accuracy of guns and produced a clearer battlefield environment by reducing firearm smoke. By 1914, long-range artillery could fire on targets as far as six miles away. Munitions factories across Europe manufactured ever-growing stockpiles of howitzers, Mauser rifles, and Hotchkiss machine guns. In the Russo-Japanese and South African wars, military leaders had devised new strategies to protect their armies from the heavy firepower and deadly accuracy of the new weapons: in the Russo-Japanese War, trenches and barbed wire blanketed the front around Port Arthur.

Naval construction figured in both the arms race and the rising nationalism in politics. To defend against powerful weaponry, ships built after the mid-nineteenth century were made of metal rather than wood. Launched in 1905, HMS Dreadnought, a warship with unprecedented firepower, was the centerpiece of the British navy’s plan to construct at least seven battleships per year. Germany also built up its navy and made itself a great land and sea power and planned naval bases as far away as the Pacific. The Germans described their fleet buildup as “a peaceful policy,” but, like British naval expansion, it only fed the hostile international climate and intense competition in weapons manufacture. (See “Taking Measure: The Growth in Armaments, 1890–1914.”)

Public relations campaigns encouraged military buildup. When critics of the arms race suggested a temporary “naval holiday” to stop British and German building, British officials sent out news releases warning that such a cutback “would throw innumerable men on the pavement.” Advocates of imperial expansion and nationalist groups lobbied for military spending as boosting national pride, while businessmen promoted large navies as beneficial to international trade and domestic industry. When Germany’s Social Democrats questioned the use of taxes and their heavy burden on workers, the press criticized the party for lack of patriotism. The Conservative Party in Great Britain, eager for more battleships, made popular the slogan “We want eight and we won’t wait.” Public enthusiasm for arms buildups, militant nationalism, and growing international competition set the stage for war. When asked in 1912 about his predictions for war and peace, a French military leader responded enthusiastically, “We shall have war. I will make it. I will win it.”