Tensions leading to WW1

Tensions leading to WW1

Introduction

According to the history before the WW1 there Some tensions      critical to the outbreak of war in 1914 it  involves Austria and Russia, Britain and Germany, Germany and France, and  Germany  and Russia .The following is a discussion on set of some tensions that contributed to this war. World War I (1914 – 1918) was a major war centered on Europe but rippled all around world. This conflict involved all of the world’s great powers at the time and many other countries. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized. More than 9 million combatants were killed. It was said to be the most damaging war in the European history .Whether Germany should be blamed for the outbreak of World War I is contestable. In my opinion, World War I is actually much more complicated than just the expansion of industry, colony, and military of Germany. Germany did not bear the sole and total responsibility for it because other Western powers actively took part in this predatory war. More likely, WWI is not only a result of competition among few great powers, but also one of the inevitable outcomes of the development of capitalism in the world.

After Frankfurt Assembly made the decision for the “Lesser Germany” which was led by Prussia, Germany began to enter an industrial era and eventually developed to the widespread industrial expansion. The victories of three wars over Denmark, Austria, and France finally led to a unified Germany and created a large domestic market which provided a solid ground for development of industrial capitalism. Under the leadership of Bismarck, Germany experienced strong economic growth and rapid industrialization.

Resources were spent on scientific research, modern political and economical system reformation instead of the “German question”. As illustrated, Germany had gone through four waves of technological progress, the railway wave (1877 – 86), the dye wave (1887 – 96), the chemical wave (1897 – 1902), and the wave of electrical engineering (1903 – 18); German manufacturers began to capture domestic markets from British imports, and even could compete with British industry abroad, particularly in the U.S.Besides, the gains from the wars, which were used to boom the economy, also accelerated the development of newly unified Germany.

Germany soon became the dominant economic power on the continent and was the second largest exporting nation after Britain. Inevitably, Germany’s dramatic growth threatened the Great Britain. Since Germany industrialized later than Britain, it was able to model its factories with more efficient technology. In addition, Germany invested more heavily than the British in research, especially in the chemistry, motors and electricity so that one-third of all Nobel Prizes went to German inventors and researchers. Such severe competition successfully intensified conflicts of interests among the great powers. As such, with the rapid growth of economy and power, German’s increasing nationalism led to a stronger desire for further unification and expansion, which finally contributed not only to the beginning but also the extension of the war in Europe.

German industrial expansion directly led to the competition for colonies which have already been divided by the old brand imperial countries like Great   France, and   Before World War I, Africa and parts of Asia were points of contention amongst the European countries because of the raw materials these areas could provide. After the increase in manufacturing caused by the Industrial Revolution, European countries realized that the limited domestic market and scarce resources had become the main problem.

The great powers began to compete for foreign markets. As a result, the expansion of colony seems to be the only way to maintain the rapid pace of economic growth of Germany, and in turn to gain more power, to generate more wealth for a better life, and to maintain and increase its prestige and dominance in Europe. Obviously, Germany was not the only who engaged in such expansion game. Other powerful imperial countries, like Russia, France and the Great Britain, at that period of history all had similar intentions as Germany did. The increasing competition and desire for greater empires led to an increase in confrontation that helped push the world into World War I.

Followed by the colonial expansion is arms race among the Western powers, another cause of the WW I. Germany believed that a sign of a great power was possession of overseas colonies. Armies and navies were greatly expanded during the time. The standing armies of France and Germany doubled in size between 1870 and 1914. Naval expansion was also extremely competitive, particularly between Germany and Great Britain. As noted by The Corner, during the time of 1910 to 1914, France increased its defense expenditure by 10%, Britain by 13%, Russia by 39%, and Germany had the greatest growth in military buildup as it increased by 73% (Militarism). Increased war expenditure enabled all the powers to raise more armies and improve their battleships. As David Stevenson has put it,  A self-reinforcing cycle of heightened military preparedne was an essential element in the conjuncture that led to disaster. German ruling group felt that only through a war could Germany become a world power and the increased arms race eventually sparked the WW I. With decades of industrial, colonial and military expansion, the war out broke. In June 1914, a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife while they were in Sarajevo. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife while they were in Sarajevo. This as the quick reason for the World War I pushed the world into years of tangled fighting. All through the history, we can see that Germany was by all account not the only one under expansionism. Other capable majestic nations such the Great Britain, France and Russia, were additionally occupied with the serious rivalry for settlements and force. At the point when irreconcilable circumstances of the immense powers at long last achieved the ignition point, the war came. Germany ought not hold up under all the obligation regarding the flare-up of the World War I, but instead a halfway reason for it.

On the evening of this day in 1914, two days in the wake of proclaiming war on Russia, Germany announces war on France, advancing with a long-held technique, brought about by the previous head of staff of the German armed force, Alfred von Schlieffen, for a two-front war against France and Russia. Hours after the fact, France makes its own statement of war against Germany, preparing its troops to move into the territories of Alsace and Lorraine, which it had relinquished to Germany in the settlement that finished the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.

 

With Germany authoritatively at war with France and Russia, a contention initially focused in the tumultuous Balkans locale with the death of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his better half by a Serbian patriot in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and the ensuing standoff between Austria-Hungary, Serbia and Serbia’s effective Slavic supporter, Russia had ejected into a full-scale war. Additionally on August 3, the principal wave of German troops amassed on the outskirts of nonpartisan Belgium, which as per the Schlieffen Plan would be crossed by German armed forces on their way to an attack of France. The day preceding, Germany had introduced Belgium and its sovereign, King Albert, with a final proposal requesting entry for the German armed force through its region.

This risk to Belgium, whose unending nonpartisanship had been ordered by a bargain finished up by the European forces including Britain, France and Germany in 1839, joined a separated British government contrary to German hostility. Hours before Germany’s assertion of war on France on August 3, the British outside secretary, Sir Edward Gray, went before Parliament and persuaded an isolated British government and country to give its backing to Britain’s passage into the war if Germany disregarded Belgian lack of bias. In August 1914, as the immense forces of Europe prepared their armed forces and naval forces for a battle, nobody was get ready for a long battle both sides were relying on a short, conclusive clash that would end to support them. Despite the fact that some military pioneers, including German Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke and his French partner, Joseph Joffre, anticipated a more extended clash, they didn’t change their war system to get ready for that outcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 

Green, J. B. R. (2011). Uneven and combined development and the Anglo-German prelude to WW1. European Journal of International Relations, 1354066110391309.

Helmi, N. (2011). The Enemy at Home: The Internment of Germans in WWI Australia. UNSW Press.

Jukes, G. (2014). The First World War (1): The Eastern Front 1914–1918. Bloomsbury Publishing.