World War I: The Arms Race

The Arms Race

By the late-19th century, the rising tensions between the two major power blocs resulted in an ‘arms race.’ This refers to the desire of each side to produce more and more technologically advanced weapons. Each side hoped that they would be able to build destructive enough weapons in large enough quantities that they would be able to completely overwhelm their enemies on the battlefield.

1. What was the goal of the ‘arms race?’

Technology evolved so quickly that historians delineate two Industrial Revolutions: the first from 1750 to 1850, and the second after 1850. The first transformation, an almost exclusively British affair, was closely aligned with Europe’s hawkish culture. In addition to its American and Caribbean colonies in the 1700s, Britain added Canada, Florida, South Africa, and India. The markets won through war and colonization drove British exports up over fivefold. The economic pressure to keep up with increasing foreign and domestic demand drove manufacturers to find better means of production. The result was a cluster of remarkable new technologies: coke-fired iron manufacture, reciprocating steam engines, and sulfuric acid mass-produced in lead vats or chambers.

Initially, Britain’s Industrial Revolution only indirectly benefited the nation militarily, mainly through a rising national income which the government accessed via taxes and loans used for more of the existing weaponry. By the mid-1800s, however, technologies from the First Industrial Revolution made their way into military operations: steam locomotive-pulled trains for army transport, wrought and cast iron cannons, ironclad steam-powered warships, and increased gunpowder output (sulfuric acid was a key ingredient in its production).

2. How did First Industrial Revolution technologies change weapons systems?

By this time, other nations were anxious not to be left behind in Europe’s hostile atmosphere, and thus scrambled to acquire these technologies. Steam locomotives transported troops in Prussian army maneuvers as early as 1839, for instance, and army units moved by rail in the War of Italian Unification (1859–1860), the American Civil War (1861–1865), and the Wars of German Unification (1864–1871). New machine tools, like lathes and milling machines, improved metal-shaping precision, paving the way for production of breech-loading, rapid-firing rifles and the first machine guns in the United States, Germany, and France.

3. Why do you think “other nations were anxious not to be left behind” in the acquisition of new weapons?

The obvious connection between industrial and military prowess during the First Industrial Revolution caused nervousness in European capitals as the Second Industrial Revolution swept through Europe before the turn of the 20thcentury. Steel replaced iron for many uses; greatly improved machine tools created even more precise metal parts; powerful steam turbines supplanted increasingly inefficient reciprocating engines; more highly concentrated sulfuric acid became available; and oil began to supplement coal as an energy source. Engineers and scientists also created electrical power and equipment, wireless telegraphs, telephones, and nitrogen-based high explosives.

These breakthroughs had the potential to revolutionize the art of warfare by spawning killing machines: repeating rifles shooting twenty to thirty bullets per minute; improved machine guns spewing 600 bullets per minute; semi-recoilless rapid-firing field artillery firing hundreds of shells per hour; and artillery shells packed with extremely powerful nitrogen explosives. Steam power, steel, electricity, advanced optics, and the new explosives also ushered in early prototypes of the modern battleship. As the Second Industrial Revolution gathered momentum after 1900, it brought automobiles, airships, airplanes, steam turbine-powered ships, and submarines. These new technologies, like earlier advances, challenged army and navy establishments either to adopt the weaponry and determine the best tactical adjustments, or to reject the new devices altogether.

4. Why would it be impossible for army and navy establishments” to reject making use of new industrial weapons?

Given the power struggle among seven major nations within Europe alone, rejection of new weaponry would prove difficult if just one or two powers adopted a particular device. This happened early on, when the French adopted semi-recoilless artillery and the Russians and British adopted machine guns. But these weapons developments did not affect only the leading European powers. By purchasing the new artillery models, for example, Serbia hoped to stop Turkish or Austrian invaders in their tracks, while lagging major states like Russia and Turkey viewed machine guns and rapid-firing cannons as potential equalizers. Moreover, nitrogen explosive sea mines, particularly in narrow straits and channels and along coastlines, offered once formidable naval nations like Turkey a nearly impassable defense, but Germany also planned to even the odds against naval giant Britain by luring the enemy over mines. The submarine represented another good example of shortcut to victory against countries with more and bigger surface vessels. Submarines were comparatively cheap to produce and could hide themselves up until the moment they chose to strike, making them deadly to larger, more powerful (and more expensive) surface warships. This was the nightmare, in fact, of Britain’s Royal Navy when France took the lead in submarine construction around 1900, and after 1906 when Germany followed suit.

5. How could submarines be regarded as a “shortcut to victory?”

6. Why might Germany be so interested in developing its submarine forces?

7. Why was the British Royal Navy so terrified about the prospect of submarine development?

Rapid technological change disrupted business-as-usual routines in military establishments, forcing hard-fought debates about the worth of military devices yet untested in war, followed by many controversial decisions to adopt weaponry that, once taken, often went beyond tactical issues to affect operational, strategic, and even national policy thinking. Recent historians have dubbed this technology-driven assessment and decision-making process the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). This establishment-rattling RMA became more frenetic in the decade before 1914 as nations reacted not only to another set of technological challenges, but also, nervously, to the reactions by other nations. In all of the cases discussed in this article, technology was the engine driving an increasingly frantic armaments competition, even though the fuel or underlying cause and determinant of this interstate friction remained the deeply rooted rivalries and national security anxieties among these states.

8. How did this arms race increase the paranoia of military establishments across Europe?

9. What was the relationship between new weapons technology and the international political situation?

The Great Naval Race

Frantically, each of the Great Powers of Europe continued to improve upon their weapons. In 1906, the British Royal Navy unveiled the HMS Dreadnought, the most sophisticated warship on the planet. The Dreadnought possessed a host of powerful cannons, enormously thick armor and a modern diesel engine, making it the fastest warship in the world.

The German Navy, which had been working tirelessly to match the British fleet’s battleship numbers were stunned at the revelation. Now frantic, the German Navy attempted a crash program to develop their own version of the Dreadnought. In 1907, the Germans began production of their own Nassau-class warships, which were employed similar technology as the British had and was designed to counter the impressive Dreadnought.

10. How was the HMS Dreadnought an improvement over existing battleships?

11. Why were the Germans forced to begin building Nassau-class warships?

Between 1906 and 1912, the German Navy produced more and more of these warships, but Britain’s headstart meant that the Germans always lagged behind. By 1912, Germany had 29 modern battleships and Britain had 49.

At the same time, German High Command began to worry increasingly about its battlefield effectiveness. The Russian and French armies continued to grow and it became clearer that Germany would not be able to compete with Britain on the sea and France/Russia on land. As such, the Germans quietly abandoned building modern battleships in exchange for focusing on submarine development.

12. Why did the Germans abandon their naval build-up project?

Known as Unterseeboot in German (translated: under-sea boat), but popularly known as Uboats, the German navy saw the Uboat as a way to affordably counter the British navy. Uboats were fairly cheap to build (compared to battleships), but were known for their stealth and destructive power. A capable Uboat crew could get the drop on a much more powerful Dreadnought-class warship and destroy it before the enemy had time to realize what was happening.

The Germans hoped that these weapons would help to counter British naval power, while allowing the German army more resources to prepare for the greater numbers of Russian and French ground troops.

13. How did the Germans hope to counter British Naval Power in the event of war?

The Development of the Machine Gun

New forms of weaponry were being developed that would dramatically change the nature of warfare. In particular the development of the machine gun would perhaps be the most dramatic change on the battlefield.

The machine gun, which so came to dominate and even to personify the battlefields of World War One, was a fairly primitive device when general war began in August 1914. Machine guns of all armies were largely of the heavy variety and decidedly ill-suited to portability for use by rapidly advancing infantry troops. Each weighed somewhere in the 65-135 lbs. range - often without their mountings, carriages and supplies. These weapons would require a crew of 3-5 men to operate. As such, they were not meant as assault weapons, but rather defensive.

However, these machine guns were enormously destructive, firing upwards of 100 rounds per minute. Enemies advancing against a machine gun position would be sure to absorb enormous causalities.

14. Why were machine guns ill-suited to offensive operations?

15. Why were machine guns excellent as a defensive weapon?