540 Chapter 27
Europe in 1900 was the scene of a heated arms race,
sustained by a mentality that glorified military action.
When Bismarck negotiated the Triple Alliance in 1879,
the typical great power army was smaller than 500,000
men; by 1913 the average exceeded one million men,
with mobilization plans for armies of three million to
four million men (see table 27.1). The naval construc-
tion race between Britain and Germany was the most
costly part of the arms race. The industrial age had
made it possible to build enormous, steam-powered,
steel battleships, equipped with long-range artillery.
These dreadnoughts (from the expression “Fear God
and Dread Nought”) were staggeringly expensive. The
construction of submarine fleets added significantly to
the total (see illustration 27.2). Before the shipbuilding
mania of the 1890s, Britain had an annual naval budget
of £13.8 million. This took more than 15 percent of
government revenues, or more than twice the amount
spent on education, science, and the arts combined
(£6.1 million). Then, between 1890 and 1914, annual
British naval expenditures more than tripled to £47.4
million. (The total revenue raised by the British income
tax in 1913 was £44 million.) The German naval bud-
get, meanwhile, almost quintupled from £4.6 million
(1871) to £22.4 million (1914).
Few people yet understood the implications of this
marriage between militarism and industrialization. Cav-
alry troops wearing brightly colored eighteenth-
century uniforms and sabres remained the image of a
heroic army, although a more accurate image of an
army in 1900 portrayed its machines: rapid-firing heavy
artillery and machine guns such as the Maxims that had
slaughtered the Sudanese. And no army could be
1879 1913
Standing army Fully mobilized Standing army Fully mobilized
Country in peacetime army for war in peacetime army for war
Austria-Hungary 267,000 772,000 800,000 3,000,000
Britain 136,000 600,000 160,000 700,000
India 200,000 249,000
France 503,000 1,000,000 1,200,000 3,500,000
Germany 419,000 1,300,000 2,200,000 3,800,000
Russia 766,000 1,213,000 1,400,000 4,400,000TABLE 27.1The European Army Buildup, 1879–1913Illustration 27.2
The Arms Race.This 1909 photograph of British sub-
marines in the Thames River near Westminister Palace (the seat
of Parliament) conveys an eerie foreshadowing of the war. It was
intended to show British naval might protecting freedom, a justi-
fication for the vast expenses of naval construction. Viewed in
retrospect, it is an ironic and tragic scene because the naval com-
petition led to German submarines, which were effective in
choking British shipping.