Many people have came to the conclusion of some very contreversial theory that started WWI. There are some very bizarre theories out there, but i believe it was caused by the “arms race”, for three reasons. One being, it caused major tension between larger european alliances ,another being because it created the want for power and stronger machinery and weapons between countries, and finally because the small war that was sparked before hand, led into WWI.

Before we get into all those reasons, lets talk a little about what the “arms race” actually was. So in the last quarter of the 19th century (1875 and onwards) is when industrilization was becoming stronger and stronger, and it was safe to say the that Germany was leading the empire of steel production and Great Britain was there competitor. All this was starting to improve the development and expansion of fleets, railways and many other forms of transportation. With that feild starting to develop, it created a ripple effect and soon the production rate of weapons where starting to grow. This created a type of competitive spirit between alliances and an outbreak of fear across the countries.

As I was saying before, the arms race caused major tension that could have been a leading factor of why WWI began in the first place. Think about it, when two great nations are competing to find the most powerful, mass produced weapon that could potentially wipe out a nation, would you be scared? For much smaller nations that fear created tension, which created unwanted and confusing alliances.

So now that everybody is feeling threatened because of the powerful navies of Great Britain and the strong and effecient army of Germany they are feeling the need to produce stronger weaponry. Countries like Serbia were creating very powerful machinery but not at a fast enough pace, other smaller counries started doing the same. Soon enough almost every country was feeling threatened and felt a need for power and control. With many cases in our everyday lives the need for power and control is never a good thing, and can always spiral out of control. By now you may be wondering, but why is everybody worrying about control if nothing is happening? Why does everybody feel the need to protect themselves? What does any of this have to do with starting WWI?

What actually happened next was what lead armys and nations into The Great War. Most of the strongest empires like Germany and Great Britain felt there army was the strongest, and the only way to prove this was, well a war. So it was decided, the two nations (Germany and Great Britain) would have a war to see who was stronger. Although the German government needed some influence to agree, in the end they followed through on the plans. Once the small war between the two nations began, the smaller ones started getting even more nervous and felt more and more threatened which is more of a reason to increase there weaponry production rate, armys and navys. So now all the sudden you have the beginning of a small war between two large empires, countrys that have large armys mobilized and allainces between practically every country. All those things are tools that nations can use to wage war, without them no country would even dare to think about any sort of war. The small war and tension sparked an idea of a bigger war, known as The Great War.

No war is ever started without strong countries and powerful weapons, and what was the motivation for those powerful weapons and empires? The Arms Race. It all comes back to exactly that, and everything leading up to it.

To visually explain the events, causes and other theory’s of what caused WWI, I got into a group (I will link there posts here) and created a video. We used a whiteboard and iPad tripod to film, then we cut everything up in iMovie, and also recorded in iMovie.

Enjoy 🙂