The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War

Herrmann's cogent study reveals how the perceptions of comparative military strength affected strategic and political planning among the Great Powers between 1904 and 1914, leading to a spiraling arms race. He describes the development of European armies during the Bosnia-Herzegovina annexation crisis and the Balkan wars (1912 and 1913); and he shows the increasingly vital importance of technological advances--including the machine gun, deadlier artillery, the airplane, motor vehicles and the telephone--to policymakers in Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Russia and Italy. The balance of military power, Herrmann contends, was so volatile by August 1914 that statesmen in Berlin and Vienna chose to launch a ``preventive war'' before the coalition among France, Britain and Russia became invincible. His scholarly analysis is a model of insight into crisis politics, war-drum diplomacy and the destabilizing effect of an arms competition on international relations. Herrmann is assistant professor of history at Tulane University. Illustrations. (Feb.)