What was the military expenditure by the Great Powers in 1914

World military expenditure in 2001 is estimated at $839 billion (in current dollars), accounting for 2.6 % of world gross domestic product (GDP) and a world average of $137 per capita. This estimate is based on adopted defence budgets and is likely to be revised upwards when supplementary expenditures resulting from the 11 September attacks on the USA and the ensuing war on terrorism have been taken fully into account.

Five countries account for over 50% and the 15 major spenders account for over 75% of world military expenditure. The high-income countries—the industrialized countries and those in the Middle East—have the highest per capita spending. The developing countries—particularly those in Africa and the Middle East—have the heaviest economic burden in terms of its share of GDP.

After the decline from 1987 to 1998, military expenditure began to rise again, both globally and in most regions of the world. Over the 3-year period 1998–2001, it increased by around 7% in real terms. The increase of 2% in 2001 is smaller than the increases in 1999 and 2000, but world military expenditure is likely to rise much faster in the coming years, owing primarily to a substantial increase in US military spending.

The increase in military spending since 1998 is primarily the result of the change in trend in the Middle East, CEE, North America and East Asia. The most marked change in trend has taken place in Russia, where the rapid reduction of military spending changed into growth in 1999 and stabilized in 2001 at a level comparable to that of some major West European countries. In Western Europe, military expenditure has increased only slightly.

There are different reasons for the change in trend. Military expenditure can be seen as a function of driving forces within prevailing economic and political constraints. Determinants of military expenditure are of four broad types: security-related; technological; economic and industrial; and more broadly political. One of the factors behind the change into growth in Europe and North America is the assumption of new military tasks in the form of peace support operations while at the same time inertia in existing procurement programmes continues to absorb large-scale funding. In Russia, the main explanation for the change in trend is economic: the earlier economic constraints, the primary reason for the reduction in Russian military expenditure, have eased since the late 1990s. In East Asia, economic factors also seem to be a determinant of the trend in military spending. There is also a strong security-related element in China and on the Korean peninsula. External security factors play a major role in South Asia and the Middle East, while in Africa the acceleration in military expenditure is primarily due to domestic armed conflict and restructuring of the armed forces.

The 11 September terrorist attacks raised the profile of NATO burden sharing. A US Congressional Budget Office study has concluded that, while US military expenditure is higher in terms of GDP share and population, the gap has narrowed. Moreover, the gap reflects US global security interests in addition to its contributions to NATO. As regards specific contributions to NATO peacekeeping operations and donations of economic aid, the European allies are taking on a more than proportional share of the burden.

A US General Accounting Office study concluded that while total US military expenditure is higher than European expenditure, the cost of the US supporting its military presence in European NATO countries in 2000, estimated at $11.2 billion, was 50% lower than in 1990. The shortcomings of European countries were in specific military capabilities, such as mobility of forces and the technological level of their equipment.

Evamaria Loose-Weintraub (Germany) is a Research Assistant on the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Project. She is responsible for data on military expenditure in Europe and Central and South America. She is the author of chapters in the SIPRI volume Arms Export Regulations (1991) and co-author of a chapter in SIPRI Research Report no. 7, The Future of the Defence Industries in Central and Eastern Europe (1994) and of ‘Overview of world military expenditure’ in the UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (forthcoming 2002). She has contributed to most editions of the SIPRI Yearbook since 1984.

Wuyi Omitoogun (Nigeria) is a Researcher on the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Project. He is the coordinator of a new project on the Defence Budgeting Process in Africa. He is the author of ‘Arms control and conflict in Africa’ in Arms Control and Disarmament: A New Conceptual Approach (UN Department for Disarmament Affairs, 2000) and the forthcoming SIPRI Research Report no. 17, Military Expenditure in Africa.

Elisabeth Sköns (Sweden) is the Leader of the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Project. She is the author of chapters on the economics of arms production and the internationalization of arms production for the SIPRI volume Arms Industry Limited (1993) and other publications. She is also the author of chapters on military expenditure and their determinants and economic impact, including in New Millennium, New Perspectives (UN University, 2000). She has contributed to most editions of the SIPRI Yearbook since 1983.

Petter Stålenheim (Sweden) is a Researcher on the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Project. He is responsible for data on military expenditure in Asia and Oceania and for the maintenance of the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. He has contributed to the SIPRI Yearbook since 1998.

Militarism is a belief or system where the military is exalted and its needs and considerations are given excessive importance or priority. Militarism was a powerful force in 19th and early 20th century Europe. While militarism alone did not start World War I, it fuelled a potent arms race and undermined the role of diplomacy as a means of resolving disputes.

Defining militarism

Militarism is a philosophy or system that emphasises the importance of military power. Alfred Vagts, a German historian who served in World War I, defined it as the “domination of the military man over the civilian, an undue preponderance of military demands, an emphasis on military considerations”.

In militaristic nations, generals and admirals often act as de facto government ministers or officials, advising political leaders and influencing domestic policy. Not surprisingly, this leads to significant increases in defence and arms spending.

Late 19th and early 20th-century militarism fuelled an arms race that gave rise to new military technologies and increased defence spending. Militarism also shaped culture, the press and public opinion. Newspapers held up military leaders as heroes, painted rival nations as dangerous aggressors and regularly speculated about the possibility of war. 

The other ‘isms’

Militarism and two other ‘isms’, nationalism and imperialism, were all intrinsically connected. They were systems, ideologies or ways of thinking that reinforced and strengthened each other.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, military power was considered a measure of national and imperial strength. A powerful state needed a powerful military to protect its interests and support its policies. Strong armies and navies were needed to defend the homeland, to protect imperial and trade interests abroad and to deter threats.

War was avoided where possible – but it could also be used to advance a nation’s political or economic interests. As the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously wrote in 1832, war was “a continuation of policy by other means”.

In the 19th century European mind, politics and military power became inseparable, much like politics and economic management have become inseparable in the modern world. Governments and leaders who failed to maintain armies and navies to protect the national interest were considered weak or incompetent.

Prussian militarism

The German-speaking Kingdom of Prussia is considered the wellspring of European militarism. Prior to the unification of Germany in 1871, Prussia was the most powerful of the German kingdoms. After unification, the German government and armed forces were based on the Prussian model and many German politicians and generals were Junkers (land-owning Prussian nobles).

The Prussian army was reformed and modernised in the 1850s by Field Marshal von Moltke the Elder. Under von Moltke’s leadership, Prussia’s army implemented new strategies, improved training for its officers, introduced advanced weaponry and adopted more efficient means of command and communication.

Prussia’s crushing military defeat of France in 1871 proved its army as the most dangerous and effective military force in Europe. This victory also secured German unification, meaning that Prussian militarism and German nationalism became closely intertwined. 

Prussian commanders, personnel and methodology became the nucleus of the new German imperial army. The German Kaiser was its supreme commander; he relied on a military council and chief of general staff, made up of Junker aristocrats and career officers. When it came to military matters, the Reichstag (Germany’s elected civilian parliament) had no more than an advisory role.

Militarism elsewhere

Elsewhere in Europe, militarism was more restrained and less flagrant, yet it remained a potent political and cultural force.

British militarism was more subdued than its German counterpart but nevertheless still evidence. Military power was considered essential for maintaining Britain’s imperial and trade interests. The Royal Navy, by far the world’s largest naval force, was engaged in protecting shipping, trade routes and colonial ports. British land forces kept order and imposed imperial policies in India, Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

British attitudes to the military underwent a stark transformation during the 1800s. During the previous century, many Britons considered armies and navies a necessary evil. Their ranks were filled with the dregs of the lower classes, their officers were often failed aristocrats and neer-do-wells. These attitudes had changed by the mid-19th century, with soldiering seen more as a noble vocation, a selfless act of service to one’s country. As in Germany, British soldiers were glorified and romanticised in the press and popular culture.

Whether serving in Crimea or the distant colonies, British officers were hailed as gentlemen and sterling leaders. Enlisted men were well-drilled, resolute and ready to make the ultimate sacrifice ‘for King and Country’. The concept of soldiers as heroes was epitomised by Tennyson’s 1854 poem The Charge of the Light Brigade and reflected in cheap ‘derring-do’ novels about foreign wars and battles, both real and imagined.

Military modernisation

Military victories, whether in colonial wars or major conflicts like the Crimean War (1853-56) or the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), only increased the prestige of European militaries and further intensified nationalism.

In contrast, a military defeat (such as Russia‘s defeat by Japan in 1905) or even a costly victory (like Britain in the Boer War, 1899-1902) might expose problems and heighten calls for military reform or increased spending.

Virtually every major European nation engaged in some form of military reform and renewal in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In Germany, military expansion and modernisation were heartily endorsed by the newly crowned Kaiser, Wilhelm II, who wanted to claim his country’s “place in the sun”.

In Britain, the arms race was driven not by the monarchy but by public interest and the press. In 1884 the prominent newspaperman W. T. Stead published a series of articles suggesting that Britain was unprepared for war, particularly in its naval defences. Pressure groups like the British Navy League (formed 1894) agitated for more ships and personnel. By the early 1900s, the Navy League and the press were calling on the government to commission more Dreadnoughts (battleships). One popular slogan was “We want eight [Dreadnoughts] and we won’t wait!”

The arms race

As a consequence, European military expenditure between 1900 and 1914 sky-rocketed. In 1870 the combined military spending of the six great powers (Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Italy) totalled the equivalent of £94 million. By 1914, it had quadrupled to £398 million.

German defence spending during this period increased by a massive 73 per cent, dwarfing the increases in France (10 per cent) and Britain (13 per cent). Between 1898 and 1912, the German government passed five different Fleet Acts to expand the country’s naval power.

Russian defence spending also grew by more than one third. Russia’s embarrassing defeat by the Japanese (1905) prompted the tsar to order a massive rearmament program. By the 1910s, around 45 per cent of Russian government spending was allocated to the armed forces, in comparison to just five per cent on education.

Military expansion

Every major European power, Britain excluded, introduced or increased conscription to expand their armies. Germany added 170,000 full-time soldiers to its army in 1913-14 while dramatically increasing its navy.

In 1898, the German government’s fourth Fleet Act ordered the construction of 17 new vessels. Berlin also led the way in the construction of military submarines; by 1914 the German navy had 29 operational U-boats. This rapid growth in German naval power triggered a press frenzy and alarm in Britain. London responded to German naval expansion by commissioning 29 new ships for the Royal Navy.

The following table lists estimated defence and military spending in seven major nations between 1908 and 1913 (figures shown in United States dollars):

New technologies and weapons

This period saw significant changes to the quality of military weapons and equipment, as well as their quantity. This not only made these weapons more powerful and more deadly but they could be mass-produced at staggering levels. Sir Edward Grey, reflecting on his service as British foreign secretary in July 1914, said that:

“A great European war under modern conditions would be a catastrophe for which previous wars afforded no precedent. In old days, nations could collect only portions of their men and resources at a time and dribble them out by degrees. Under modern conditions, whole nations could be mobilised at once and their whole lifeblood and resources poured out in a torrent. Instead of a few hundreds of thousands of men meeting each other in war, millions would now meet – and modern weapons would multiply manifold the power of destruction. The financial strain and the expenditure of wealth would be incredible.”

After studying the lessons of the Crimean War and other 19th century conflicts, military industrialists developed hundreds of improvements and rushed them to patent. The most significant changes improved the calibre, range, accuracy and portability of heavy artillery. During the American Civil War (1861-65), heavy artillery could fire up to 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) at best. By the early 1900s, this range had almost tripled.

Explosive shells were developed, giving single artillery rounds greater killing power wherever they landed. These advances allowed artillery shelling and bombardments to become standard practice along the Western Front during World War I.

First developed in 1881, machine guns also became smaller, lighter, more accurate, more reliable and much faster, some capable of firing up to 600 rounds per minute.

Small arms also improved significantly. The effective range of a rifle in the 1860s was around 400 metres. In contrast, the British issue Lee-Enfield .303 could hit a target more than two kilometres away. 

Barbed wire, an invention of the 1860s, was also embraced by military strategists as an anti-personnel device. While historians often disagree on the reasons for the arms race, there is no doubt that the development of this new weaponry changed the face of modern warfare.

A historian’s view: “The belief in war as a test of national power and a proof of national superiority added a scientific base to the cult of patriotism… In Britain, a real effort was made to teach boys that success in war depended upon the patriotism and military spirit of the nation, and that preparation for war would strengthen ‘manly virtue’ and ‘patriotic ardour’.”

Zara Steiner