At the beginning of the 20th century the five main powers in Europe were Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia and Austria-Hungary. On 28th June 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Within six weeks most of Europe was at war. Leading up to this war the five main powers were all at different levels. In this essay I will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these five powers leading up to this war taking into consideration the different factors such as economy, military and political.
Germany had improved vastly from the 1850s and was, by the early 20th century, the second most powerful country in Europe behind Britain, if not the most powerful. One factor that influenced this dramatic change was their improvement in industry. They had the second largest coal production to that of Great Britain but their annual steel production exceeded that of Britain by more than 10 million tonnes so this was a great strength. This was also a strength for Great Britain, she too had a strong industry, with the second largest annual steel production and the largest coal production. By 1914 Russia had industrialised and the production of coal, oil, textiles and steel grew rapidly. However Russia was devoted to textiles and food processing rather than chemicals and engineering. This, in the long term, would be a weakness because the army would have nice uniforms and nice rations but not efficient and useful armament. Austria-Hungary’s industry was behind all the others but it was improving and in certain areas its industrial capacity was reasonably good.