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HMS Dreadnought.The 1902, 1904 and 1907 agreements with Japan, France and Russia allowed Britain to refocus resources during the Anglo-German naval arms race. In explaining why Britain went to war with Germany, British historian Paul Kennedy (1980) argued that a critical factor was the British realisation that Germany was rapidly becoming economically more powerful than Britain.
Britain's basic reasons for declaring war focused on a deep commitment to France and avoidance of splitting the Liberal Party. Top Liberals threatened to resign if the cabinet refused to support France—which would mean loss of control of the government to a coalition or to the Unionist (i.e. Conservative) opposition.
By the end of the First World War almost 25 percent of the total male population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had joined up, over five million men. Of these, 2.67 million joined as volunteers and 2.77 million as conscripts (although some volunteered after conscription was introduced and would most likely have been ...
France's informal alignment with Britain and its formal alliance with Russia against Germany and Austria eventually led Russia and Britain to enter World War I as France's allies. [26] [27] Britain abandoned its policy of splendid isolation in the 1900s, after it had been isolated during the Second Boer War. Britain concluded agreements ...
By the First World War, the British military forces (i.e., those raised in British territory, whether in the British Isles or colonies, and also those raised in the Channel Islands, but not the British Indian Army, the military forces of the Dominions, or those of British protectorates) was still a complex of organisations, and not strictly a single force under a single administration.
Prior to the First World War, only those whose parents could afford the high fees for training naval cadets on HMS Britannia, the officer training ship, or at the Royal Navy colleges at Dartmouth and Osborne, founded in 1905, could join the Royal Navy. Tuition at Osborne and Dartmouth was on a par with many of the best public schools, but ...
[14] Essentially, the British reserved the right to join whatever country was attacking Germany even if Germany did not start the conflict, dooming the talks to failure. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] According to German historian Dirk Bönker, "To be sure, the [naval] race was decided early on; political leaders and diplomats learned to bracket it as an issue ...
From July 2013, all Commonwealth citizens except for those from Ireland, Cyprus, and Malta must have resided for 5 years in the UK before being allowed to join. [ citation needed ] As of May 2016, commonwealth citizens can enlist in the British army in limited roles without meeting the residence requirements. [ 47 ]