Industrial Revolution as a Trigger of Great Britain's Growth - Research Paper Example

The Industrial Revolution: The Dawn of Greater Britain Introduction In the first half of the nineteenth century Britain was starting to manufacture more armaments than commanding officers knew what to do with. Warfare was remarkably transformed by the industrial revolution. The steam engine was the driving force of the very first British industrialization. It was the source of power of the massive improvements and increases in productivity during the latter half of the nineteenth century. It also enhanced the portability of industrial armaments. The massive increase in the frequency of death in the industry continuously transformed the manner wars were fought. Improved military capability of Britain resulted in dispersed troops searching for cover. This scattering and its impact on command power, was counteracted by the invention of the telegraph. With this improvement in British armed forces came an increase in the claim for order. Hence, the transformation in the industrial power of Britain influenced their military skills. Strategies and shrewdness became less significant than productivity and supply capacity. This also relates to the available combatant population as, increasingly, recruits came to be viewed as quantities much like ammunition replacement and bullet consumption. The bigger the military force, normally coming from a bigger population base, the higher the number of fatalities it would be capable of maintaining, enlarging the odds of victory. The objective of this study is to discuss the contribution of the Industrial Revolution on the rise of Britain as a military power. The growth of the iron industry and mass-producing factories will be taken into account. The Rise of the British Empire Military production was an industry that rewarded innovation. In other major industries traditional entrepreneurs were hesitant to invest in novel process technology. The government invested in the military industry and was indifferent with the production technology provided that the goods were finished and delivered on time. Numerous technological improvements, such as iron production, the use of machine implements, and conveyer belts, were initiated through military manufacturing (Wakefield 1849, pp. 88-91). The technology built for the military industry then spread out into the civilian economic sector. And since it was at the time a verified technology patron who were usually vigilant were eager to invest into these enterprises which rather than dispensing iron to produce guns now transformed iron ore into pots and stoves (Wakefield 1849, p. 88-91). Iron manufacturing received special treatment from the military industry; appropriate coverage necessitates that one monitors the military uses to which iron was placed. This is particularly significant since the yield of the iron industry in the eighteenth century went for fairly diverse uses than those related with the modern military industry (Wakefield 1849, pp. 92-95). The British iron industry by the first half of the eighteenth century was in crisis, due to the scarcity of wood to produce charcoal; much of the iron of Britain at this time was traded in (Dilke 1868, p. 35). Nonetheless, Abraham Darby in 1709 initiated the application of coke in ore smelting (Colquhoun 1815, pp. 353-358), and the puddling process of Henry Cort in 1984 enabled ironmasters to manufacture wrought iron using coal (Froude 1881, p. 267). Iron developed into a primary component in industrialization and subsequently in the military industry. John ‘Iron Mad’ Wilkinson enhanced techniques of casting and engineering, and also founded a major ironworks. Additional expansions were facilitated by the steam engine of James Watt, which was utilized to generate blast; by James Neilson’s inventions, such as the hot blast, and by James Nasmyth’s steam hammer (Seeley 1883, pp. 78-79). The military industry of Britain grew rapidly in the nineteenth century because of these inventions. Iron was utilized to manufacture military weapons, and facilitated the growth of steam engines and accurate military contraptions. Without the Industrial Revolution these improvements in Britain’s military capability could not have occurred. The ironworks of the Darby family at Coalbrookdale kept on developing, and Abraham Darby III constructed in 1779 the first iron bridge (Seeley 1883, pp. 79). Benjamin Huntsman in 1740 formulated the crucible mechanism of producing small quantities of cast steel, applying coke (Macaulay 1849, p. 48). However, Henry Bessemer in 1856 created the Bessemer process, and William Siemens in 1861 created the open-hearth process. These novel techniques enabled the production of substantial quantities of mild steel from non-phosphoric ores, and Sidney Gilchrist-Thomas in 1879 discovered how to make use of phosphoric ores by coating the transformer with dolomite limestone (Macaulay 1849, pp. 48-50). Steel was sturdier and more pliable than cast iron, and quickly displaced it as the primary metal of the Industrial Revolution, utilized for machinery, weapons and ships. Inexpensive steel facilitated, specifically, the building of the railways (Seeley 1883, pp. 79-80). Tugan-Baranovsky (1894) has illustrated the consequences of the process of militarization in Britain brought about by the Industrial Revolution: “Up to the twenties of the nineteenth century the rural population of England increased… But from the twenties onward there was not a single census which did not show an absolute diminution of the numbers of people engaged in agriculture in Great Britain” (p. 3). The following passage came from a correspondence written by Halford Mackinder, a British imperial strategist, to the British Royal Geographical Society. The message shows the rise of Britain as a military power (Mackinder 1904, p. 304): As we consider this rapid review of the broader currents of history, does not a certain persistence of geographical relationship become evident? Is not the pivot region of the world’s politics that vast area of Euro-Asia which is inaccessible to ships, but in antiquity lay open to the horse riding nomads, and is today about to be covered with a network of railways. There have been and are here the conditions of a mobility of military and economic power of a far-reaching and yet limited character. Russia replaces the Mogul empire. Her pressure on Finland, on Scandinavia, on Poland, on Turkey, on Persia, on India, on China replaces the centrifugal raids of the steppe-men. In the world at large she occupies the central strategically position held by Germany in Europe. In conclusion, it may be well expressly to point out that the substitution of some new control of inland area for that of Russia would not tend to reduce the geographical significance of the pivot point. Were the Chinese, for instance, organized by the Japanese, to overthrow the Russian Empire and conquer its territory, they might constitute the Yellow Peril to the world’s freedom. The expansion of industrialization in the West, in addition to a number of the exact changes that developed after the 1880s, connected British industrial revolution to an array of other expansions. During this stage the repercussions of the industrial revolution for Britain’s military capability were completely realized. However, it cannot be assumed that Britain viewed war as advantageous, but it at least saw it as a capable diversion for the hostile working class. Military developments and, specifically, the naval arms race that more wholly overwhelmed France, Germany and Britain linked to the developing capacity in big industry and the influence of large ventures to encourage governments to purchase their wares (Dilke 1868, pp. 163-166). Sir Charles Dilke and Spencer Wilkinson (1892, p. 42) depict the rise of Britain as a military power due to the Industrial Revolution. He recounts the victory of Britain over the Spanish Armada Sir James Emerson Tennent (1859, p. 233-242) portrays warfare between the Maratha Confederacy in India and Britain. He portrays the Maratha Confederacy as the ultimate power that could defy the British control of India. He presents his explanations for the victory of Britain. The Marathas had numerous ammunitions, more guns, in fact, than the British armed forces; and they had thousands of cavalry against a small troop of the British military. However, the British possessed the advantage in strategy and discipline. He illustrates the Marathas as disabled by warrior custom. Even though the British armed forces were substantially outnumbered, the British triumphed over the Maratha forces. A great deal of the Maratha armed forces clung to their traditions. Some had refused to surrender the bow and arrow. Their military tactic called ‘hit and run’ did not work against an unyielding supply of industrialized British weaponries (Tennent 1859, pp. 233-242). The British, according to Boot, had upgraded their military due to their rationality, curiosity, and need for competence, not an inherent superiority possibly but fragment of a development in a period of industrialization and of growing trade and liberalism that go with free trade. Coping with latest developments in military technology demands a particular amount of intellectual liberty and scientific investigation according to Sir Tennent (1859, pp. 233-242). Economists and historians alike were initially predisposed to emphasize airily that the British industrial revolution posed no difficult challenges, in this case in military manufacturing. They affirmed that even though it was factual that the invention of machinery did lead to the dismissal of manual laborers in artilleries and other plants devoted to the production of military equipment, it also cheapened military manufacturing, thereby expanding the market and bringing about increased demand for manufactured military goods (Dilke 1868, pp. 39-45). They claim that production would increase to satisfy the increased demand, and those laborer who had been discharged momentarily as an outcome of the invention of labor-saving machinery would locate jobs somewhere else (Dilke 1868, pp. 39-45). British Expansion and Advancement in Military Technology Technological changes have frequently been transformed to imperial intentions. The stirrup and chariot were essential tools for empire building, as well as the gun and sail. Military advancements in organization and weapons were outcomes of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. Subsequently, though, instruments vital to attaining economic gains and political control drastically flourished (Mackinder 1904, p. 307). The introduction of electrical power, and advancement in chemistry and metallurgy presented new ways for force and movement. Furthermore, the instruments endured considerable if incompetent development. British combatants made use of the musket, or a ‘smooth-bore, single-shot muzzleloader with powder ignited by exposed flintlock’ at the advent of the century, the rifle, or a ‘breech-loading repeater accepting metal cartridges activated by internal hammer at its end’ (Mackinder 1904, p. 307). However, while general developments during the industrial revolution may be obvious, there are problems in identifying when a type of tool had turned out to be adequately dispersed and successful to instigate transformation in behavior and relationships. For instance, it is difficult to decide when inexpensive, ‘metal-hulled, propeller-driven, ocean-going vessels’ (Mackinder 1904, p. 307) become adequately abundant to create a disparity between military technology and empire. Contemporaries were conscious of the new sources of power abruptly obtainable to them. Karl Marx was adequately perceptive to their force to be regarded by a number of scholars at the time as a technological determinist. J.R. Seeley (1883, p. 81), the imperial historian, believed that steam had provided the ‘political organism’ a ‘new circulation’, that electric power had given a ‘new nervous system’, and that both advancements had established a ‘Greater Britain’ that was achievable and essential (Seeley 1883, p. 81). Some Edwardians and Victorians objected to the destruction exacted on the land by steam shovels and the damage to human beings from blasting boilers, but majority enjoyed the pleasure of this improved human capability to change the environment (Wakefield 1849, pp. 98-100). Significant stability typified the distribution and utilization of military technologies in Imperial objectives during the first half of the nineteenth century. Transport efficiencies were accomplished domestically and globally using previous technologies, with animal and human force and wind power the leading transporters (Mackinder 1904, p. 309). More comprehensive application of copper sheathing to reinforce hulls of ships facilitated British supremacy in tropical waters. Transmitted hydraulic knowledge appended canals to waterways, such as St. Lawrence, and repossessed irrigation infrastructures in northern India (Mackinder 1904, p. 309). A number of new technologies were incorporated slowly. The replacement of coastal sailing vessels and horse-pulled canal boats by steamers was an extremely extensive procedure, but a more rapid improvement was steam power on rails. Introduced in nineteenth century England, it became widespread and persistent there in the latter half of the century and soon afterward all over the North Atlantic region (Barth 1857, pp. 238-239). In Britain its capability for empire building was immediately identified. As a primary invention of the industrial revolution it encouraged, alongside the clock, a redefining of the relationship of humankind to time and space. The clock facilitated military activities by measuring and distributing military activities. On the other hand local military productive power improved remarkably as manufacture and mining were mechanized. Improved capacities to produce and consume military products “gave the British a new cutting edge overseas” (Mackinder 1904, p. 308). Among the numerous instruments of empire building which strengthened the private and public domains none was more important than the steamship. Definitely, its capability was at first overvalued. As an owner of a ship claimed in 1844, “steam has been a spur to everything” (Seeley 1883, p. 84). Overseers in the backwaters of West Africa in the 1830s and 1840s insisted steamships as crucial to military operations and as indispensable and essential to the ‘civilizing mission’. The government, in the shape of the Admiralty, was sluggish to implement steam, but in 1841 the Royal Navy began to displace sailing ships in the anti-slavery regiment (Seeley 1883, p. 84). Low-pressure boilers that rusted rapidly and used up coal markedly did not stop the private sector from commissioning steamers overseas. Macgregor Laird sent off steamers up the Niger, with catastrophic outcomes (Mackinder 1904, p. 310). The East India Company attempted to launch steamers to the Indian Ocean’s trade routes and dispatched a Lard-built steamer, the Nemesis, to the coast of South China: “This iron-hulled paddle wheeler played a key role in subduing resistance along the Pearl River during the Opium War of 1839-40” (Fergusson 1872, p. 124). In that way it allowed local authorities to haul the Imperial government into assisting merchants in gaining access to domestic markets. A state-sponsored expedition in 1836 explored the Euphrates by steamer in hasty endeavor to launch steam expedition on its waters. Considerable state backing in the shape of mail contracts also facilitated enterprise capitalists to institute costly ocean-going steamship ventures. By the end of the first half of the eighteenth century sponsored lines oriented to run to timetables were maneuvering poorly the North Atlantic, the South America, Mediterranean and the West Indies, with an annex by route of the Red Sea and Suez isthmus to the western Pacific, China and India. However the masts of these steamers were a more prominent attribute of their profiles than their funnels, a suggestion that steam power remained an enhancement to and not yet a substitute for ships on ocean-going vessels (Froude 1881, pp. 158-161). On the contrary, British ordinance still tendered only inadequate advantage on water and land in the 1840s. It was not enough to thwart catastrophe in the First Afghan War and just slightly significant in opposition to the Sikhs, where both parties had similar artillery, muskets and efficient organization. Gunpowder, small arms, and shot from Britain brimmed into West African politics, in which coastal states mounted canon in their combat canoes. Traded weapons persistently disturbed the Cape’s eastern border; in New Zealand, hostilities between Pakeha and Maori increased. In each instance native adaptation implied that both parties have muskets (Froude 1881, pp. 160-162). The 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace manifested tremendous prospects for the boost in wealth and dominance offered by technological advancement. A world trade fair with products from numerous territories, it showed exhibitions from different parts of the present Empire in addition to the products of modern Britain with a capable role abroad. These involved model bridges and steam engines, clocks, and the advanced locomotive, “all green and polished brass, brand-new from the Swindon railway works” (Seeley 1883, p. 114) older adaptations of which had already been transferred abroad. Neither Imperial force nor private capital completely controlled “the transfer of high transport technology [which] had a certain free wheeling momentum of its own” (Seeley 1883, p. 114). The sustained improvement and mechanization of the military industry of Britain till the latter half of the nineteenth century generated rifled muskets, and achieved output levels of more than ‘100,000 per annum by 1863’ (Seeley 1883, p. 120). These weapons were utilized to resupply and thus make more deadly British military troops overseas. Conclusions The industrial revolution greatly contributed to the rise of Britain as a military power, both in the army and navy. Therefore, they could exercise military might with virtual effortlessness on land and coastal areas. That was the positive contribution of the industrial revolution to the military capability of Britain in the nineteenth century. The production of military armaments and the expansion of a home market were important groundwork of the first British industrial revolution. Military production sustained by the government of Britain contributed wholly to technological advancement and prompted industrialization. This is due to the fact that businesses that opt to complete the government contracts to manufacture ammunitions, ships and other military equipment realized that profit could be generated if new technology and processes was developed to complete the major contracts. Primary References Barth, Heinrich. Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa. London: Spottiswoode and Co., 1857. Colquhoun, Patrick. Resources of the British Empire. New York: Ezra Sargeant, 1815. Dilke, C.W. Greater Britain. London: Cambridge History of English and American Literature, 1868. Dilke, Charles & Spencer Wilkinson. Imperial Defence. London: BiblioLife LLC, 1892. Fergusson, James. History of Indian and Eastern Architecture. London: Milward Press, 1876. Froude, James Anthony. The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century. London: Longmans, Greens and Co., 1881. Macarthur, James. New South Wales: Its Present State and Future Prospects. London: Stewart and Co., 1837. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. History of England. London: Penguin Books, 1849. Mackinder, Halford. "The Geographical Pivot of History." The Geographical Journal, 1904: 298-321. Seeley, J.R. Expansion of England. England: Lightning Source Inc., 1883. Tennent, James Emerson. Ceylon. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859. Tugan-Baranovsky, Mikhail. The Industrial Crises in England. Homewood, IL: R. D. Irwin for the American Economic Association, 1894. Wakefield, Edward Gibbon. A View of the Art of Colonization, with Present Reference to the British Empire. London: Bibliolife, 1849. Read More