Explain the development of industrialisation in continental Europe from 1871 to 1914. Development Industrialisation Germany Germany Export Biggest bigger than france The invention of cheap methods of making steel was on of the major technological contributions to economic activity. Still more influential was the discovery by Thomas and Gilchrist in 1878 of a means of adapting either process to the making of steel from phosphoric ore, which previously had been useless for the purpose. Effective use of the large Lorraine iron-ore field thus became possible, and Germany was enabled to build up the great steel industry, which was one of the fundamental elements in its rapid industrialization. Cheap and abundant steel transformed the situation of the engineering industries. New constructional feats became possible and machinery could be designed for special purposes not previously contemplated. Steel made possible enormous widening of the range of goods which could be economically produced by mechanical methods. The rapid increase in its use is shown in table 2. 1870-4 0.3 (million tonnes).1910-4 15.0 (million tonnes). …show more content…
Major developments were made in the application of chemistry to industry. Gas manufacture and the production of sulphuric acid in rapidly growing quantities had been noteworthy features of industrial growth in the first half of the nineteenth century, but later the scope of industrial chemistry increased enormously. New products of many kinds, including synthetic dyestuffs and fertilizers, and explosives of previously unequalled force, began to be manufactured in large quantities; and between 1900 and 1914 rayon production was commercially established and the new synthetic fibre became a significant competitor of silk. In all the chief industrial countries the chemical manufactures were of growing relative importance, but in Germany this was particularly