Could Britain have done more to avoid World Wars 1 and 2?

[marauder2048]

IIRC, the French made massive investments in improving harbor and rail infrastructure pre-WWI to facilitate a quick BEF
disembarkation/deployment.

The French also undertook heavy investment in Russia in terms of industrial assistance and loans that were tied to
Russian rail expansion to facilitate Russian mobilization and deployment.

You could regard that as the French propping up their alliance.

The French certainly did a better job than the Germans in this regard; there was an Austro-Hungarian Army
liaison (Josef Stürgkh) to the German Army that wrote a book about his experience in joint-planning
with a chapter entitled "Why The Germans Are Not Well Liked."

 

[Rickshaw]

I am presently bowing out of this discussion as I am unable to find my copy of the book.

I will however note, the "Great Game" was expressly between Tsarist Russia and Great Britain and concerned British fears about the possibility of a Russian incursion or funded rebellion in India, to wrest control from the Raj to the Kremlin.

All events after (approximately) 1895 were not part of the "Great Game". They concerned different participants and were undertaken for different reasonings. Therefore, to consider them as part of the "Great Game" is IMHO very mistaken.

Dear Rickshaw,
I suspect that Indians and Afghan would have eventually expelled the Tsar the same way they expelled Alexander the Great, Moguls. Brits, Portugeuse, etc. invaders.

Perhaps but we will never know

 

[marauder2048]

Perhaps but we will never know

IIRC, The British Cabinet papers for the period weren't even available until the 1980's.

The reasons are pretty clear; defeat in the Great Game compelled the British to appease
the Russians to a degree that makes British pre-WW2 appeasement of Germany look pretty modest
in comparison.

Implicit in much of this is oil politics; the RN had begun the conversion to oil in 1901.

And to their credit, the British were well ahead of the European curve in recognizing
the importance of oil in general and the alarming fact that they had colonized the
completely *wrong* parts of the planet in that regard.

And Britain imported a good deal of its oil from Russia.

And The Russians also posed a huge military threat, via their rail expansion into the Caucasus,
to the later Persian oilfields.

And there was oil next door in modern day Iraq that the Germans were after.

So the British picked the Russians.

And a collision course with the German Empire was the outcome.

 

[Hood]

Perhaps but we will never know

IIRC, The British Cabinet papers for the period weren't even available until the 1980's.

The reasons are pretty clear; defeat in the Great Game compelled the British to appease
the Russians to a degree that makes British pre-WW2 appeasement of Germany look pretty modest
in comparison.

I don't see how you can say that Britain lost the Great Game.
Persia and Afghanistan were never absorbed into the Russian sphere and all their efforts were rebuffed, Persia became the plaything of British foreign policy (Anglo-Persian Oil for example), though why Churchill accepted Soviet 'occupation' of Northern Persia during WW2 is slightly baffling and even here Stalin couldn't maintain a grip post 1945. Russia got no warm water port in the Gulf. Russian expansion into western China was also stopped.

Instead Russia was forced to keep going eastward towards the Pacific until they rubbed up against the Japanese and their own ambitions, had their fleet totally smashed by what was then a third-rate power tipping off a Revolution that destablised the country and led to far worse events later.
Britain kept hold of India and Middle East. Look who carved up the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France. Who briefly occupied Baku in 1919? Yep British troops from Persia, the threat of the Great Game in reverse and actually put into action. Britain wisely gave up India (which as you say was really the wrong area to colonise in hindsight) four decades later and her Middle East influence endures to this day.
In 1990 those southern lands acquired a century earlier legged it from Moscow's control as soon as they could, even before Communist power fell the Caucasus was in conflict. So Russia's record of success is rather... lacking.

Really the decision to ally with Russia was pragmatic, balancing the danger of Russia expansionism to the Persian Gulf being a reality versus European dangers. The same happened with France over Fashoda in 1898. It was clear fighting over bits of dusty scrubland was nonsensical when there were bigger concerns within Europe, a militarily strong Germany meant bad news for Russia and France and Britain couldn't chance the danger of a destabilised Europe. Plus the Ottomans were losing their grip and distracting Russia from trying to grab the Bosporus was another important goal.

The other flip side is, allying with Germany had no benefits, they had no valuable colonies to barter with, they were serious trade competitors (Russians selling cheap tat to Afghan nomads instead of British tat was far less a threat than Messers Siemens and Krupp) and the Kaiser was a bellicose guy who liked poking everyone to stoke his own pompous ego.

The real danger was that Berlin, Paris and London had to keep their Austro-Hungarian and Russian buddies from setting the Balkans ablaze, a task that eluded them and a balancing act that could never be held up forever.

 

[marauder2048]

I don't see how you can say that Britain lost the Great Game.

Pretty obvious if you look at map of Russia's durable expansion in the 19th and early 20th century
and the fact the British abandoned a long standing position of preserving the territorial integrity
of the Ottoman Empire. IOW, the Crimean War had been for nothing.

That was pretty decisive in pushing the Ottomans into the German camp.

And Baku was outproducing the United States in terms of oil by 1901 and the
British were a major importer of Russian oil.

Look who carved up the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France.

Look who both got bailed out of WW1 after the Russians got knocked out.
Britain was financially insolvent by 1917 and the Entente had failed.

Really the decision to ally with Russia was pragmatic,

Russia was the only real overland military threat to the British Empire.
The German threat was nascent and exaggerated at best.

And it was Russian military expansion in the period up to WW1 that the
Entente were counting on; the "Russian steamroller."

And it Russian military/industrial expansion far more so than anything else
that had Central Powers and especially German worried; the fairly
massive revisions to German warplanning/force structure during the period were
motivated mainly by Russian developments.

 

[1635yankee]

Not alone but, the allied powers could have avoided denuding Germany of any remaining financial base and thus avoiding the Austrian corporal from getting into power in Germany. The whole second war MIGHT have been avoided. IMOHO of course.

Instead of that, force the German General staff to stand to attention while the Entente armies march down the Kaiserstrasse. Make damned sure that the general staff can't sell the "stab in the back" lie quite so effectively. Incidentally, the Treaty of Vienna was at least as economically punitive as Versailles, and the treaty ending the Franco-Prussian War was also very draconian and punitive.

 

[Hood]

And Baku was outproducing the United States in terms of oil by 1901 and the
British were a major importer of Russian oil.

Look who carved up the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France.

Look who both got bailed out of WW1 after the Russians got knocked out.
Britain was financially insolvent by 1917 and the Entente had failed.

Russia was the only real overland military threat to the British Empire.
The German threat was nascent and exaggerated at best.

And it was Russian military expansion in the period up to WW1 that the
Entente were counting on; the "Russian steamroller."

The Crimean War was nearly 60 years earlier. By that reasoning we shouldn't have let West Germany into NATO in 1955 because ten years earlier they had been the bad guys and we shouldn't have helped France because Boney had been such a pain in the arse a century earlier.
Geopolitics evolves and strategies change.

Who owned all that Baku Oil? The Nobel Brothers and the Rothschilds. Even Nobel's main competitor who tried to buy Brandoble was the Russian General Oil Corporation, founded in London as an English holding company! It was European and British financed oil.
Who built the first tanker and created an oil transportation system? Britain. Russia was industrially backwards, it couldn't create its own oil industry at this time. The same story with its military expansion, a lot of foreign investment and hardware, for example its naval construction was still heavily sourced from Europe, even into the 1930s. Lots of land and mouths to feed but not much in the way of industry to back it up.
In May 1920 Gustaf Nobel sold up his assets to Standard Oil, giving the US a slice in this pie. The Bolsheviks said "nyet" and took the lot.

What has financial bail outs got to do with the Great Game? I don't follow your logic.
The USA today is more in debt to China than it was to Britain in 1776. So what?
In international economies you go where the money is. None of the European powers could finance WW1 on their own, it was sheer madness. The result was collapse everywhere, even France was never politically stable afterwards. Only Britain remained relatively on an even keel. Everyone lost.

The Germans might have been overrated but they had a unified country, no one knew what their potential might be. They had beaten Denmark, Austria and France in order to create Germany. The naval threat was bluff, it looked scary for those brought up on the absurd notion of Trafalgar 2.0 but in reality Germany naval power was an expensive folly.
On the other hand, hyperbole on enemy threats encourages Treasuries and taxpayers to stump up money for arms. We need eight dreadnougts to secure Tangyankia wouldn't of had the same ring to it.

But in 1914 the Germans nearly reached Paris, in 1940-41 they smashed through the entire western end of Eurasia. It was wise not to underestimate the threat on 1914, which is what happened in 1939-40.
The Russian Steamroller looked deadly - if it could mobilise in time and if masses of untrained men who didn't speak the same language could overcome modern defences. With decent Staff Officers and luck it might have worked in 1914. Had they been able to knock Austria-Hungry out of the war in 1914 or 1915 it would have been game over for Germany and a compromise peace might have been reached.

 

[marauder2048]

The Crimean War was nearly 60 years earlier. By that reasoning we shouldn't have let West Germany into NATO in 1955 because ten years earlier they had been the bad guys and we shouldn't have helped France because Boney had been such a pain in the arse a century earlier.
Geopolitics evolves and strategies change.

British policy until the end of the 19th century and defeat in the Great Game was preservation of the Ottoman Empire.
The change in policy to appeasement of Russia was a complete 180 and put Britain on a collision course with
the German Empire. That's the fundamental point.

Even in 1912 when, as the British predicted, the Germans abandoned he Naval Race as lost and really
tried to adopt a conciliatory position vis-a-vis the British (c.f. the Balkan Wars), the British were still
negotiating a "secret" naval pact with the Russians that would (improbably) see the RN deploy to the Baltic!

They could only be seen a needlessly provocative.

Who owned all that Baku Oil? The Nobel Brothers and the Rothschilds. Even Nobel's main competitor who tried to buy Brandoble was the Russian General Oil Corporation, founded in London as an English holding company! It was European and British financed oil.
Who built the first tanker and created an oil transportation system? Britain. Russia was industrially backwards, it couldn't create its own oil industry at this time.

And completely irrelevant since Britain was incapable of protecting the oilfields while being dependent on them.
Same with the Persian oilfields. All were vulnerable to strong regional land powers.

As the Gallipoli campaign would show, rail mobility beats sea mobility.

What has financial bail outs got to do with the Great Game? I don't follow your logic.

You were arguing that because the British were able to occupy Baku in 1919 that....
Which was only enabled by the US intervening financially and military to keep the Entente afloat
in WW1.

The Germans might have been overrated but they had a unified country, no one knew what their potential might be. They had beaten Denmark, Austria and France in order to create Germany. The naval threat was bluff, it looked scary for those brought up on the absurd notion of Trafalgar 2.0 but in reality Germany naval power was an expensive folly.

Per the British cabinet papers, the British never doubted their ability to win a Naval arms race with the Germans.
As events proved. So where was the threat to the British Empire?

There really wasn't one. But there was a threat to the British Empire from Russia land power.
So the British made a choice to conciliate that threat which had side-effects.

And British commitment to the Entente was surely responsible in no small part to
the lead up to the July Crisis.

None of the European powers could finance WW1 on their own, it was sheer madness.

This is being wise after the fact; the Entente staked their approach on their deeper pockets, deeper manpower,
better collective industrial output and the Russian steamroller.

The Germans were quite cognizant of the fact that they would lose a protracted conflict if they failed
to knock at least one of the combatants out of the war.

Had they been able to knock Austria-Hungry out of the war in 1914 or 1915 it would have been game over for Germany and a compromise peace might have been reached.

The Austro-Hungarian military was pretty much knocked out of the war by the Russian in 1916.
Didn't change anything.

The Russian Steamroller looked deadly - if it could mobilise in time

Which is why the Russians had this pre-war doctrine of "secret" mobilization in order to buy time.
It would prove to the be the destabilizing event in the July Crisis.

and if masses of untrained men who didn't speak the same language could overcome modern defences. With decent Staff Officers and luck it might have worked in 1914.

Pure apologia; this assessment is not found in contemporary German threat assessments. And the Germans seemed
to have had excellent visibility (due do I suspect Russian army officers of German descent) into Russian capabilities.

"Modern defences" which completely mischaracterizes the war in the east; it was not brimming with modern
fortifications backed with deep rail networks like the west. So many of the battles there were battles
of maneuver.

 

[Hood]

British policy until the end of the 19th century and defeat in the Great Game was preservation of the Ottoman Empire.
The change in policy to appeasement of Russia was a complete 180 and put Britain on a collision course with
the German Empire. That's the fundamental point.

Even in 1912 when, as the British predicted, the Germans abandoned he Naval Race as lost and really
tried to adopt a conciliatory position vis-a-vis the British (c.f. the Balkan Wars), the British were still
negotiating a "secret" naval pact with the Russians that would (improbably) see the RN deploy to the Baltic!

They could only be seen a needlessly provocative.

Preserve what? By 1900 the Ottoman Empire was decaying; Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Italy, all picking at the carcass. France was getting wet-eyed about conquering Syria and retaking the Christian homelands. Britain saw Arabia as a nice new colony and securing the Suez from any eastern threat.
Even so, Britain was still selling the Ottomans arms and dreadnoughts - not delivering them may have been a mistake but Germany had supported Enver Pascha's coup in 1913 and sowed the seeds for what followed.

Germany was just as provocative. That thing called 'Weltpolitik' got a lot of backs up.

The Agadir Crisis of 1911 was hardly non-provocative. Britain roundly condemned Germany's actions and pressured her to not press France too greatly with territorial demands. A trival action blew up totally out of proportion.
But out of that single action much of what we have discussed here came about; Britain and France agreed their naval spheres of action in war, Churchill became First Lord and openly began converting the Navy to oil power and thereby focusing on the Persian oilfields of which British capital and prospectors had been taking a huge interest since 1908 - taking a controlling share in Anglo-Persian Oil in 1914, a year after APOC's refinery at Abadan (the largest in the world came on stream in 1913.
You might argue Britain should have kept out of it, it was France's affair after all - but it was clearly British cozying up to France at this point that was the tipping point. Germany might have been restrained in Balkan affairs in 1912 and 1913 (ignoring the Enver coup) but it had already done the damage in 1911 and irretrievably damaged its reputation.

Bethmann-Hollweg did indeed want to end the naval race, to expand the Army against the Russian threat. Britain had more or less won its strategic aim. The Haldane Mission offered to accept British naval superiority in exchange for British neutrality in a war in which Germany was not the aggressor. Britain rejected it as they had nothing to gain and Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey was anti-German. Germany may have abandoned the naval race but she had a million tons of capital ship tonnage, a battlefleet larger than France and Russia combined and one that was not that inferior materially to the Royal Navy when you consider that Britain could not rely on keeping all of her capital ships in Home Waters as she had global commitments (she could not just give up her naval forces in the Med despite the agreement with the French, as the Goeben chase showed). Unwittingly Britain had triggered off Germany's U-boat blockade tactics, something it was unprepared for at that time and probably would not have forseen at the time.

Even if the Haldane Mission had been a success, it would have been hard for Britain not to have seen Germany as the aggressor in July 1914 or for her to stand by and let Belgium's neutrality be violated. Russia and Austria were the aggressors in July, the Kaiser had been stupid to let the Austrians think they had full support. But looking at the events its clear Germany and Britain were both dragged in, though 'dragged' is perhaps not the right term, 'willingly leaped at the push' is perhaps more fitting.

As to the German provocations towards Britain's empire and India; Germany behind the Enver coup in Turkey, the Berlin-Baghdad Express route, good old Kaiser Bill pretending he was related to Mohammad himself in an attempt to rouse up a Holy War to launch an invasion of India. Oskar von Niedermayer smuggling German envoys and an Indian revolutionary through Persia to Kabul, trying to bring Afghanistan into the war against Britain. Perhaps even a greater threat as Russia had posed and they might have pulled it off with greater luck.

And completely irrelevant since Britain was incapable of protecting the oilfields while being dependent on them.
Same with the Persian oilfields. All were vulnerable to strong regional land powers.

As the Gallipoli campaign would show, rail mobility beats sea mobility.

And completely irrelevant because of those millions of Russian troops. The Russians were responsible for, and capable of, protecting their own country.
I will concede at one point Oskar von Niedermayer's plots did create problems in Persia, especially with the aid of Swedish members of the Government Gendarmerie who were pro-German. In the autumn of 1915 they seized control of Shiraz in co-operation with the German-trained provincial governor Mehdi-Qoli Mokhber'ol Saltaneh Hedayat. But at no point did Britain ever completely lose control of the situation in Persia from 1908 to 1955 (then it did fuck up).

Short of the Ottomans scaling the Caucasus mountains Baku was safe enough. The fact British troops could easily reach Baku (via a Caspian boatride) from Persia highlights why Britain fought hard to keep Persia out of Russian hands. The Ottomans couldn't even beat the Italians on flat and level ground in Libya in 1911. Not even the Germans in 1942 could reach Baku at the height of their powers. I think that's safe; Baku is pretty remote, between two seas and mountains to the south, the northern route is a long way from the western Russian border.

Railways? Like I said above, Berlin to Baghdad route was a threat, sure heading away from Baku but heading to other more important places. But as Lawrence of Arabia and the Resistance movements of WW2 proved, railways can be cut.

The Austro-Hungarian military was pretty much knocked out of the war by the Russian in 1916.
Didn't change anything.

The tens of thousands who died and who were maimed along the Isonzo and high in the peaks of the Dolomites during 1916-17 and along the Piave River into 1918 might disagree with you.

 

[marauder2048]

Preserve what? By 1900 the Ottoman Empire was decaying;

Maybe because previously the British had intervened (including sending fleets) to preserve it?
The stated British goal was the preservation of Ottoman territorial integrity; British actions
became entirely divorced from that goal.

Germany was just as provocative. That thing called 'Weltpolitik' got a lot of backs up.

Not a significant factor after 1906.

The Agadir Crisis of 1911 was hardly non-provocative. Britain roundly condemned Germany's actions and pressured her to not press France too greatly with territorial demands. A trival action blew up totally out of proportion.

Or the Germans facing a hostile military alliance decided to test it.

But out of that single action much of what we have discussed here came about; Britain and France agreed their naval spheres of action in war

The Anglo-French "secret" general staff talks and agreements and German awareness of it long predates this.

RN conversion to oil had started as early as 1901. The British were importing oil from vulnerable areas that they knew
they could not protect from a major overland power.

Bethmann-Hollweg did indeed want to end the naval race, to expand the Army against the Russian threat. Britain had more or less won its strategic aim.

It was ended in the 1912+ German Spending bills; Moltke finally got the expansion of the Army his predecessors wanted.
And so your naval thesis about the basis for the conflict should be in abeyance right?

The Haldane Mission offered to accept British naval superiority in exchange for British neutrality in a war in which Germany was not the aggressor. Britain rejected it as they had nothing to gain and Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey was anti-German.

Britain had secret agreements with the French and the Russians that couldn't be abandoned because especially the latter
was of greater importance to the security of the British Empire than an increasingly continental focused German Empire.

Germany may have abandoned the naval race but she had a million tons of capital ship tonnage, a battlefleet larger than France and Russia combined and one that was not that inferior materially to the Royal Navy when you consider that Britain could not rely on keeping all of her capital ships in Home Waters as she had global commitments (she could not just give up her naval forces in the Med despite the agreement with the French, as the Goeben chase showed). Unwittingly Britain had triggered off Germany's U-boat blockade tactics, something it was unprepared for at that time and probably would not have forseen at the time.

Russia had initiated a naval expansion plan as well. Same with the French. And the Japanese. And the Americans.
And the Italians and Austro-Hungarians IIRC.

Not clear all of those countries had interests that perfectly aligned with the British Empire.

And of course Germany suffered from hydrographically realities that meant that unless she had a huge fleet in being
globally with dry docks and secure naval bases (not a thing in the period or likely to happen anytime soon), she'd be chokepointed.

This idée fixe on naval matters is a total distraction since nobody thought that a general European conflict
was going to be decided at sea.

And its causative basis for the outbreak of WW1 is really weak.

And the U-boat tactics were only somewhat effective because domestic British agriculture and other industries had decayed.

Even if the Haldane Mission had been a success, it would have been hard for Britain not to have seen Germany as the aggressor in July 1914 or for her to stand by and let Belgium's neutrality be violated

None of the Anglo-French general staff discussions/agreements had Belgium as a central feature.
And nobody made the neutrality of Belgium out to be a big deal pre-war since the French especially wanted to
keep their options open in terms of maneuver. It was a pretext; as Haldane told Lichnowsky: the British were not going to let the Germans rollover France.

Britain had pre-war secret arrangements/agreements with the French (and by extension the Russians) for continental
intervention. There was no possibility of the French being idle in a Russo-German war or *-German war.

. Russia and Austria were the aggressors in July, the Kaiser had been stupid to let the Austrians think they had full support. But looking at the events its clear Germany and Britain were both dragged in, though 'dragged' is perhaps not the right term, 'willingly leaped at the push' is perhaps more fitting.

Pre-War General Staff discussions and planning between the German and Austrian militaries meant much more than
whatever the Kaiser said.

The British willingly signed both secret and non-secret agreements with Russia and
France pre-War that entailed continental commitments.

The British went in eyes open on the calculation that the Entente would either deter or win.
On paper, it seemed like a pretty sure bet.

As to the German provocations towards Britain's empire and India; Germany behind the Enver coup in Turkey, the Berlin-Baghdad Express route, good old Kaiser Bill pretending he was related to Mohammad himself in an attempt to rouse up a Holy War to launch an invasion of India. Oskar von Niedermayer smuggling German envoys and an Indian revolutionary through Persia to Kabul, trying to bring Afghanistan into the war against Britain. Perhaps even a greater threat as Russia had posed and they might have pulled it off with greater luck.

To bring any of the above to fruition required massive rail and military infrastructure.
Practically all of which was almost completely inchoate for the Germans through 1914.

And the Entente's perspective was that German military and economic power had rather peaked.

And completely irrelevant since Britain was incapable of protecting the oilfields while being dependent on them.
Same with the Persian oilfields. All were vulnerable to strong regional land powers.

As the Gallipoli campaign would show, rail mobility beats sea mobility.

And completely irrelevant because of those millions of Russian troops. The Russians were responsible for, and capable of, protecting their own country.

Which is why you made a big deal about British commercial ownership of oil fields?
If the British had been expelled the Americans would have come in with their own expertise.

Russia was a very desirable place for foreign direct investment in the period.

I will concede at one point Oskar von Niedermayer's plots did create problems in Persia, especially with the aid of Swedish members of the Government Gendarmerie who were pro-German. In the autumn of 1915 they seized control of Shiraz in co-operation with the German-trained provincial governor Mehdi-Qoli Mokhber'ol Saltaneh Hedayat. But at no point did Britain ever completely lose control of the situation in Persia from 1908 to 1955 (then it did fuck up).

There was a big Russian Army just north of Tabriz. It was well supplied and the area was a key focus of Russian expansion.
That was a substantially greater threat than anything the Germans could bring to bear for like a decade.

Buying the Russians off was clearly the British policy through this entire period because of a correct threat assessment.
The Germans would intrigue in the region but it was meaningless without power projection.

Yes, everyone knew that modern day Iraq contained huge oil reserves but German-British oil exploration
in that area was actually fairly collaborative rather than confrontational pre-WW1.

Again, it's not a convincing casus belli.

Short of the Ottomans scaling the Caucasus mountains Baku was safe enough. The fact British troops could easily reach Baku (via a Caspian boatride) from Persia highlights why Britain fought hard to keep Persia out of Russian hands.

The British willingly and wisely conceded a Russian sphere of influence in northern Iran.

The Austro-Hungarian military was pretty much knocked out of the war by the Russian in 1916.
Didn't change anything.

The tens of thousands who died and who were maimed along the Isonzo and high in the peaks of the Dolomites during 1916-17 and along the Piave River into 1918 might disagree with you.

A peripheral theatre of little importance. The war wasn't going to be decided there. Or in any secondary theatre.

 

[Hood]

Maybe because previously the British had intervened (including sending fleets) to preserve it?
The stated British goal was the preservation of Ottoman territorial integrity; British actions
became entirely divorced from that goal.

Britain also had an alliance with Japan from 1902, a nation who soundly defeated Russia. Britain had built many of the battleships that destroyed the Russian Fleet and continued to build capital ships and sell naval designs to Japan for another two decades. Britain was still arming the Ottomans, the acquisition of British dreadnoughts, cruisers and submarines directly drove Russia's naval expansion in the Black Sea. Which rather belies the claim that Britain was completely pally with Russia and always acting to keep Russia happy.

Not a significant factor after 1906.

Or the Germans facing a hostile military alliance decided to test it.

Not true. The two Morocco crises were engineered out of Weltpolitik, the desire to get her rightly place in the sunny places. It gained the rather useless Neukamerun in 1911 as a result of the 2nd Crisis, but they had demanded all of the French Congo.
The Pan-German League by 1906 was morphing into biological racism, the myth of the German "superior race" and in 1912 calling for the Kaiser to expand eastwards and expel the Poles living in Prussia. Drang nach Osten was reborn in the 1890s and kept alive into the war by organisers such as the Pan-German League. They had political influence and, fitting for this bunch, pressed for unrestricted submarine warfare during the war.

There is also the pragmatic fact that by 1911 there were no new territories left, the only means of expansion was by trying to bully swaps and concessions. Germany was testing how far it could bully some territory and found it couldn't. Just as France and Britain coveted former Ottoman lands, the German support of Enver Pascha and the Ottoman Empire around 1913 was about more than just selling goods and building a railway to Baghdad - Germany dreamed of turning Turkey into effectively a Middle Eastern colony of its own.
So that's France, Russia, Poland (temporarily defunct), Turkey, possibly India at threat too. That's a long list of threats, perhaps not surprising Germany's potential targets thought about clubbing together.

Don't be kidded that Weltpolitik was dead, it was still being pursued.

The Anglo-French "secret" general staff talks and agreements and German awareness of it long predates this.

So? Britain in 1902 had one ally, Japan. She had talked to both Germany and France during 1881-1901 so both had equal chance to woo Britain. The French wanted to ally with Russia but in 1904-05 she looked not up to the task. So Britain and France drew closer and tied up some colonial matters to boot.
Buddying up with France and Russia solved the niggling colonial problems that needed tidying up sensibly without any more Fashodas or Agadirs, the Triple Alliance had no such geopolitical advantages and there was as much hope of Britain constraining the Kaiser and his Junker buddies from their grand plans for sunny climes or Slav-cleansed homelands as Chamberlain had of constraining Hitler from his rather similar dreams of Slav-cleansed homelands.

It was ended in the 1912+ German Spending bills; Moltke finally got the expansion of the Army his predecessors wanted.
And so your naval thesis about the basis for the conflict should be in abeyance right?

Yes and no. Germany kept its ending of the naval race secret, its switch to smaller warships and submarines around 1914 was not publicly acknowledged to avoid tipping off Britain so there was no immediate obvious break. Churchill wanted to postpone half of the battleships for the 1915 Programme in favour of more submarines and destroyers too, because it was evident they had won the race, but the British kept this quiet too for fear of revealing the switch to Germany and other nations.
So both sides acted as if the race was still on but both were sneakily taking a breather behind the bushes. There was no sense of a permanent halt, we don't know if there had been no war in 1914 what might have happened by 1916-18 when German military expansion on land would have been nearer completion.

Russia had initiated a naval expansion plan as well. Same with the French. And the Japanese. And the Americans.
And the Italians and Austro-Hungarians IIRC.

Not clear all of those countries had interests that perfectly aligned with the British Empire.

And of course Germany suffered from hydrographically realities that meant that unless she had a huge fleet in being
globally with dry docks and secure naval bases (not a thing in the period or likely to happen anytime soon), she'd be chokepointed.

This idée fixe on naval matters is a total distraction since nobody thought that a general European conflict
was going to be decided at sea.

And its causative basis for the outbreak of WW1 is really weak.

Russia's expansion was mixed, at least half of her efforts were focused on the Black Sea - as I have said, partly due to British sales to Turkey.
Austria-Hungary was not a naval power, her dreadnought expansion was modest and the Improved Tegetthoffs were never approved by the Hungarian government. They were laid down on a rather flimsy basis with little real capital behind them.
Italy was not a great naval power and lacked the industrial base to seriously threaten Britain or France in the Med.

None had the ability to directly challenge Britain with a million tons of modern battleships right on her doorstep like Germany could. Had France built 15 dreadnoughts by 1914 then likely Britain would have been more concerned on that front.

Agreed on Germany's location, an oceanic fleet was a canard both in the 1910s and the 1940s.
I don't say the naval race was a direct cause, but it was another German provocation on top of all the rest that didn't spell out "we want to be friends".

Even if the Haldane Mission had been a success, it would have been hard for Britain not to have seen Germany as the aggressor in July 1914 or for her to stand by and let Belgium's neutrality be violated

None of the Anglo-French general staff discussions/agreements had Belgium as a central feature.
And nobody made the neutrality of Belgium out to be a big deal pre-war since the French especially wanted to
keep their options open in terms of maneuver. It was a pretext; as Haldane told Lichnowsky: the British were not going to let the Germans rollover France.

Britain had pre-war secret arrangements/agreements with the French (and by extension the Russians) for continental
intervention. There was no possibility of the French being idle in a Russo-German war or *-German war.

. Russia and Austria were the aggressors in July, the Kaiser had been stupid to let the Austrians think they had full support. But looking at the events its clear Germany and Britain were both dragged in, though 'dragged' is perhaps not the right term, 'willingly leaped at the push' is perhaps more fitting.

Pre-War General Staff discussions and planning between the German and Austrian militaries meant much more than
whatever the Kaiser said.

The British willingly signed both secret and non-secret agreements with Russia and
France pre-War that entailed continental commitments.

The British went in eyes open on the calculation that the Entente would either deter or win.
On paper, it seemed like a pretty sure bet.

As to the German provocations towards Britain's empire and India; Germany behind the Enver coup in Turkey, the Berlin-Baghdad Express route, good old Kaiser Bill pretending he was related to Mohammad himself in an attempt to rouse up a Holy War to launch an invasion of India. Oskar von Niedermayer smuggling German envoys and an Indian revolutionary through Persia to Kabul, trying to bring Afghanistan into the war against Britain. Perhaps even a greater threat as Russia had posed and they might have pulled it off with greater luck.

To bring any of the above to fruition required massive rail and military infrastructure.
Practically all of which was almost completely inchoate for the Germans through 1914.

And the Entente's perspective was that German military and economic power had rather peaked.

Which is why you made a big deal about British commercial ownership of oil fields?
If the British had been expelled the Americans would have come in with their own expertise.

Russia was a very desirable place for foreign direct investment in the period.

I brought it up because you were claiming Britain was reliant on Russian oil, technically it was located in Russia but it was foreign companies doing the extracting and selling, among them Britain.

And the USA would have been as incapable of protecting those assets as you claim Britain was.

The Austro-Hungarian military was pretty much knocked out of the war by the Russian in 1916.
Didn't change anything.

A peripheral theatre of little importance. The war wasn't going to be decided there. Or in any secondary theatre.

The tens of thousands who died and who were maimed might disagree with you, so would the Italian government with its dreams of territorial expansion against Austria. With friends like that in the Triple Alliance its a good job Britain steered clear.

 

[marauder2048]

Britain also had an alliance with Japan from 1902, a nation who soundly defeated Russia. Britain had built many of the battleships that destroyed the Russian Fleet and continued to build capital ships and sell naval designs to Japan for another two decades. Britain was still arming the Ottomans, the acquisition of British dreadnoughts, cruisers and submarines directly drove Russia's naval expansion in the Black Sea. Which rather belies the claim that Britain was completely pally with Russia and always acting to keep Russia happy.

And the Harvey-Krupp armor process was licensed via a British-based firm to all of the major navies of the world,
including the Germans until 1912!

So is that the British being pally with the Germans?

Who you sell your arms to is totally different than where you make or don't make military commitments.
Britain stopped making commitments to defend the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire.

And of course, conciliation with Japan was another British policy to buy off a regional threat to her Empire.

If the British hadn't sold arms to the Japanese someone else would have. Same with the Ottomans.
Same with the Russians.

There is also the pragmatic fact that by 1911 there were no new territories left,

You mean aside from China?

The Pan-German League by 1906 was morphing into biological racism, the myth of the German "superior race" and in 1912 calling for the Kaiser to expand eastwards and expel the Poles living in Prussia. Drang nach Osten was reborn in the 1890s and kept alive into the war by organisers such as the Pan-German League. They had political influence and, fitting for this bunch, pressed for unrestricted submarine warfare during the war.

None of this really translated into anything actionable. Certainly nothing beyond what the English were doing in Ireland and
the racial theories that undergirded most English and Western imperialism during the period.

The notion that the Kaiser was some asiatic potentate who really had tremendous influence is silly.
So calling on him was pointless since they couldn't convince the Reichstag to fund any of these policies.

Anymore than Schlieffen in his entire time as chief of staff could convince the Reichstag to expand the German army.

It's very hard to have these notions of massive expansionist policies if you don't fund an Army and later don't fund a
Navy capable of undertaking it.

Certainly the armies of the Central Powers as a whole were be completely outpaced by developments in
the Entente.

The Pan-German league had influence during the war but who cares..once the shooting starts
and the Anglo-French had been practically pushed out of Belgium but hadn't responded to the German
peace efforts it was all in for all of the combatants.

So? Britain in 1902 had one ally, Japan. She had talked to both Germany and France during 1881-1901 so both had equal chance to woo Britain.

Your claim was that crisis of 1911 was the watershed in Anglo French military cooperation. It wasn't.
Britain was not doing much wooing of either side during the Boer War which rather dominated British thinking in the period.

The big point is that the Anglo-French General Staff agreements were reached in "secret" while the British
were continuing to negotiate with the Germans openly.

The French wanted to ally with Russia but in 1904-05 she looked not up to the task. So Britain and France drew closer and tied up some colonial matters to boot.

Horrible History. The Russo-French alliance dated back to the 1890s with detailed military planning by the combined
staffs for a combined offensive against Germany by the k-th (25th I think) day of mobilization; French loans to Russia during the period were
contingent on them being in part spent on improving Russia's mobilization through rail and other infrastructure expansion.

Russo-French military planning continued through the period you indicated.
Pre-Russo Japanese war it's unclear where you find support for a French view that the Russians were not up to the task.
That certainly was not the German view and they had probably had as good if not better visibility into Russian military matters.

Buddying up with France and Russia solved the niggling colonial problems t

This is my major point: Britain could only buddy up with these powers by agreeing to take on
their common enemy: the German Empire.

That was the price of "buddying up."

I brought it up because you were claiming Britain was reliant on Russian oil, technically it was located in Russia but it was foreign companies doing the extracting and selling, among them Britain.

It was Britain that was doing the importing and was dependent on:

a. Russian oil fields that were military dominated by Russia land power
b. Persian oil fields that were military threatened by Russia land power

If British expertise disappeared only the British would have been hurt.

And the USA would have been as incapable of protecting those assets as you claim Britain was.

Where did I claim that the US would have been capable of protecting those assets?
I said if the British didn't provide the technical expertise the US would have.

And the US producing 70% of the world's oil in the 1910s would not have been
particularly bothered by the Russians nationalizing a source of oil on which US was:

a. not dependent
b. not interested in keeping out of anyone else's hands

That is in total contradistinction to the British position.

Not true. The two Morocco crises were engineered out of Weltpolitik

Sorry. It's abundantly clear from the documents that the Germans engineered those crises to test the military alliances
formed or forming against them. If territorial gains were to be result so much the better.

Yes and no. Germany kept its ending of the naval race secret,

A hilarious claim given that *contemporary* British and international observers were openly noting that
Britain had won. The German Naval Law of 1912 was not secret, certainly not by the time
Haldane was negotiating with Tirpitz in 1912.

Churchill and others grossly and willfully misrepresented German naval plans and intentions
during this period to cabinet and parliament.

This of course was the same cabinet that was not informed of the "secret" Anglo-French agreements
until 1912 and the same parliament that wasn't informed until 1914.

Agreed on Germany's location, an oceanic fleet was a canard both in the 1910s and the 1940s.
I don't say the naval race was a direct cause, but it was another German provocation on top of all the rest that didn't spell out "we want to be friends".

It's clear the Germans built a fleet to deter Britain from entering into a continental war against Germany.
This was in fact a contemporary view in the British government at least in certain quarters i.e. Haldane.

Are deterrents provocative especially given the huge hydrographic advantages Britain enjoyed over all naval
powers in Europe except maybe France?

The point about all of the naval expansion of the period is that the various naval powers
could exploit Britain's other commitments across the globe to achieve local superiority at various times and places.

Which of course is the implicit current here: the British Empire was over-extended and vulnerable to
a regional power.

Which in turn explains why the British variously sought to conciliate regional powers e.g. Japan, the US, Russia
that could threaten local superiority on land or at sea.

The tens of thousands who died and who were maimed might disagree with you, so would the Italian government with its dreams of territorial expansion against Austria. With friends like that in the Triple Alliance its a good job Britain steered clear.

There's nothing to suggest that the major combatants seriously thought that the war would be determined in secondary theaters.

A southern front as a backdoor to Germany was at best a British delusion stretched over two World Wars.

 

[Hood]

A southern front as a backdoor to Germany was at best a British delusion stretched over two World Wars.

Britain and France supported Italy and offered her what she wanted to hear to get her into the war. She was eager enough to get involved in 1915 to get a slice of land from her erstwhile ally.

Anyhow I think we have rather gotten far from the original point and there is no chance of us agreeing and many historians have gone over this period in fine detail and so many differing viewpoints have emerged. So we should just end this by saying that for the question posed in this thread, there was little realistic chance of Britain not following the path she did and that in hindsight that both sides had constructed rather unstable structures. A miscalculation by any one of the nations in each opposing bloc had the potential for huge consquences.

 

[1635yankee]

There was probably little love lost between Italy and Austria-Hungary, mostly thanks to quite a long history of the empire's occupation of major chunks of previously independent chunks of Italy for decades.

----
I don't think Britain could have prevented any kind of continental war in Europe in the early 20th Century, at least not without openly siding with Germany against everybody else. WWII is a different story. While I disagree with the idea that Versailles was some hideous travesty -- in many ways it was less punitive than both the Treaty of VIenna, ending the Napoleonic Wars, and not that much more punitive than the Treaty of Frankfurt, ending the Franco-Prussian War -- the Entente handled Germany badly after the German surrender. First, there should have been an occupation. Second, Kaiser Willy, Hindenburg, von Falkenhayn, Ludendorff, etc should have been in the reviewing stand saluting Entente troops march down the Kaiserstrasse. Third, when Germany started pushing against the treaty limitations, the British government should have backed up France, instead of playing ostrich.

 

[marauder2048]

A southern front as a backdoor to Germany was at best a British delusion stretched over two World Wars.

Britain and France supported Italy and offered her what she wanted to hear to get her into the war. She was eager enough to get involved in 1915 to get a slice of land from her erstwhile ally.

Anyhow I think we have rather gotten far from the original point and there is no chance of us agreeing and many historians have gone over this period in fine detail and so many differing viewpoints have emerged. So we should just end this by saying that for the question posed in this thread, there was little realistic chance of Britain not following the path she did and that in hindsight that both sides had constructed rather unstable structures. A miscalculation by any one of the nations in each opposing bloc had the potential for huge consquences.

I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that the British couldn't have been the peace broker amongst the two alliances
that had emerged had she wished to do so.

Russo-German tensions were hardly irreconcilable. With no Eastern ally, France's revanchism would have cooled
and in time she would have accepted the territorial losses of 1874 the same way as 1812.

And if the British had maintained their policy of ensuring the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire there
would have been no Balkan Wars and no Balkan powder keg.

Britain was uniquely placed to prevent a general European war but her voluntary, positive political objectives
e.g. appeasement of the Russian threat, fighting a German economic rival etc compelled different behavior.

 

[Pioneer]

When I read about American banking and industrialist support given to Germany Post-WW1 till 1941, and only because the Rosovelt Administration applied pressure and legislation to stop such support, after Hitler declared war against the United States.
This really makes me question as to how much the United States business/bankers/industrialist contributed to Germany's war effort against its so-called allies.....

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Justo Miranda]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

This article is about the book. For the historical background, see IBM during World War II.

IBM and the Holocaust ​
Paperback edition cover​
Author​	Edwin Black
Original title​	IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation
Country​	United States
Language​	English
Genre​	Non-fiction
Publisher​	Crown Books
Publication date​	2001, 2002, and 2012 (expanded edition)
OCLC​	49419235

IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation is a book by investigative journalist Edwin Black which details the business dealings of the American-based multinational corporation International Business Machines (IBM) and its German and other European subsidiaries with the government of Adolf Hitler during the 1930s and the years of World War II. In the book, published in 2001, Black outlined the way in which IBM's technology helped facilitate Nazi genocide through generation and tabulation of punch cards based upon national census data.[

 

[uk 75]

Reading some of the threads above one could get the impression that the writers believe the world would be a happier place if Germany had prevailed in 1918 and 1945 and that it had been Britain and its hideous Empire that had been judged in the Palace of Versailles or at Nuremberg.
I never thought I would understand the feelings of Cameron, May and Johnson at being given the same treatment, but you have succeeded in changing my mind.
Roger Casement would be delighted to read your words.

 

[1635yankee]

Reading some of the threads above one could get the impression that the writers believe the world would be a happier place if Germany had prevailed in 1918 and 1945 and that it had been Britain and its hideous Empire that had been judged in the Palace of Versailles or at Nuremberg.
I never thought I would understand the feelings of Cameron, May and Johnson at being given the same treatment, but you have succeeded in changing my mind.
Roger Casement would be delighted to read your words.

I tend to agree. I think that there are a lot of people here whose seem to be extremely anglophobic. While the UK was not run by particularly "nice" people, their continental alliances were, ultimately, defensive. That Germany, a country with a militarily aggressive foreign policy on the continent since the 1860s, was feeling "pressured" by worried neighbors is completely their fault. The Entente Cordiale was, in essence, no more aggressive than NATO, and Germany was seen as no less threatening to its neighbors than the USSR. Perhaps 1914 France wanted to take back its conquered territories, but France did not initiate military action and it did not invade a neutral country. That was Germany. Feeling "pressured" and "hemmed in" does not justify military action.

 

[zen]

While the UK was not run by particularly "nice" people

Compared to who?

Uk75
exactly which Empire was less hideous than the British?

 

[1635yankee]

While the UK was not run by particularly "nice" people

Compared to who?

Compared to whom? I don't think there was any country actually run by people who could reasonably described as entirely "nice," although compared to the various autocratic and quasi-autocratic countries in Europe, the bar for "nice" was pretty low.

 

[uk 75]

While the UK was not run by particularly "nice" people

Compared to who?

Uk75
exactly which Empire was less hideous than the British?

I was reflecting the attitudes to it of the posters not making my own comment.
In the same way I am not defending UK Prime Ministers but understand how it must feel to be lectured to by European neighbours who now forget 1815, 1918, 1945 and 1989 and the side Britain was on.

 

[Antonio]

This is a very interesting thread to me. The contents of the last post raise some key questions.
For a moment I'm tempted to share my own thoughts and learn from the answers of everyone, in an international forum like this one.

However, remember the forum's subject is unbuilt projects and the nature topic considered here usually starts with a constructive objectivity. Although sooner or later, subjectivity finds its way.

Before ending in personal (or collective) disqualification, please end the thread.

Additional readings:

What If?: The World's Foremost Historians Imagine What …

Historians and inquisitive laymen alike love to ponder …

www.goodreads.com

"Ruler of the World" Pg 201
"The World War That Should Never Have Been" Pg 261

 

[zen]

So I think the very basic of this thread is obviously going to dive deeply away from specific projects, requirements or the politics of industry etc....and straight into the 'national' (loose term here) and international politics and relations.
Inevitably then it sets us towards the matter of underlying principles, characters of various 'states'.
About as political and far from where we should stay as it's possible to go.

 

[uk 75]

So I think the very basic of this thread is obviously going to dive deeply away from specific projects, requirements or the politics of industry etc....and straight into the 'national' (loose term here) and international politics and relations.
Inevitably then it sets us towards the matter of underlying principles, characters of various 'states'.
About as political and far from where we should stay as it's possible to go.

Zen I acknowledge that my initial question was too open. I had hoped (naively) that people would address questions like
Could Britain have resourced its commitments differently?
We used Belgium (1914) and Poland (1939) as grounds for going to war but had no realistic hope of defending either.
Yet critics have argued that we should have gone to war in other cases, notably the Rhineland (1936) and Sudetenland (1938) not to mention Manchuria (1931).
Today we are commited as part of NATO to defending the Baltic States, which one US politician described as the suburbs of St Petersburg.
I would argue that military planning is very much a part of Secret Projects. No East of Suez no F111K or CVA01.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Empires...a hundred thousand battles for nothing!

 

[Hood]

Britain was busy resourcing its commitments, its peacetime commitments and what it thought it needed. The 1930s rearmament programme could never have exactly foreseen the combat of 1940-45 anymore than the Air Staff planners writing GOR.339 foresaw the Vietnam War or the MoD in 1980 foresaw the Falklands War.
You go to war with what you've got at hand.
I don't think any war has ever really been fought exactly when the protagonist was 100% militarily ready. Wars are begun by governments/monarchies or revolutionary movements rather than by the military heads and so the heat of the moment takes over. Military policy often takes second place to foreign policy. Even then military policy can be misleading; the dreadnought gap, the unstoppable city-crushing bomber, the jet bomber gap, the missile gap, the hidden WMD - all of which mattered very little in reality when the bad guys turned out to be someone different using a different set of weapons.