To France: You must appease the mighty German overlords to avoid war.
To Germany: You should start wars as soon as possible.
Classical double standards by this forum's German simpers.
Resolved, the 2nd German Empire’s actual mistake is the opposite of what you’ve been told
- Thread starter raharris1973
- Start date
To Germany: You should start wars as soon as possible.
Classical double standards by this forum's German simpers.
kham_coc
Banned
No, that's not accurate. France only needs to not start the war to avoid it. Its revanchism drove the whole mess in the first place.
Germany needs to get out of the box France put it in. Which is easiest done early, before the UK joins in, or later, hoping that the UK gets out if it.
If you use that logic，then I could say that it was the German invasion and annexation of Alsace-Lorraine that drove "the whole mess".
Any way，in the end it turned out that it was your dear Germans who lost major territories，so probably I should just tolerate the losers' simpers complaining.
kham_coc
Banned
Well yes and no, France actually started said war, it did so in the belief it was still the top dog in Europe - It wasn't.
Then it spent many many decades trying to rectify that, and didn't give up on that until 1940.
I think maybe you should read the thread title - Germany made many mistakes in the pre-war period, France, certainly made some, but there is a reason the the title of the thread is as is.
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
- Any time there was an opportunity to have a war where either Britain or Russia could be an ally. So 1878, or if any later tense periods went over the brink (Pendjeh incident (1888), Siam Crisis (1893), Fashoda incident (1898), Boer War (1899-1902), Post-Boxer Rebellion Manchurian tension (1900-1902) , Dogger Bank incident tension (1904-1905)).
- The desired minimum ally would be either Britain or Russia. On balance, Britain is the better ally to have, but as long as either one is OK as an ally. As long as either Britain or Russia is an ally, even if the other one is made an enemy, Germany quite literally *cannot lose*. It can pay some costs in blood and treasure, but nothing like those of OTL’s world wars, and nothing like the territorial cessions and international disabilities imposed by those wars. On top of Britain and Russia, whatever additional allies it can get. With its economic strength and naval power, Britain is especially good at attracting small and distant powers. But Russia isn’t bad at attracting other small player who want a piece of Habsburg or Ottoman pie.
Exactly, and Germany should have leapt at any opportunity to accept such an alliance, de jure or de facto, through peace or war, no matter how uneven or lopsided the terms.
Instead Germany worried too much about specific terms of a British deal and inappropriately analogized to their 7 Years War experience, instead of leaving that or putting that in the memory hole where it belonged.
Others have pointed to specific military technology reasons why it might have been too dangerous for Germany to take Britain’s side against France-Russia around the turn of the century, based on French Wunderwaffen decisive in a short-war rather than the comparative industrial factors decisive in a long war. If so, the Germans also erred by ever letting their ground forces ever fall behind as much as they did technologically and numerically.
Perhaps Imperial Germany could expand into Dutch colonial territory or support the UK against the Afrikaner Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Two possibilities for colonial reordering.
Almost all of these are colonial issues, and it is hard to see a decisive trial of power in Europe arising from colonial issues. That would be the tail wagging the dog on an epic scale. A conflict at any of those times, with UK or Russia in alliance with Germany, probably would not have settled the major issues of European security. A short war in (say) the 1890s, resembling the wars of the mid-Victorian period (i.e. the several wars in 1853-78), would have ended with more diplomatic fudge, and not prevented a much bigger war breaking out later.
I suspect the underlying, structuring factor was the tragic, radical insecurity of Germany. Germany was exposed to multiple potential enemies, as its history had showed - for most of the period 1600-1850 or thereabouts, the German territories had been the playground of other powers, and this had left Germans in general (both policy makers and the general public) with a deep cultural sense of insecurity - even though the achievement of unity had in fact removed the chief factor driving that insecurity. As per the Heim quote, Germany lacked the political art to manage that situation (though the other European powers also had their own failings in this respect), I suspect precisely because of her troubled history. Choosing a more favourable diplomatic constellation as an opportunity to go to war would not have helped with that underlying tragedy.
By which you mean France declared war on Germany/AH on the 1st Aug and then mobilised and invaded Belgium and the Netherlands, a day or two after German troops were pulled back from the French border in a bid to de-escalate, I presume?
FWIW I agree with your general point about France trying to cling to great power status in the first half* of the C20th though!
*Ok maybe 1950's to get Suez and Indochina in there too!
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
The trouble is, this requires competent diplomacy on the part of Wilhelm Germany, and that's a tautology. If the Germans from the end of the Bismarkian era to the invasion of Belgium had competent diplomacy, it changes things so dramatically as to make it unrecognisable.
whoops, sorry!
Fair enough I got the wrong invasion of A-L!
edit actually given that came off
I'm not actually that sorry! "French revanchism drove the whole mess" my eye, just refer my post to that instead.
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I know this will spark some controversy, but the whole "To protect Belgium" thing is bullsh*t from the british.
Look at the stance of the political parties:
The conservatives were for war with Germany - Belgium or no Belgium.
The majority of the liberals were for neutrality and a minority of them for war against Germany regardless Belgium.
Labour was also for neutrality.
The idea that the british go to war to protect Belgium from Germany was to sell the war to the people and to liberals favouring neutrality.
But if we change the course and have the french go through Belgium there would not have been a british war against France. The idea of the UK being obliged to go to war to protect Belgium from France if the need arose was practically non existent in London's political circles before the war.It would have been a huge boost for those favouring neutrality in the UK so it was to be avoided - but there was no danger of any political party decididng to support a "go to war with France" if France attacked through Belgium. Belgium and its neutrality was only to be protected if it was from Germany and that makes the whole hipocricy of the UK evident. Not completely, but Belgium was less of the cause and more of the excuse of british entry to the war.
Look at the stance of the political parties:
The conservatives were for war with Germany - Belgium or no Belgium.
The majority of the liberals were for neutrality and a minority of them for war against Germany regardless Belgium.
Labour was also for neutrality.
The idea that the british go to war to protect Belgium from Germany was to sell the war to the people and to liberals favouring neutrality.
But if we change the course and have the french go through Belgium there would not have been a british war against France. The idea of the UK being obliged to go to war to protect Belgium from France if the need arose was practically non existent in London's political circles before the war.It would have been a huge boost for those favouring neutrality in the UK so it was to be avoided - but there was no danger of any political party decididng to support a "go to war with France" if France attacked through Belgium. Belgium and its neutrality was only to be protected if it was from Germany and that makes the whole hipocricy of the UK evident. Not completely, but Belgium was less of the cause and more of the excuse of british entry to the war.
As others have said: Which war exactly should the Germans have hopped on?
It is true that maintaining friendly relations with either Britain or Russia would have been a wiser choice, and that includes turning a blind eye to when your ally does dirty stuff somewhere else in the world (as you yourself are doing, too). But that doesn't mean joining a war. Bismarck was wrong in so many ways, but he was certainly right when he said that Germany was "saturated". It stood nothing to gain. It needed access to world markets, but that was not something that they could have gotten by joining any of the wars that the British or the Russians were inclined to participate in.
It is true that maintaining friendly relations with either Britain or Russia would have been a wiser choice, and that includes turning a blind eye to when your ally does dirty stuff somewhere else in the world (as you yourself are doing, too). But that doesn't mean joining a war. Bismarck was wrong in so many ways, but he was certainly right when he said that Germany was "saturated". It stood nothing to gain. It needed access to world markets, but that was not something that they could have gotten by joining any of the wars that the British or the Russians were inclined to participate in.
kham_coc
Banned
With hindsight, it should have risked war with Russia over Manchuria, and the point would not have been to gain anything, it would have been to tie the UK to itself, or, in the case it devolved into war, decisively cripple Russia.
1871-1914 French policy was designed to get into war with Germany. It created the box, put pressure on it, and then gladly plunged into it.
Got any proof of that rather large claim? Now being adverse to and prepared for war if it was forced on them is not the same as forcing war
It created the box, what you mean
France made Germany give AH a blank cheque In July?
France made AH Ignore the Serb response to their ultimatum?
France made Germany back AH's declaration of war even though a few days earlier Germany themselves were advising* AH to accept the Serb response?
France made both Germany and AH ignore any suggestions for talks
France made Germany invade Belgium?
*although the fact that several high ups in both Germany and AH were really the architects of this and had to often gainsay and obstruct others within their governments to get their war does complicate this!
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OTOH, w/o the invasion of Belgium there would have been far less *need* to enter the war.
The Franco-German border was too heavily fortified for there to be any decisive result there, and it wouldn't harm Britain if Mulhouse or Longwy were to change hands.
A threat to the *independence* of France would be a different matter, but nothing on the German border was likely to do that.
I agree that A-L was not much of a motivating factor for the entire French nation in the years preceding 1914 - most of the French probably didn't care anymore... but there were prominent politicians and high-ranking officers who did, and they were the ones that really mattered.
But...
Germany wasn't the only one giving out "blank cheques"... Poincare certainly gave one to Russia.
Given the Serbian response, A-H was likely to reject it anyway, and were of course inclined to anyway since they didn't expect the Serbs to accept it in full. Wilhelm, for his part, read the Serbian response and thought "oh good, they've accepted everything, the matter is resolved..." He couldn't have possibly read the response too closely.
Don't forget that Russian Ambassador Hartwig, strongly pan-Slav and strongly anti-Austrian, was "advising" the Serbs (or perhaps "meddling in Serbian affairs" would be more accurate), and handing out blank cheques as well.
It's not difficult to understand the Austrian and German reticence on taking the matter to mediation - they knew how that would turn out.
Belgium? Yes, west-first was a mistake on the Germans' part - Wilhelm should've taken a hard line with von Moltke et al... but there was also Sir Edward who, unable to truly explain what the UK Govt's position would be in a war between Germany and France (because he himself had no guarantee what Cabinet would decide), conveyed the impression that the UK would intervene regardless of whether or not Belgian neutrality was breached...
(to the * footnote, yeah... the falsification of and withholding of communiques [looking at you, Bethmann-Hollweg] was particularly inexcusable)