This challenge is inspired by a quote from a book by AJP Taylor, "From Sarajevo to Potsdam".
Here's the quote, the get things started:
I found this an intriguing statement, but I've never seen a detailed treatment of who in the west was advocating entente and disentanglement from eastern empires. Taylor didn't cite any other sources to back up his assertion. Elsewhere, in Norman Rich, I saw something about the Portuguese colonial partition plan, but Rich just treats it as a non-starter where the British were hoodwinking the Germans w/ misleading hints they might accept German expansion into Poprtuguese area while they were in fact intending to subsidize Portuguese sovereignty perpetually. I'd be interested in any reading recommendations that support Taylor's concept of a loosening of the alliance system in the 1914 timeframe.
In any case, on to the challenge: With a POD between 1900 and 1914, arrange for rapprochement between Britain, France and Germany on the one hand, keeping the three of them out of war with each other until at least 1935, alongside of their dropping of strategic commitments to the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires.
Aside from the challenge, another quote from Taylor and a comment on it:
It seems to me that Taylor is correct in that Germany's declaration of war on Russia and demands to Britain and France were examples of bullying of great powers. However, the Russian mobilization against Austria-Hungary, even if done for the sake of Serbia, was an even earlier example of great power on great power bullying. In fact we could even say that Russia, in backing Serbia, made a resolve to treat Austria-Hungary as a minor power instead of a great power, without a clear idea that is what they were doing and what they were risking.
Here's the quote, the get things started:
THERE HAD been no war between European Great Powers since 1871, though there had been many alarms. Peace had been maintained by accident or by the working of some unseen natural law.... Armaments were fondly regarded as a 'deterrent', and men said confidently: 'If you want peace, prepare for war.' Was there some change of spirit in I9I4 which made this confidence less justified. Some historians say so. They assert that tension between the Great Powers was mounting and that each conflict was more difficult to settle by compromise. There is a good deal to be said on the other side, and maybe the tensions of I9I4 seem greater only because they ended in war. Some of the Great Powers were on rather better terms than they had been a few years before. In particular, the three most advanced powers - France, Germany, and Great Britain - showed signs of drawing together at the expense of the two east European empires, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Both France and Great Britain had agreed to co-operate with Germany over the Baghdad railway. Great Britain and Germany contemplated a partition of the Portuguese colonies. Some highly placed Germans wanted to jettison their alliance with Austria-Hungary, while French politicians of the Left were equally cool towards Russia.
I found this an intriguing statement, but I've never seen a detailed treatment of who in the west was advocating entente and disentanglement from eastern empires. Taylor didn't cite any other sources to back up his assertion. Elsewhere, in Norman Rich, I saw something about the Portuguese colonial partition plan, but Rich just treats it as a non-starter where the British were hoodwinking the Germans w/ misleading hints they might accept German expansion into Poprtuguese area while they were in fact intending to subsidize Portuguese sovereignty perpetually. I'd be interested in any reading recommendations that support Taylor's concept of a loosening of the alliance system in the 1914 timeframe.
In any case, on to the challenge: With a POD between 1900 and 1914, arrange for rapprochement between Britain, France and Germany on the one hand, keeping the three of them out of war with each other until at least 1935, alongside of their dropping of strategic commitments to the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires.
Aside from the challenge, another quote from Taylor and a comment on it:
However, war did not come in 1914 from the welling up of deep, uncontrollable forces. It occurred as the result of premeditated and, in a sense, rational acts. The statesmen decided, and the peoples applauded. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo by South Slav nationalists on 28 June was an occasion, not a cause, and it would have been recognised at once as an operation in Serb politics if it had not become entangled with the European war. Nor was there anything outrageously exceptional in the Austro Hungarian demands on Serbia. It was an accepted convention of the time that great powers bullied small ones. The new factor was the resolve of Germany's rulers to bully great powers also. Kaiser William II and Bethmann Hollweg, his Chancellor, seem at first to have made this resolve without a clear idea of what they were doing. Later they stuck to it in helpless obstinacy.
It seems to me that Taylor is correct in that Germany's declaration of war on Russia and demands to Britain and France were examples of bullying of great powers. However, the Russian mobilization against Austria-Hungary, even if done for the sake of Serbia, was an even earlier example of great power on great power bullying. In fact we could even say that Russia, in backing Serbia, made a resolve to treat Austria-Hungary as a minor power instead of a great power, without a clear idea that is what they were doing and what they were risking.