France invades Belgium in 1914; what does Britain do?

France invades Belgium; what does Britain do?

  • Declare war on France! Belgian neutrality is taken that seriously

    Votes: 39 12.3%
  • Impose sanctions. Belgian neutrality is important, but France can be trusted

    Votes: 68 21.4%
  • Nothing at all. "Poor little Belgium" was really only a convenient pretext for war with Germany IOTL

    Votes: 135 42.5%
  • N/A. Britain will have already joined the war against Germany.

    Votes: 15 4.7%
  • N/A. Belgium will grant French troops passage, if pressed politically.

    Votes: 61 19.2%

  • Total voters
    318
Parliament had no authority in the question of declaring of war, would never have refused to fund a war just declared, and would not have held a non-confidence vote in the first year of a war. Parliament had only the foggiest of notions as to what was going on and would have backed its PM and king in virtually any conceivable scenario.

If that were true, why bother with Grey's speech to the Commons on August 3? Why bother trying to persuade anyone if they'll just go meekly along in appropriating for any war you feel like declaring?

We all know why: No Prime Minister of that period is going to go to war, even with royal backing, unless he feels reasonably confident that he has a reasonable base of support in parliament (and hopefully his party).

If France is in no danger of being crushed - if Germany is taking a more docile public profile - you simply cannot say that Asquith's job doesn't get more difficult. Perhaps he *could* just form a coalition with Tories (a prospect he dreaded, by the way) and ram it through anyway. But public enthusiasm to beat the dreaded Hun in such a circumstance is going to be harder to fire up.
 
Wait, wait, stop...
you posit that the much toted parliamentary controll could simply be nixed, at least that is how I get your statements Glenn, and at the same time the Germans are clobbered that just that happened?

Sorry but the nebolous "friendship" with France was not that firm Imo. And you still just posit Britain would go to war because... reasons... the Hun... German domination...
But again why would Germany declare war in the wast? What thretening move did they make? How would you motivate the British/Empire to fight a continental war?

And no I do not think the notions of Grey and Churchill would carry that much wight in this case. Because as others have stated, the Germans were trieing to foster better relations with Britain beforehand and Russia was rising again. And again threatening the Empire in the Great Game.

So what are the reasons that the Germans, that are "only helping their ally" (the same you made acceptable for France by the way) are the boogy man of the Emprie.
 
So what are the reasons that the Germans, that are "only helping their ally" (the same you made acceptable for France by the way) are the boogy man of the Emprie.

That they were considered as such by the British since at least 1905? That the entire Foreign office thought so and had documents and papers written to this point? That the British were able to come to terms with two of their greatest rivals in order to confront this threat? That they were considering Willy a Napoleon wanna be? Those reasons are enough? Without even having Germany declare war on anyone on what was perceived as the flimsiest ever pretext. And BTW general mobilization back then was akin to going to DEFCON I, opening silo doors, dispersing strategic bombers, the President dissapearing to undisclosed location and Emergency broadcast system activated.
 
That Imo was in the midst of the Naval Race. So I take it with a grain of salt. Afaik after the Germans switched focus / ended the race, the relations slowly got back up.
And Germany tried to get a grip on what Britian wanted to keep them neutral.

Oh, and the mobilisation argument goes both ways! The Russians had the "Time preperatory to war" (?) with Imo is akin to a secret mobilisation. So what should the Germans do? Wait until the Russians are ready?
 

Perkeo

Banned
It[Russia]'s a stagnant bully state with weak neighbors. Just because you can beat up isolated Ukraine does not mean you're a "force to be reckoned with." To claim such a thing just feeds Putin's ego and delusions. Russia is only to be taken seriously because of its nukes. Otherwise it's a poor, stagnant state with short lifespans and a shrinking population, and a resource based export economy.

I beg to disagree, for several reasons:
1) The weak neighbors part is also true in any realistic CP victory scenario.
2) Russia being able to do fine without imperialism may feed Putin's ego, but not his delusions. In contrary, his delusions are fed by the claim that Russia does need imperialism to do well. Russia has immense natural and human ressources, so frankly the only shortage that I can see is a system of governmet that supports the Russian people.
3) Either way, the truth or untruth of a claim does not depend on whether or not we want it to be true, or whose ego or delusions it feeds.
 

Perkeo

Banned
That [the British considering Germany the boogy man of the Emprie] Imo was in the midst of the Naval Race. So I take it with a grain of salt.
The naval race came convenient to rise more funding for the British navy. Germany never came close to parity let alone superiority with Britan. It just another German strategic/diplomatic suicide mission.

Afaik after the Germans switched focus / ended the race, the relations slowly got back up.
And Germany tried to get a grip on what Britain wanted to keep them neutral.
The German appeasement towards Britain came far too late and far to half heartedly. It is an unforgivable stupidity to antagonize Britain in the first place, and they should have done everything to fix it, however massive concessions would have been required. When you face a two front continental thread, you don't add another problem on the naval theatre.

Oh, and the mobilisation argument goes both ways!
IMO it does not even go both ways. Can you imagine America going to DEFCON I, opening silo doors, dispersing strategic bombers, the American President disappearing to undisclosed location, American Emergency broadcast system activated and the Warsaw pact not mobilizing against all of NATO ??? So why blame Germany for mobilizing against all of Entente? The timing of the mobilization was one of the few things that Germany didn't do wrong.

The Russians had the "Time preperatory to war" (?) with Imo is akin to a secret mobilisation. So what should the Germans do? Wait until the Russians are ready?
It would have been a good start to have any thought through answer to that question. Facing a crisis where Russia mobilizes upon some Balkan trouble and France claims to be peaceful seems to have caught the Germany on the wrong foot, even though such a scenario should have been all but unexpected.
 
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