Germans viewed as agressive and militaristic race in anglosphere, why?

Wilhelm was like a bull in a china shop in the decade preceding the Great War. Then she invaded Belgium for no reason other than it would be faster to get to Paris.

World War 2 speaks for itself.
 
Prussia was viewed as a highly militant society and that became the nucleus of Germany so it hung over. Then you know, the two world wars didn't help scrub that image.

If anything look like the Anglo sphere is the violent one and are projecting on the Germany as the new guy

Indeed, but remember, Germany lost the wars ;)
 
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Tojo was an Army man.
True, but there were as many Navy officials in the Imperial General Headquarters as Army officials. And Nanshin-ron doctrine supported by the Imperial Japanese Navy, won out and became the empire's policy through the war.
 
True, but there were as many Navy officials in the Imperial General Headquarters as Army officials. And Nanshin-ron doctrine supported by the Imperial Japanese Navy, won out and became the empire's policy through the war.
Everything started in China in the lead up the conflict was run by the army, and the wave of assassinations that kept everyone in line was the army. And the whole reason they needed to defeat America was to get southern resources to fight the war in China... led by the army.

The army and navy had aligning goals for a time, but the army was the one running the show.
 
Prussia was viewed as a highly militant society and that became the nucleus of Germany so it hung over. Then you know, the two world wars didn't help scrub that image.



Indeed, but remember, Germany lost the wars ;)

They did but it took a while, it's also not really about whether they won or lost, but the fact that they took place at all and on the scale they did that goes to the stereotype I think. Which is a touch unfair on Germany as it not like there could never have been a C20th industrialised war on the scale of the world wars in europe and africa without them but there we are. I roll this up into what I posted yesterday about Germany doing what every other would be european power did but a couple of hundred or so years later*.

I think the Franco/Prussian war is also a big thing in establishing their stereotype as for many it like their debut. Now obviously looking back with hindsight at it with a eye to actual military strength and training and what have you it not that huge of surprise. But I think in general terms it still came as a bit of a surprise to Europe as a whole that Prussia beat France, France who'd been a major if not the major continental european power for a very long time.

I also think this coincides with the opposite commonly held but misconceived stereotype of France that started about here and gained strength during the first half the of C20th (which also kind ties into how we tend to relish the mighty falling when some of us had a history of beef with the once-mighty :))


*(EDIT) thinking more about starting/fighting wars for dominance not so much the final solution!
 
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GarethC

Donor
To some extent, it's also an accident of timing.

England/Britain and France had a national pastime of being at war with each other. From 1066-1815 the nations were either about to go to war or at war already, culminating in the Europe-wide conflagration of the Napoleonic conflicts.

And they finally stopped. The Metternich settlement held for half a century of relative international peace (albeit a time where there were also significant internal disruptions instead). Everything settled down and everyone could get on with the serious business of making a pile of money and oppressing the hell out of the natives.

And then Bismarck comes along and gets his jingo on. The post-Napoleonic truces thrown away as Prussia goes right back to a Bonapartesque serial warmongering. The cheek of it! There's pink gins and cognacs to be drunk and cricket and tennis whites to be worn, and this upstart Prussian thinks that just because Blucher ate breakfast not too far away from where a future Prime Minister and a former Emperor decided the fate of a continent that he's got some right to throw his weight around! What a barbarian he is must be.

From an Anglocentric viewpoint, as well, narratives about the beastliness of the Germans play into the tendency to draw parallels between the British and Roman Empires, where the "uncivilized" tribes on the far side of the Rhine were the barbarians who brought down the civilization that ruled the Mediterranean (cf Arminius/Hermann vs Publius Quintiliius Varus@Teutoburgerwald). If you are concentrating on Rome as a place with laws and lawyers, orators and a legislature, poets and authors (and ignoring the mob rule, street gangs, civil wars, proscriptions, etc) then the acts of the Teutones are a useful PR tool with which to beat the modern Germany.
 
True, but there were as many Navy officials in the Imperial General Headquarters as Army officials. And Nanshin-ron doctrine supported by the Imperial Japanese Navy, won out and became the empire's policy through the war.
The thing is the army really called the shots on a lot of things. They assassinated opponents of the military, both in uniform and civilian, their lax discipline started the war with China, etc.

The Navy jockeyed for position of course, and sometimes got it’s way, but the army was largely running the show.
 
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