Well, I've got another uni project coming round, and AH can be helpful. Has anyone got any good book suggestions for the extent to which the Anglo-German antagonism in WWI was inevitable?
Historiography-was Anglo-German antagonism inevitable?
- Thread starter Awilla the Hun
- Start date
What time are you thinking of as the POD. After the Napoleonic Wars, Britain is the veritable superpower in the world, and a superpower is going to be antagonized at any rising power that looks like it will challenge their hegemony.
Like France? It can be easy to continue the rivalry between France and Britain, and get Prussia allied with Britain to get Alsace-Lorraine (Prussia) and Algeria/Corsica (Britain). In fact, without Edward VII, we wouldnt have an Entente Cordiale.
(Or I could be massively wrong and ignorant of history.)
The problem is that with a unified Germany, the chances of France becoming a continent-dominating threat to Britain shrink considerably. It is possible to see Britain remaining allies with minor German states like Prussia to counter-weight France but not a unified Germany, a victorious war would leave them too powerful.
One thing I could see that would of put a strain on there relationship.
Navy
Germany in the highlight of the Great War may of still been dwarfed by the steel sea monster that was the British Navy, but they where ahead of any other nation's navy and probably second I think behind the British in numbers of ships. The British have dominated the oceans for years prior to unified Germany. If some nation like Germany was going to upset that domination there was going to be problems.
Of course we can all blame Kaiser Willy II on that...or could it of been inevitable too? Really I think the British where overreacting with the naval arms race and actually pushed the Germans to build ships more and faster because of the hasty type of competition.
Navy
Germany in the highlight of the Great War may of still been dwarfed by the steel sea monster that was the British Navy, but they where ahead of any other nation's navy and probably second I think behind the British in numbers of ships. The British have dominated the oceans for years prior to unified Germany. If some nation like Germany was going to upset that domination there was going to be problems.
Of course we can all blame Kaiser Willy II on that...or could it of been inevitable too? Really I think the British where overreacting with the naval arms race and actually pushed the Germans to build ships more and faster because of the hasty type of competition.
TL: OTL, for a university project.
On a similar note-anyone know any good books involving German War Guilt for WWI, or lack thereof? I've looked at Fischer on one end, The Pity of War on the other, a few essays blaming A-H, and of course multiple titanic arguments on this website (which, sadly, I don't think count as evidence. I suppose I could stage another one and see what comes out, but people don't often actually provide sources there.)
On a similar note-anyone know any good books involving German War Guilt for WWI, or lack thereof? I've looked at Fischer on one end, The Pity of War on the other, a few essays blaming A-H, and of course multiple titanic arguments on this website (which, sadly, I don't think count as evidence. I suppose I could stage another one and see what comes out, but people don't often actually provide sources there.)
You could always ask people to this time, as long as just one person references a work you didn't know, you come out ahead.