Keeping Britian Out of WWI.

have great britain realize that the "balance of power" doesnt work good if one side has a significantly higher population than the other, at equal industrial and technological developement.

and if ww1 doesnt happen russia is bound to become the new boogeyman on the continent in 1917. :D
 
The UK will avoid a general European war only if it's been destroyed in a saturation rain of meteorites. Otherwise it has no choice but to join in with the other powers. Staying out of such a war means the winner *will* have far more power relative to the UK, perhaps enough to strangle the Empire, thus......
 
Britians was the most responsible for the war in the first place.

Their entire european policy was forcing Germany into a corner.

The UK's policy? Surely if such a policy existed it was that of France, what with the alliance with Russia and always talking about an alliance of simultaneous military offensives which Russia never really was enthusiastic about and for a damn good reason?

have great britain realize that the "balance of power" doesnt work good if one side has a significantly higher population than the other, at equal industrial and technological developement.

and if ww1 doesnt happen russia is bound to become the new boogeyman on the continent in 1917. :D

Except that the Franco-Russian Alliance had at best superior numbers to Germany on paper. And it's a leap of enormous proportions from what Russia is capable of in 1917 on paper to it being able to wage a major offensive war with one Great Power, let alone two. The WWI Russian Army has major structural defects that its WWII counterpart had much fewer of, without any of the savage and draconian means available to WWII Russia to fix them. Put that army against the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians and the result will be a clusterfuck for them.
 
Earlier POD to butterfly away Moroccan crises and other events where Wilhelmine Germany really managed to create a lasting image of a nation bent on hostile and clumsy foreign policy, thus really pushing Britain to Entente camp.

Following better diplomacy leading to detente with Britain and to a stop of naval arms race with her - followed by a larger army and a focus on Eastern front to better cooperate with A-H against the rising threat of Russian military modernization. Combine the result of neutral Belgium with worse and "better-timed" Home Rule Crisis that creates major civil disturbances in Ireland just when matters are getting out of hand. And there you have it, a scenario where Britain, as alarmed as she is, is reluctant to immediately join in to the fray.

Even in this scenario I see Britain, busy as she is with Ireland, creating a strong army, warning Germany to keep her fleet off from the Channel and later on starting to pressure both sides to status quo peace in Western Europe. Weakening her traditional rival, Russia, is one thing, but letting France fall without getting involved is extremely unlikely without a POD back in the days of Napoleon III.

edit: a previous topic about the matter https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=172753
 
Earlier POD to butterfly away Moroccan crises and other events where Wilhelmine Germany really managed to create a lasting image of a nation bent on hostile and clumsy foreign policy, thus really pushing Britain to Entente camp.

Following better diplomacy leading to detente with Britain and to a stop of naval arms race with her - followed by a larger army and a focus on Eastern front to better cooperate with A-H against the rising threat of Russian military modernization. Combine the result of neutral Belgium with worse and "better-timed" Home Rule Crisis that creates major civil disturbances in Ireland just when matters are getting out of hand. And there you have it, a scenario where Britain, as alarmed as she is, is reluctant to immediately join in to the fray.

Even in this scenario I see Britain, busy as she is with Ireland, creating a strong army, warning Germany to keep her fleet off from the Channel and later on starting to pressure both sides to status quo peace in Western Europe. Weakening her traditional rival, Russia, is one thing, but letting France fall without getting involved is extremely unlikely without a POD back in the days of Napoleon III.

Weakening Russia is also not letting Germany claim the boundaries they wanted in 1917. That's not weakening Russia, that's exchanging strongest in Europe Germany for potentially world-power Germany.
 
from the tone of your answer I've surmised you thought I somehow criticize or believe it is wrong for UK to get involved in European affairs. I just meant to say that British have always been involved in European affairs matter of factly. Britain as great power could not sit in the audience and allow any one power take over hegemony of Europe. They viewed as their interest and perhaps intentionally or not also served best interests of Europe.

IMHO, it was impossible for both France and UK to stay out of war. If Germans and Russians clashed and France stayed neutral, they would betray their Alliance. If France got involved, UK would betray the allance if they stayed neutral. There is simply no way to have European war in this period and that anyone stays out of it. As has been pointed out in the thread.
I believe sir we are in accord on this matter The whole reason Belgium came about was the fear on the part of HMG that the channel ports were 'A pistol pointed at Englands head' .After the fall of Napoleon they were going to make sure that no great power could use them without getting drawn into a large war.
The point has been made about the difference between intent and capability, and that, Belgium or no Belgium would have been the deciding factor once war was joined.
Belgium was convenient in that it enabled the UK to take the high moral ground but that was all it was.
Any hegonomic power in Europe, once established, has a greater economic /industrial power than the UK and can out perform the UK's ship building capability.Further the economic power of Europe if properly harnessed can distort the status quo, remember that London was at that time the worlds economic centre and earned money by being so. That too was under threat.
Possibly without Belgium the UK could have initialy resorted to an Blockade as was used in the early part of the Napoleonic wars and used its wealth to subsidise its allies, but just as in that war eventually UK and empire land forces would be used. Where they would be used,and in what circumstances is interesting ..possibly a naval covered diversionary landing in northern Europe in the event of French pleading?
 
I can think of a couple of ways of doing this, but both are cheats.

Firstly, the Dogger Bank incident leads to an Anglo-Russian war, which then becomes Anglo-French. I'm pretty sure that there's a TL along these lines already. Maybe Germany joins in later on the British side, and that puts Britain in a difficult position. Oh wait, this looks like WW1 anyway...

Secondly, Britain gets a much more serious rebellion in Ireland, which makes it commit large numbers of troops there, which in turn causes some social disturbances on the mainland. It also makes the US temporarily anti-British, to the extent that Britain is concerned about what might happen to its trade/assets/blockade strategy if a continental war breaks out.

Regards

R
 
And attack Serbia with the Austrians? Which brings in Russia ,which brings in France ,which brings in the UK.
WW1 is like a bar room brawl in a John Wayne western, once the first punch is thrown every one is drawn in ...even the piano player
Actually, if the Germans play defensively in the west Britain has only a rather limited number of reasons to get involved (the Belgian alliance, the OTL reason not being among them), and practically no reason to blockade Germany. Possibly Britain would help Belgium (and maybe even France) build up its defences in preparation for an eventual German offensive (once they've dealt with Russia), but I can't see them going whole hog over attacking Germany without a major provocation.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Actually, if the Germans play defensively in the west Britain has only a rather limited number of reasons to get involved (the Belgian alliance, the OTL reason not being among them), and practically no reason to blockade Germany. Possibly Britain would help Belgium (and maybe even France) build up its defences in preparation for an eventual German offensive (once they've dealt with Russia), but I can't see them going whole hog over attacking Germany without a major provocation.

The problem keeping the UK from going to war is two fold. First, the UK will oppose the Germans becoming the dominant power on the Continent and crushing France. Two, the UK is not going to allow the German High Seas Fleet into the English Channel, so the UK is not neutral. And Germany had a legitimate war need to defeat the French at sea. The provocation would have the the High Seas Fleet within sight of the English Coast and likely conducting amphibious operations. The Germans did a 24,000 man amphibious operation IOTL in Riga. How are the British going to feel about a couple hundred thousand German soldiers massed at German ports with 10,000 of infantry at sea in the English Channel combined with the High Seas Fleet providing cover?
 
Wilhelm II has a normal birth,grows up to be a happy well adjusted man with two normal arms who loves his mother.After his fathers death in 1891,(helped to stay alive with throat cancer by the British doctor Sir Morell Mackenzie) he becomes very British leaning.In 1896 an Anglo-German agreement is signed keeping the German navy at 35% of Royal Navy in exchange for help in finding new colonies.(No ideas on that front.)Germany is seen as help against Russian expansionism on one side and French Empire on the other.
 
The invasion of Beligum was not the main reason Britian at the time entered the war on the French side, nor was it even the Etenant Allience. It was the possibility of France being invaded like it was during the Franco-Prussian war in the previous century. But also Germany has no way to extend hegamony over France during this time period.

Therefore posters claiming Britian went to war because Britian can't let a European Hegamony form are completly baselesss.


While Britian has her position to protect, she would also know that Germany at the time would be unable to threaten that directly with a 'fall of France' and so joining the war wasn't met with the greatest of enthusiam. Indeed it was only the invasion of the Low Countries in out timeline that setttled the debate.


Remember as well France has no reason really to go to war with Russia against Germany..afterall it was the French who proposed the Allience, not the Russians. If anything it was the French spoiling for a war to reclaim her losses in the Franco-Prussian war that got France to stir up the Etentant to box in Germany, thus leading to the Triple Allience of the Central Powers.

Britian stands on the perifery of all of this, and poor Anglo-German relations because of the naval build up is what causes Britian to align more with French interests, rather than anything else.

Indeed the British entry is far from inevitable
 
Between the growing union and Irish troubles that the war tamped down, Britain could see some very serious domestic crises in late 1914.
 
The UK will avoid a general European war only if it's been destroyed in a saturation rain of meteorites. Otherwise it has no choice but to join in with the other powers. Staying out of such a war means the winner *will* have far more power relative to the UK, perhaps enough to strangle the Empire, thus......

This. Britain, and, specifically, Lloyd George, will do what they 'need' to do to drag the Empire into that horrid war, regardless of the absurdity of their official justification.
 
One arguably easy way: Frederick III doesn't contract throat cancer, and instead lives to something like his father's age.

There would be major butterflies for Germany's political system out of that. For one thing, no major German surface fleet.
 

Cook

Banned
I've read some convincing claims that it backed A-H specifically to draw Russia into a war, with the intention of carving large areas of lebensraum -- maybe even as much as they managed to get ceded under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in fact -- out of Russia.
Said claims are unfounded bullshit. The First World War occurred largely by accident because key players, including the Kaiser and the head of the German general staff, were on holidays during much of the thirteen days of desperate diplomatic communications that took place between the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia being delivered and the outbreak of war.
 

Cook

Banned
If Germany did not invade Belgium or Belgium let the German's though to France, would Britian declare war?
If not how long would it be before Britian does and why?
With unchanged circumstances in August 1914 apart from either Germany not entering Belgium, the British would still have gone to war in support of France; Bonar Law’s Conservatives would have joined those Liberals willing to back Asquith (Lloyd George, Churchill etc.) in a government of national unity.

If you are looking for something that would have distracted Britain from entering the war, have the Irish home rule issue explode in the first half of 1914, just as it was threatening to do so when the Great War broke out.
 
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