Probably not, but the list of countries that have fought unwise wars is sadly quite long.
What if Britain had stayed out of WW1?
- Thread starter nuggetsfan112
- Start date
Probably not, but the list of countries that have fought unwise wars is sadly quite long.
Woulnt even been that hard giting that to happen, there was aperintly a back bench rebellion in 1910 over grays foren policy nerely caused both asquith and gray to resine and have Lloyd George become the new prime minester. It failed do to the torys surprisingly supporting the government in a key vote, gust have the torys think the government will colapese if they don't support it then have Lloyd not completly shader the liberals so as to keep the government in power.
BooNZ
Banned
Who do you consider the British Establishment? OTL Grey represented 50% of the total British Cabinet members prepared to go to war without a German invasion of Belgium. Churchill representing the other 50% of the Cabinet members in favour of war, was in shadow discussions with the Conservatives fearing a scenario where the British Cabinet would remain neutral even after a significant violation of Belgium neutrality.
The British hawks (the aforementioned Grey and Churchill) had premised their position on a German invasion of Belgium, the absence of which would result in them being discredited. Belgium was a pretext for the hawks, but they only represented a small minority of the British Liberal Cabinet. In contrast, Lloyd George who was a de facto leader of a block of 7 cabinet members on this matter (doves and non-interventionists) was already on record as stating the vital important of the channel ports to British national interests.
Why do people always insist on the personification of nation states - "Britain" does not have an opinion. While the British hawks did not have the power to drag Britain into the war, they did have the reigns of British diplomacy and naval policy. So the British hawks led Britain to the cusp of war, but could not have got them across the line without the Germans being in Belgium.
The 1839 treaty had served Belgium and British interests for over 70 years and Britain was not in a position to dictate domestic policies (i.e. military priorities and spending) to an independent Belgium. If Britain had seen the a genuine German threat on the continent, perhaps they could have at least had the framework for their own continental army?
I apologise for the lack of precision and accept the rebuke: in this context, I am really using establishment as a (potentially inaccurate) cover-all term for the Pro-war Liberals and the Conservatives. Recent reading has led me to believe that Grey and Churchill were adamant for war, backed up by Asquith and Haldane (Minister at the War Office) and possibly Reginald Mckenna (Home Sec.). Whilst they were outnumbered by Lloyd George et al. the hawks crucially held the major offices (in which I refer to the offices from which military and diplomatic information would be readily available, I am aware that Lloyd George was Chancellor of the Exchequer). Grey obviously was Foreign Sec., Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and Haldane was War Minister. The others in the cabinet were increasingly perturbed by the fact that they felt they did not have all the available information and that the hawks were trying to manoeuvre the cabinet towards naval action, from which they would later extrapolate using the BEF in France, under the guise of upholding Belgian neutrality.
"Britain" in this context was meant really to refer to successive British governments of the 19th and early 20th century seeing it as their interest to have Belgium both neutral and undisturbed, as a long-standing objective of the country's foreign policy, it is nothing more than broad shorthand. I will concede that I went too far with what Britain could have asked of Belgium in terms of Belgian domestic policy.
However, I will clarify, I hope, that not only is it somewhat obvious that the British government of the time did not consider, and that their actions belay the notion that Belgium's neutrality is what their concerns were genuinely about, instead they were using violation of said neutrality as a means to enter the war. I also wanted to convey that, if that British government or any successive government had really believed it to be important to preserve Belgian soil from foreign attack it could and perhaps would have pursued greater obligations from all of Belgium's neighbours in treaty obligations, probably long before that war ever took place.
As for the Treaty of 1839 being in British interests, I would have to disagree to an extent. Beyond the creation of the nation itself, particularly to ensure none of her neighbours could get access to her coastline (and Antwerp) from which they might threaten Britain, I cannot see how it contributed to, or was utilized by, any subsequent government in any way that I would describe as pertaining to British interests. Late-war versions of the September Program actually reference the complete annexation of Belgium and the militarisation of Antwerp as a direct threat to Britain after a German victory, something I highly doubt the German Establishment (Generals and Polity) would have considered before the war. In 1870, the Treaty of 1839 was useless, or at least Gladstone considered it as such, hence why he made his own arrangements with respect to the Franco-Prussian war and also why I feel the Germans were well within their right to refer to it as a 'scrap of paper' when they marched through in 1914. Grey couldn't even convince the cabinet that it obliged Britain to get involved in 1914.
As for the framework for a continental army, I am headed back to Niall Ferguson's point on this: that Britain's alternative, viable option other than neutrality was spending a large amount of resources before going into war preparing a large army and appropriate tactics for such a conflict, whether that build-up commenced before or during 1914. Conservative politicians had actually been pushing for greater increases in the war budget and such for about a decade beforehand in anticipation of a war in Europe. Indeed perhaps if it was agreed that the Treaty of 1839 or any other agreement made did bind Britain to uphold Belgian neutrality with military force if needed, then governments would have had the grounds on which they could build such a force.
Personally, even if British pre-war policy had prepared 4 million crack troops instead of 400,000 to land in France in 1914 she would have been better staying out of the whole blasted thing, looming over all the losers and victors who would have all lost hundreds of thousands if not millions of men with a navy and balance sheet they could not defy.
Hmm, it shouldn't IMHO not be forgotten, that in Germany many not only military persons rendered "Britain" as its major enemy, being the one actually denying Germany its "rightfull" position as a Great - global - Power on equal footing.
Not that I would like to discuss this opinion, but it was one rather widely spread in Germany with quite some influence on german willingness to come to whatever terms with the Brits.
The sources that tought me what I know about the ... less-than-firm-tory-position looking at some momenty rather desinterested in it during the July-crisis including not at least Bonar Law :
The conservative party and anglo-german relations, 1905-1914
and
Conservative leaders, coalition, and Britain's decision for war in 1914.
They paint anything than a firm pro-war picture of the Torys as so often stated (not only on this board, often without much reference) during the July.crisis. Sure, they were no germanophils, by far, but not much more francophils.
Bonar Law and consorts were more interested in the Ireland conflict - Bonar Law had agreed on the 30th July in a gentlemens agreement with Asquith and Carson not to make it a topic for the moment of this crisis - and domestic economical as well as foreign trade issues like the actual sagging of the stock markets, the recent Miner "issues" and the planned for (next) approach of Lloyd George regarding land taxation.
This "doorstep" argument was brought up by Grey actually already on the 29th when he showed the originasl treaty-papers of 1839 and 1870 with Gladstones handwritten notes on it.
Since then this ... "themes" was at first decently but then ever more obviously boiling on the cabinet members minds. Morley confided to his diary already on 31st July that this theme has to be adressed.
Well :
Liege
Namur
Antwerp
... all formidable fortresses kept constantly modernized by the Belgians.
I would be interested in what this lecture actually was/is ...
I have to admit I have another perception of the personnel as you desribe it.
Grey was IMHO - as explained earlier - not for war but for supporting France as far as possible, regarding the 'military card' as a very last option only - at best - with more cons than pros aside keeping France as an ... 'entented' friend.
That this 'gal' brough a rather ugly 'brother-in-law' (Russia) with it was one of the major cons.
If France would have been able to actually throw Russia under the bus he probably might have offered even kind of a formal alliance. At least 'more' support as IOTL as he indicated to Cambon on some occasions.
Churchill ... well, yes he was kinda pro-action guy but mainly focused on 'his' navy to make a show of its 'ruling the waves'. However, probably the only one actually interested in military action at all.
Asquith and Haldane (who btw was NOT war minister anymore since 1912 ... In 1914 this office was held in personal union by Asquith ... to much regret of the militairs esp. francomaniac Henry Wilson) were also rather non-supportive of war, Asquith due to kinda 'genetic lineral anti-war' attitude and Haldane also due to being the only one incabinet actually somewhat educated about the capabilities of the BEF he had created.
Both were rather of a 'preparedness'-position as Asquith wrote to his sister before morning cabinet of 2nd August :
The ideas that on the one hand we can wholly disinterest ourselves and on the other we ought to rush in are both wrong. And the real course, that of being ready to intervene if at a decisive moment we are called on, is difficult to formulate in clear terms. Yet I think this is what we must attempt.
According to Allan Mullison Haldane was of the same position. As it seems to me actually only Churchill was for anything militarily and with that all 'hawks' are gone. ... if somehow the channelcoast can be secured from the other only comparative power ... Germany.
This faction is also interesting in respect of Churchill's role. Until he went to the Admiralty in 1911, Churchill effectively operated with Lloyd George's dovish faction. It seems hard to believe now, but Churchill worked in tight union with Lloyd George to fight against the hawk campaign for more dreadnoughts in the great 1909 Dreadnought Scare ("We want eight and we won't wait"). Churchill and Lloyd George lost in the end, of course (causing Churchill to bitterly observe: "In the end a curious and characteristic compromise was reached. The Admiralty had demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight.").
Once he switched places with McKenna and moved to the Admiralty, he saw things in a very different light, and he quickly found himself aligned with Grey and Haldane against his old ally Lloyd George - and was delighted to have those eight dreadnoughts coming down the slipways. This is the sort of behavior that caused many in Westminster to form the impression of Churchill as utterly protean in political principle.
But it also is one more data point to illustrate that the dominance of the hawk/imperialist faction in the Liberal government of 1906-1916 was anything but inevitable - even if (I think we are forced to concede) the best way to keep Britain out of any continental war was to leave Belgium undisturbed.
The position of Asquith and Haldane as described above though the former might have 'learned' it due to his talks with Kitchener on the 1st August (or 31st July, I'm not completly certain on that at the moment) before the latter went off to fetch a boat back to Egypt.
And yet the logic of his position made belligerency inevitable. And reading hid contemporaneous comments, it is hard to think he wasn't aware of this on some level.
But a critical view of Grey's role can't be avoided whichever stance you take. If he understood that British intervention would *have* to happen as the result of his policy stance, he was disingenuous in representing that to the cabinet until almost the end - and perhaps more to the point, in failing to convey the position with clarity to the Germans - and must bear the responsibility for the consequences Britain suffered. If he did not understand that, then it raises hard questions about his judgment.
On Ferguson's book, see Saul David's review:
"This preoccupation with maintaining the balance of power was, in Ferguson's opinion, a mistake. If Germany's offer to guarantee the territorial integrity of both France and Belgium in return for British neutrality had been accepted, he argues, her war aims would have been "significantly different" from the infamous September Programme - which sought "German hegemony over Europe" and a concerted effort to foment revolution within the British and Russian empires. Instead, German objectives would have been "confined" to the "reduction of Russian power in Eastern Europe, the creation of a Central European Customs Union and acquisition of French colonies".
"I am not convinced. It is extemely unlikely that a victorious Germany would have stuck to the terms of any prewar agreement. The idea that she would have been content with the leadership of some form of prototype EEC is laughable. In any case, a conflict between any nation that dominated the continent and the foremost imperial power would have been inevitable sooner or later. It was very much in Britain's interests to enter the war when she did." https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...-end-wars-might-never-have-begun-1183285.html
I woulod say "very likely" instead of "inevitable" but otherwise I would have to agree. As another writer notes, Ferguson's argument--that Germany pretty much did dominate Europe economically in the 1990's so why would it have been such a terrible thing in the 1910s--ignores that the relatively benign Germany of the 1990's was after all the product of eighty years of history, not necessarily or probably what a victorious Kaiserreich would eventually have looked like...
"This preoccupation with maintaining the balance of power was, in Ferguson's opinion, a mistake. If Germany's offer to guarantee the territorial integrity of both France and Belgium in return for British neutrality had been accepted, he argues, her war aims would have been "significantly different" from the infamous September Programme - which sought "German hegemony over Europe" and a concerted effort to foment revolution within the British and Russian empires. Instead, German objectives would have been "confined" to the "reduction of Russian power in Eastern Europe, the creation of a Central European Customs Union and acquisition of French colonies".
"I am not convinced. It is extemely unlikely that a victorious Germany would have stuck to the terms of any prewar agreement. The idea that she would have been content with the leadership of some form of prototype EEC is laughable. In any case, a conflict between any nation that dominated the continent and the foremost imperial power would have been inevitable sooner or later. It was very much in Britain's interests to enter the war when she did." https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...-end-wars-might-never-have-begun-1183285.html
I woulod say "very likely" instead of "inevitable" but otherwise I would have to agree. As another writer notes, Ferguson's argument--that Germany pretty much did dominate Europe economically in the 1990's so why would it have been such a terrible thing in the 1910s--ignores that the relatively benign Germany of the 1990's was after all the product of eighty years of history, not necessarily or probably what a victorious Kaiserreich would eventually have looked like...
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Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
I suspect Churchill's views altered as he truly believed the political world revolved around him. When he was at the Board if Trade, social reform was the critical policy. As Home Secretary he didn't want a bug naval budget. When he reached the Admiralty and was responsible for ships... you get the picture.
I have recently read a counterfactual on Britain not entering the war - on Kindle so trying to track down - but the conclusion was that the most effective way Grey had of avoiding a war with Germany was to go to war with Germany. Will try to locate over the weekend.
I do see that the Ottomans could be spot between the British and Germans. The Turks will likely gravitate toward Germany as the Central Powers will coalesce.
If Bulgaria is still in the CP, they’d try and get as much as Southern Europe in their domain while Turkey would want to subjugate Arabia and British interests would cause more problems. On the other hand, German would be happy to help the Ottomans for petrol
If Bulgaria is still in the CP, they’d try and get as much as Southern Europe in their domain while Turkey would want to subjugate Arabia and British interests would cause more problems. On the other hand, German would be happy to help the Ottomans for petrol
So if Britain is not in and the German attack unfolds in the west as in OTL, unless the Germans are able to pull of an encirclement of a French army along the way, you still have the Germans in front of Paris, having to leave a flank guard. Some sort of Marne battle happens, perhaps the Germans don't have to retreat from the Marne the Aisne, but the ratio of forces is still pretty weak for the Germans to just win a September 1914 decisive victory in the west. So the Germans hold Amiens and Reims, maybe have Verdun encircled best case. Front line settles into static warfare.
The Germans may be adverse to attacking Antwerp, Ghent, Ostend, or the French Channel ports for fear of pulling the British into the conflict. So their deep into France with a very long front to hold, so can't really bring any more forces east than OTL.
East plays out as in OTL (and Austria still awkwardly can't take Serbia as OTL).
So the short term isn't really that great for Germany, (long term Germany can mobilize much more with her larger population, and she can trade more, but it takes a while to build up).
So perhaps there is a window for a compromise peace, November 1941, with Britain threatening to come in if Germany doesn't make peace with France and Russia?????? (Germany feeling weak after being stopped in the west and with Austria crushed in Galacia)
The Germans may be adverse to attacking Antwerp, Ghent, Ostend, or the French Channel ports for fear of pulling the British into the conflict. So their deep into France with a very long front to hold, so can't really bring any more forces east than OTL.
East plays out as in OTL (and Austria still awkwardly can't take Serbia as OTL).
So the short term isn't really that great for Germany, (long term Germany can mobilize much more with her larger population, and she can trade more, but it takes a while to build up).
So perhaps there is a window for a compromise peace, November 1941, with Britain threatening to come in if Germany doesn't make peace with France and Russia?????? (Germany feeling weak after being stopped in the west and with Austria crushed in Galacia)
BooNZ
Banned
From my reading, the only person in the British Liberal Cabinet who was inherently pro-war was Churchill. Grey was by nature more of a dove, which is what garnered support from Asquith, who had no interest in foreign entanglements. Grey himself was infatuated with a French understanding, while he was informed by the British foreign office professionals of the likes of Arthour Nicolson (staunchly pro-Russian) and Erie Crowe (rabidly anti-German).
Haldane was a fluent German speaker who had ended his term as Secretary of State of War in 1912. Like Asquith, Haldane had been conditioned with the Foreign Office expectation of a German invaison of Belgium (Asquith declared this expectation to the British Cabinet in late July 1914), not from preconceived notion of enthusiasm for war or hatred of the Germans. The only British liberal Cabinet member who might be accused of being anti-German (among others) is again, Churchill.
As previously stated, in July 1914 Lloyd George led the faction of seven British Cabinet ministers against war, yet had already made it clear the channel ports were vital to British interests.
Again, the vast majority of the British Liberal Cabinet were firmly against the war, but did not expect the Germans to violate Belgium neutrality in a significant way. There was a general expectation the Belgium Ardennes might be violated, but that's a long way from the channel ports. The British were less concerned about Belgium territorial sovereignty and more concerned about a major continental power controlling the channel ports. The wider German sweep through Belgium threatened the later and made British entry inevitable.
Again, it was scarcely a secret many British decision makers were obsessed over the channel ports.
From a German perspective, the British Conservatives were more enthusiastic about war, but less francophile and more Russophobic.
tick
My read is that the Conservatives were less "dove" than the Liberals but almost equally apathetic towards both Germany and the historic foe the French. I think the Conservatives are ready to back the Liberals going to war but I am less certain they would go to war themselves minus as clear a provocation as Belgium. My current tease is pull the right-wing closer, only violating the Belgian Ardennes. It takes me back to the East First" scenarios and I think dangerously non-plusses Grey and his push for war to aid France, without a bombardment of Liege and the drive toward the coast, I am persuaded the Cabinet dithers and dawdles. I think there is the plausible short circuiting of the Liberal Cabinet's consensus as to how to respond to what is a minor violation of Belgium. I leave open if this cuts Britain from the war for the duration. Sadly I am more inclined to throw Britain into the war and let her emerge from it as one of the non-victorious powers, not that she has been actually defeated, but not winning might give her a better struggle than OTL. If I chase an ATL without Britain at war I might get too ambitious and have no war at all.
I've always thought this part of Ferguson's theory was less realistic.
Once Britain was in the war, it was a lot less plausible to get her out of it, and not without reason.
Better to never get involved in the first place.