What if Germany accepted British alliance terms/offers at the turn of the 20th century?

What if Germany accepted British alliance terms/offers at the turn of the 20th century?

  • Germany would have gotten sucked into & lost a war against France & Russia in defense of UK aim

    Votes: 2 3.6%
  • Germany would have gotten into a war in defense of UK aims & gained no territory or indemnity

    Votes: 2 3.6%
  • Alliance would have deterred French/Russian aggression vs. Triple Alliance– no great war in 20th c

    Votes: 28 50.9%
  • If UK-Germany fought & won a war as a team, UK would turn against Germany & beat it in 2nd round

    Votes: 2 3.6%
  • Same as above, except UK is unable to reduce German power in Europe in 2nd round

    Votes: 12 21.8%
  • Germany provokes war w/France or Russia confident in UK support & wins

    Votes: 5 9.1%
  • Germany provokes war/France or Russia confident in UK support & loses

    Votes: 3 5.5%
  • If Germany is in a war w/France or Russia, UK breaks alliance & works to prevent any German win

    Votes: 5 9.1%
  • UK abandons German team in favor of Franco-Russian ties in a few yrs anyway, history converges w/OTL

    Votes: 18 32.7%

  • Total voters
    55

raharris1973

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A poll on if the Germans accepted the (admittedly one-sided) terms the British were offering to Germany for an alliance in turn of century.
 

Deleted member 1487

The British didn't offer terms Germany did. The Brits just wanted an informal understanding, while the Germans were offering a full alliance. Britain didn't want to be committed to anything, so ran away from the Germans as fast as possible. If the Germans opted for the informal deal then nothing really changes as both sides really keep doing what they want and their interests diverge as per OTL.
 
A poll on if the Germans accepted the (admittedly one-sided) terms the British were offering to Germany for an alliance in turn of century.
???What offer?

The British didn't offer terms Germany did. The Brits just wanted an informal understanding, while the Germans were offering a full alliance.
Seems far more likely to me.

Before we can discuss the result of an offer (that may not have been made), we'd need to see what you claim it was, was it official, etc.
 
With Britain playing nice to Germany, Poincare would not have written the Russians a "blank check" during the 1912 crisis, and would've pressured Russia not to mobilize first in 1914.
Diplomatic pressure (including that exerted by Britain) results in a "stop in Belgrade, no annexation" promise from A-H; there is a localized war only.

If Britain decided that an alliance with Germany suited British interests, no naughty deed of Germany's would make the British renounce the partnership; by 1914, Britain was in full appeasement mode.

I cannot imagine what would make Britain decide that Germany had less to threaten / more to offer, to British interests, though.
 
You would have to replace Kaiser Wilhelm II with a more competent leader, since Willy was an Anglophobe who was obsessed with building a navy to challenge the British, while trampling on the feet of the French, Russians, Japanese and Americans at the same time.
 

Perkeo

Banned
I wonder if Britain on the CP side would trigger similar panic reactions by France and Russia as the original German ones. Some ingredients are the same:
- encirclement, mostly France
- the illusion that a quick knockout of Germany is possible before Britain can land large forces on the continent
- the general doctrine that favored preemptive war

It surely depends on how close the Anglo-German alliance gets.
 
You would have to replace Kaiser Wilhelm II with a more competent leader, since Willy was an Anglophobe who was obsessed with building a navy to challenge the British, while trampling on the feet of the French, Russians, Japanese and Americans at the same time.
And the British were Germanphobes who were obsessed with building a fleet that let them threaten to shell Hamburg over a telegram.
 

Ryan

Donor
for an Anglo German alliance I think you would need to have France and Russia act more aggressive, build up navies specifically designed to challenge Britain, and appearing to want to carve up Europe between themselves, and a Germany which is interested in maintaining the status quo/not domination Europe. in that situation France/Russia are the obvious threat the Britain, not Germany, and therefore Britain will do what it can to support Germany and preventing Europe from being dominated by hostile powers.
 
And the British were Germanphobes who were obsessed with building a fleet that let them threaten to shell Hamburg over a telegram.

The UK had relatively good relations with the German Empire before Willy II came along. Hence the OP starting this thread about the possibility of an Anglo-German alliance...
 

Deleted member 1487

The UK had relatively good relations with the German Empire before Willy II came along. Hence the OP starting this thread about the possibility of an Anglo-German alliance...
A lot of the 'Willy was the source of all problems!' meme in history is that he was just an embarassment, not a cause of so much of these structural issues. British interests and those of Germany just diverged and were irreconcilable and regardless of who the Kaiser was that wouldn't change. Willy just happened to become the Kaiser around the time that Germany was expanding and was diverging from wha the British were comfortable with, as German economic expansion severely cut into British trade. Germany was the convenient scapegoat to frighten the British public into supporting major new outlays to modernize the fleet once the Dreadnought made all their previous BBs obsolete. In terms of historiography so much of the lead up to WW1 has been poisoned by British propaganda that sought to justify it's actions leading up to WW1 and during/after the war and since we in the US are Anglophone we have relied on the British official narrative for a lot of our understanding of European history until WW2 when we got involved on the world stage and could form our own opinions by being involved with all the politics going on. Bismarck wasn't wrong when he said the greatest historical development was that the US spoke English.
 
The UK had relatively good relations with the German Empire before Willy II came along. Hence the OP starting this thread about the possibility of an Anglo-German alliance...
That's the victors writing the history books. Wilhelm II was exceedingly fond of his extended family and Victoria and the UK in particular. Funnily enough, neither he nor the British royals really decided foreign policy.

The British might have been of the opinion that relations were good... as long as Germany was forced to grin and bear it whenever they were threatened with the Royal Navy during the latest round of sable ratting. Coincidentally, they soon decided to build their own fleet for some reason.
 
That's the victors writing the history books. Wilhelm II was exceedingly fond of his extended family and Victoria and the UK in particular. Funnily enough, neither he nor the British royals really decided foreign policy.

The British might have been of the opinion that relations were good... as long as Germany was forced to grin and bear it whenever they were threatened with the Royal Navy during the latest round of sable ratting. Coincidentally, they soon decided to build their own fleet for some reason.

Hegemons aren't known for their self-awareness. It's as if the British threatened German during the Boer War - in defense of an expedition that was disavowed by the British government, I might add - and then when the Germans responded by building up their navy later, they were like, "Oh my god, they hate us! They're out to destroy us! But why?! We've never done anything to them!" Very reminiscent of anti-Iran hawks in the United States who conveniently forget about 1953 and therefore assume that their nuclear program is unprovoked aggression.

And all of that's completely ignoring that Edward Grey single-handedly decided British foreign policy for the decade leading up to World War One, and for all of his attempted caginess he was decidedly pro-Russian.
 
Britain had it's Empire all it wanted was for the Continentals to keep the balance. Once Germany opted to break that pattern, an Anglo-German alliance wasn't going to happen.
 

raharris1973

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Britain had it's Empire all it wanted was for the Continentals to keep the balance. Once Germany opted to break that pattern, an Anglo-German alliance wasn't going to happen

Did Germany really opt "to break that pattern" in OTL before the Ententes however? The Germans didn't invade any Europeans until 7 years *after* the Triple Entente.

Or did Britain regard Germany's economic growth and commercial competition all by itself, even without the military component, as breaking the pattern of balance?
If so, one wonders if the British were not too unhappy to have a war, and along with it, an excuse to blockade the German competition, which seemed to be strong under peaceful conditions of open trade.
 

raharris1973

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My votes were as follows:

Alliance would have deterred French/Russian aggression vs. Triple Alliance– no great war in 20th c - most likely (in agreement with Tail2Long)

If there was a war anyway (Franco-Russian "window of opportunity" logic?) (as Perkeo suggests)
Same as above, except UK is unable to reduce German power in Europe in 2nd round

other than that most likely was:
UK abandons German team in favor of Franco-Russian ties in a few yrs anyway, history converges w/OTL(as Wiking suggests).

So in the first two instances Germany is better off than OTL. (Britain is better off in 1st as well, in the 2nd Britain will be more *uncomfortable* but may in the end be better off or worse off than OTL). The 3rd obviously is a wash with OTL.

This all supports my view that Germany would have been best off agreeing to any understandings it could get from Britain, no matter how seemingly one-sided in London's favor and no matter how informal (Remember- the Triple Entente was not a formal alliance either).

Germany did not agree with mere informal understandings to Britain (Britain was offering an understanding in the first instance focused on the Far East) because of the historical scars of the 7 Years War where "perfidious Albion" won colonial spoils for itself while Prussia fought all of Europe and gained nothing.

But viewed critically, this was a crappy analogy. Turn of the century Germany was richer, stronger and more extensive than 18th century Prussia. A war with France and Russia with minimal British support on land would be costly and unpleasant, but with Britain just "tilting" toward Germany and away from the Franco-Russians, the latters' chance of *defeating* Germany [the first & second options I outlined in the poll listing] would have been vanishingly small.

Also, unlike the 18th century, France and Russia would not be likely to get other European states to "pile on" against Prussia. Looking at the anti-Prussian line-up of the 7 Years War and then coming forward to the dawn of the 20th century, we can see that Sweden had "retired" from power politics, Saxony and Bavaria, far from opposing Prussian strength, were united with it, and Austria-Hungary rather than being obsessed with vengeance over Silesia was a junior ally to Germany. Even Italy, with its anti-Austrian desires and impulses, was allied to it and Germany, and Anglo-German amity would only strengthen Italian loyalty to the Triple Alliance.

So, I say, from the point of view of Germany's rational self-interest, "Perfidious Albion Schmerfidius Albion" as long as Britain doesn't conspire with France and Russia, Germany comes out ahead.

Germany shot itself in the foot by wallowing in bad historical memories too much and looking forward without realizing how in the turn of the century, things were almost as good as they were going to get for Germany, and failing to realize how much *worse* things could get for Germany if Britain landed on the other side.
 
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