Why and when did Germany become Britain's likely enemy

If the German Empire had become less autocratic in the years leading up to 1914, ie, if the left wing majority in the Reichtag had managed to unite and force concessions from the Kaiser and achieve greater power for the Reichtag, would that have changed British attitudes towards Germany?
 
Of course. Carthage with Rome post 2nd punic war. Antigonid Macedonia with Rome post 3rd macedonian war.

Being compelled to bow down on one's most strategic ambitions does not mean being satisfied with such a situation nor giving-up any goal of improving one's situations on margins, until the hegemon draws new red lines.

Well, I can understand this happening in the aftermath of a major war or regime change. But by my understanding of state relations, when Britain hamstrung French interests in Africa, that should have led to soured relations rather than better relations. Much less seems to have poisoned, say, Anglo-American and Franco-American relations in the late 18th and early 19th century.
 
If the German Empire had become less autocratic in the years leading up to 1914, ie, if the left wing majority in the Reichtag had managed to unite and force concessions from the Kaiser and achieve greater power for the Reichtag, would that have changed British attitudes towards Germany?

While they were busy mending fences with the most repressive society on Earth at the time? Not bloody likely.
 
It seems to me that most people seem to think of nations in some kind of strategy game context here, as monolithic entities aiming vor victory for their side. It isn't a modern phenomenon, however, that even foreign politics are driven by the political, economic and mercantile interests of cliques vying vor internal domination. Political gaffes make for good propaganda to make a war popular, but they are seldom the reason for one, those usually being economic ones. I think we should look more at the economic differences between Germany and Britain, and there's a growing disparity there in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The British had enormous captive markets in Africa and India, and to some extent China, so they had little incentive to produce quality. It was just more profitable to foist cheap junk on the natives. The Germans had tried that, too, but without much success, so they switched to more expensive, but better quality and technologically superior goods. When the British started to notice German penetration of their markets, esp. at home, they tried to counteract, but their 'Made in Germany' capaign bit them in the backside. Germany made rapid inroads especially in South America, and their goods in Britain itself must have given the British the impression of much higher market domination than it really was, as the German goods were on the more expensive end of the spectrum, which anyone in a position of some influence would see daily, while few but the actual producers would notice that the hoi polloi were still buying mostly British.

Under those circumstances, I feel that Germany would have been seen much more as a danger than, say, France or Russia, who weren't challenging Britain's economic dominance. And economic dominance and financial success was instrumental in upholding the social order in Britain.
 
If the German Empire had become less autocratic in the years leading up to 1914, ie, if the left wing majority in the Reichtag had managed to unite and force concessions from the Kaiser and achieve greater power for the Reichtag, would that have changed British attitudes towards Germany?

Do you really think Britain and Germany fell out because Britain suddenly became a defender of democracy (despite the fact they were on a proccess of reaprochment with the Russian Empire) and because the german constitutional monarchy had some prussian moustache stamped on it (the nation that was a british ally for nearly 150 years)?
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
It seems to me that most people seem to think of nations in some kind of strategy game context here, as monolithic entities aiming vor victory for their side. It isn't a modern phenomenon, however, that even foreign politics are driven by the political, economic and mercantile interests of cliques vying vor internal domination. Political gaffes make for good propaganda to make a war popular, but they are seldom the reason for one, those usually being economic ones. I think we should look more at the economic differences between Germany and Britain, and there's a growing disparity there in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The British had enormous captive markets in Africa and India, and to some extent China, so they had little incentive to produce quality. It was just more profitable to foist cheap junk on the natives. The Germans had tried that, too, but without much success, so they switched to more expensive, but better quality and technologically superior goods. When the British started to notice German penetration of their markets, esp. at home, they tried to counteract, but their 'Made in Germany' capaign bit them in the backside. Germany made rapid inroads especially in South America, and their goods in Britain itself must have given the British the impression of much higher market domination than it really was, as the German goods were on the more expensive end of the spectrum, which anyone in a position of some influence would see daily, while few but the actual producers would notice that the hoi polloi were still buying mostly British.

Under those circumstances, I feel that Germany would have been seen much more as a danger than, say, France or Russia, who weren't challenging Britain's economic dominance. And economic dominance and financial success was instrumental in upholding the social order in Britain.

Are you saying that first the Entente and then the war was the military solution Britain chose to solve its German economic problem?
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
If the German Empire had become less autocratic in the years leading up to 1914, ie, if the left wing majority in the Reichtag had managed to unite and force concessions from the Kaiser and achieve greater power for the Reichtag, would that have changed British attitudes towards Germany?

Germany was not autocratic lead but de facto a parliamentarian monarchy, which had a more democratic franchise than Britain or France.
 
Germany was not autocratic lead but de facto a parliamentarian monarchy, which had a more democratic franchise than Britain or France.

I think you mean more democratic franchises than Britain or France due to its federal structure but not all of those franchises were more democratic take Prussia's for the most infamous and reform resistant example.
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
I think you mean more democratic franchises than Britain or France due to its federal structure but not all of those franchises were more democratic take Prussia's for the most infamous and reform resistant example.

The Reich level is the most important one. And that was more democratic.
 
One should bear in mind that the perception of Germans was not even across the british social board.

Comments above apply to those involved with government and the press but socially the working classes viewed Germans as traditional allies of Britain. Generations of them had been in the army alongside Germans. The middle classes, whilst they aped the borrowed French culture of the upper classes, were making Germany an increasing cultural model of their own. The working classes and lower middle classes were the recipients and customers of the tens of thousands of Germans who came to live and work in Britain in the catering, music and meat trades allied to the leadership of Germany in the chemical industries and research and development in steel etc. The upper classes were Francophiles but the classes below them saw German culture as something more of their own. Clerks and middle management would go to a German restaurant whilst their directors would tend more to a French one for example.A received impression of the British Army is one of upper class officers but the vast majority of units were officered by middle class and lesser sons of the upper classes in general. With a smattering of those rising from the ranks. They treasured their historical links to Germany and there was an unseemly rush when WW1 broke out to dispose of their assorted beloved German Colonels in Chief etc. and their associated honours whilst French ones were notable by their absence.

My point is that Germany did not become the people's likely enemy (despite press hysteria) until war actually broke out in 1914. Popular concern was more about France as a traditional enemy. Viz the rise of the Volunteer Regiments which were an explicit response to a popularly conceived fear of France.
 
Precisely the 15th of June 1888. Kaiser Wilhelm was too erratic in his foreign policy and envious of Britain to ever have been able to create a stable working partnership with the British Empire.
 
The British had enormous captive markets in Africa and India, and to some extent China, so they had little incentive to produce quality. It was just more profitable to foist cheap junk on the natives. The Germans had tried that, too, but without much success, so they switched to more expensive, but better quality and technologically superior goods.

Did the British actually sell much to their colonies in Africa and Asia? My understanding is that during the new imperialist age, the colonial powers still conducted most of their trade with each other, despite all the empire-building.
 
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