WI: Belgium grants military access to Germany in 1914

What excuse would Britain use to enter the war?

1. Risk of Belgium and the Channel Ports falling under German control
2. Need to assist France defend itself (because its in Britain's interest that France defeat Germany).

The only possible way Britain stays out of WW1 (and its still iffy in the long term) is if there is basically no German offensive in the west at all.
 
1. Risk of Belgium and the Channel Ports falling under German control
2. Need to assist France defend itself (because its in Britain's interest that France defeat Germany).

The only possible way Britain stays out of WW1 (and its still iffy in the long term) is if there is basically no German offensive in the west at all.

I mean how do they sell this to the public.
 

nastle

Banned
I mean how do they sell this to the public.
Using the above 2 stated excuses
anti-german sentiment was very high in England and even USA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-German_sentiment
between milawukee , ST Louis and Cincinnati was the German triangle yet the effect of anti-german propaganda is so persistant that today hardly any german Americans know their culture or language.

btw I'm not even white so not buying into the whole revisionist white supremacist BS but democracies go to war by demonizing their opponents
 
yes after they entered the war, before that it was much more balanced, and there was also considerable anti-british sentiment
 
The Germans had initially hoped that the Belgians would be willling to do a deal in order to avoid war with Germany. If such an agreement is reached then Germany will not be delayed for weeks and so France will not have as much time as OTL to prepare. Britain will also have no pretext to enter the war and may be forced to watch on from the sidelines.

Germany was not delayed for many weeks. And anyway, if it had had belgian agreement to go through Bengium, everybody would have lover and adapted.

One of the reasons the Schlieffen plan was so dangerous and almost succesful was surprise and the fact that People thought Germany would not dare violate belgian neutrality, that is performing an act of international piracy.
 
Didn't the treaty guaranteeing Belgian neutrality have clauses which allowed the guaranteeing powers the right to enforce neutrality even against Belgian wishes?

Quite how this was intended to work in practice is more difficult.
 
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