Deleted member 94680
A “humanitarian blockade”? What’s that? A blockade is a method of war.
If you mean embargo, why would they embargo both sides of the conflict? Who would they trade with?
WI: Britain and France on different sides in WW1
- Thread starter PGSBHurricane
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A “humanitarian blockade”? What’s that? A blockade is a method of war.
If you mean embargo, why would they embargo both sides of the conflict? Who would they trade with?
Why, to safeguard civilization itself from those continental barbarians with their barbaric ways of course. Remember, propaganda matters.
Basically just shit talking to grab the colonies and keep European navies from interfering.
Deleted member 94680
Yeah, people didn’t think like that in 1914. The people might be convinced by a propaganda campaign, but when does it start? Fashoda was 16 years ago, we're attacking the French now (oh and the Germans and the Italians as well), tally ho! How do you convince the British public that attacking everyone is a decent course of action? Who in the British military would be confident that this course of action isn’t, you know, insane?
This isn’t Hearts of Iron. You don’t just “grab colonies”, switch one flag for another and bingo it’s part of your Empire now. By 1914, the majority of those colonies will have well developed French/German/Italian identities (within the settler population at least) and resist British expansionism at least politically. Britain couldn’t do this without there being trouble further down the line. OTL, the British Empire expanded because they had the ‘justification’ of fighting and winning World War One as part of the Entente. The international system after the War supported their actions.
Here, Britain would be a pariah, enemy of everyone and friend to no-one. Who would trust Britain after that? America would be paranoid at “rampant British imperial expansionism”, France and Germany would be revanchist for their lost colonies. Basically, all the Great Powers would be pitted against perfidious Albion. If there were any international system to come out after this atl-WWI, it would be at least partially aimed at keeping Britain isolated.
Aphrodite
Banned
The English Channel and the high seas. An Anglo-French War in the late 1890's isn't a British cakewalk. The French would decline battle on the high seas and pursue a war on commerce like the Germans do in WWI. In the 1890's that means destroyers, torpedo boats, armed merchant men and cruisers. Look at the damage the Germans do with the flimsiest of weapons. A couple hundred U-boats.
Now consider the advantages the French would have compared to the Imperial Germans:
France can't be blockaded at the Channel and High Seas. if Germany is neutral, quite likely, then France can't be blockaded at all.
French ships would have access to the entire channel coast for raiding and they would have access to the high seas making commerce warfare far more difficult to fight
France had an excellent network of overseas bases- Dakar, Saigon, Madagascar, Guinea, Dahomey. Until they are reduced French merchant raiders will have free range over the globe
Consider the damage done by the German surface raiders in WWI:
German commerce raiders in World War I - Wikipedia
The British are paying a high price in this war.
As for the British taking French money losing colonies, its hard to see how that would bring the French to he negotiating table
The English Channel and the high seas. An Anglo-French War in the late 1890's isn't a British cakewalk. The French would decline battle on the high seas and pursue a war on commerce like the Germans do in WWI. In the 1890's that means destroyers, torpedo boats, armed merchant men and cruisers. Look at the damage the Germans do with the flimsiest of weapons. A couple hundred U-boats.
Now consider the advantages the French would have compared to the Imperial Germans:
France can't be blockaded at the Channel and High Seas. if Germany is neutral, quite likely, then France can't be blockaded at all.
French ships would have access to the entire channel coast for raiding and they would have access to the high seas making commerce warfare far more difficult to fight
France had an excellent network of overseas bases- Dakar, Saigon, Madagascar, Guinea, Dahomey. Until they are reduced French merchant raiders will have free range over the globe
Consider the damage done by the German surface raiders in WWI:
German commerce raiders in World War I - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
The British are paying a high price in this war.
As for the British taking French money losing colonies, its hard to see how that would bring the French to he negotiating table
Does this not work both ways?
Deleted member 94680
Obviously, but the Britain are rubbish and everyone hates them, remember?
Deleted member 94680
The English Channel? Really? The French would want to fight in the shadow of Portsmouth and Dover? I don’t think that plays to their advantages at all.
I didn’t say it would be a cakewalk, but the British would win.
Then the British will raid commerce as well. That doesn’t end well for France.
All of those that the French has, the British have in greater numbers and better quality. Apart from submarines and they aren’t the weapons they were in WWI. U-boats in WWI were a cutting-edge weapon, new tactics and strategies had to be devised to fight them, the French will have to rely almost exclusively on cruiser raiding which the British are old hands at fighting.
Britain has blockaded France before, why not now?
Britain would move commerce out of the channel, as they did in both world wars. The “northern route” would be much safer for British ships and hazardous for French raiders.
Every one of those French bases has a British base nearby. France can’t strengthen the garrison of them all without leaving her eastern border under defended. The risk from Germany will preclude that.
The high price of the German raiders was, what, 50 odd ships over several months? That was with better ships and more advanced naval artillery than the French will have. The price will be one that Britain can afford to pay.
I argued against that idea.
Grey Wolf
Donor
Ropp outlines some interesting scenarios for a Fashoda conflict in his book on the development of the French navy.
Grey Wolf
Donor
Well, the 1901 attempts to ally with Germany might work down the line
en.wikipedia.org
Britain would probably still complete the alliance with Japan, as discussions were already advanced
At the same time, the Boxer intervention is proceeding to a successful end
All these things are going to be in the mix, looking at whether events play out leading to a Russo-Japanese War. If there is one, that is most probably a catalyst for a global war, but if not then we have a whole new timeline
Joseph Chamberlain - Wikipedia
Britain would probably still complete the alliance with Japan, as discussions were already advanced
At the same time, the Boxer intervention is proceeding to a successful end
All these things are going to be in the mix, looking at whether events play out leading to a Russo-Japanese War. If there is one, that is most probably a catalyst for a global war, but if not then we have a whole new timeline
Deleted member 94680
Britain definitely has more motivation to accept the German overtures. Knowing Berlin, they’ll probably still mess it up. Can Germany accept the opportunity to work to Britain’s interests and utilise the Anglo-French hostility to their own advantage?
I agree that there’s every reason to believe it will proceed as OTL, seeing as it was aimed at Russia.
How so? A more aggressive Anglo-Japanese Alliance means London declares War on Russia? A more aggressive France throws caution to the wind and attacks Britain in support of Russia?
Grey Wolf
Donor
I was thinking that if Germany is allied to Britain a couple of things are in play
1) Germany won't see the Willi/Nicki stuff on the yacht trying to create a paper alliance
2) if there is a Dogger Bank incident or equivalent, Germany is now in play diplomatically as well as Britain
3) Russian AMCs are more of a potential flashpoint
4) If Russia are being defeated as per OTL, then it's possible that Germany will supply them with coal from Shantung as an ally of an ally - OTL their lack of coal was what drove the Japanese towards using Roosevelt for a peace agreement
5) if Russia sees revolution and unrest, Germany might be able to engineer an intervention
It's geopolitically difficult. France hates Germany over the Franco-Prussian war, hence an alliance with a nation hostile to Germany, such as Britain and Russia, is logical.
Perhaps the Dogger Bank incident goes hot and triggers an Anglo-Russian war as a European component if the Russo-Japanese war pulling in France?
Perhaps the Dogger Bank incident goes hot and triggers an Anglo-Russian war as a European component if the Russo-Japanese war pulling in France?
Deleted member 94680
This is in the aftermath of a ‘Fashoda War’, right? Otherwise it’s very hard to get the Anglo-German Alliance to come about, without plenty of handwaving. The Germans wanted so much more from an Alliance than the British were willing to offer, OTL.
1)That seems reasonable. But doesn’t it mean Germany would be more belligerent than OTL as a result? Increased confidence owing to their ability to force a two front war on Russia?
2)Fair one, but OTL Britain chose diplomacy to resolve the Incident, even though Russia was latently hostile and public opinion was hardly opposed to aggressive methods. Alliance with Germany or not, London won’t let Berlin dictate their response.
3)AMCs may be a flashpoint, but Dogger Bank didn’t provoke Britain into war, would a cruiser or two be worse?
4)Supply Japan with coal? That’s a possibility but they didn’t OTL, was it because they chose not to, or that they couldn’t?
5)Wouldn’t German intervention sweep Russian unrest away? Act as a unifying factor to the Russian Empire? I can’t see 1905 Britain enthusiastic for a land War in Russia.