alternatehistory.com

So I was listening to a podcast today that got me thinking. The guy being interviewed was discussing the history of “Sea Powers” and saying what made a nation a Sea Power, etc. During the talk, he mentioned how 1914 and Britain’s involvement in WWI was a case of Britain losing sight of her strategic imperative and not concentrating on controlling the Channel Coast and particularly the Scheldt. He said that Britain had maintained an independent Belgium (or predecessor to Belgium) to protect the Channel ports and control who had access to the sea lanes and the trade they depended on. He mentioned that Britain should have held the “easily defendable ground” in Northern Belgium and protected access to the Channel and therefore British trade.

So... what if the BEF deploys to Europe, but only to defend Belgium? What if they do this as a vehicle to protect the Channel access of the northern coast and then stand fast? How viable is this as a strategy and how likely is it that they’d be able to maintain a defensive posture to keep Belgium independent?
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