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I tend to agree, but it's not 100% risk free, there is still that chance Britain will join in France backstabbing you and even bribe the Belgians, maybe even Dutch, into letting them all pass through. A necessity Germany can work sales to its possible benefit. The best terms, just in case...

Probably. But nothing would be stopping him from being "creative" in victory. He could have independent buffers set up in Finland, the Baltics and Ukraine, but leave Poland Romanov in the peace settlement, just to keep the Poles down, even though during the war itself, the Germans/Austrians...

Preferred COAs for Germany, year-by-year, if that year is the PoD: 1871 – If you can swing being nice, by restraining internal demands and enthusiasms, do not annex Alsace-Lorraine. Also, do not coronate the Emperor at Versailles. Coronate the Emperor either in Germany (at Aachen, or any...

Aside from preemptive war, another policy recommendation I have for the 2nd Reich is support for Ottoman territorial integrity. in my view, Bismarck’s advocacy of Austro-Russian partition of the Ottoman Empire was mistaken, because, as it turned out, the two powers could not agree on a simple...

On Bismarck, it is true, and to his credit, that he fought in three victorious wars, and then, he stopped launching wars before he got into one he lost. In some ways that’s a rare achievement. (And this is despite the problems that his diplomacy let fester and that I actually don’t think he...

I'm not one of those either/or people a truism indeed that was Germany's best bet. I also believe that Germany, under Bismarck, under-valued the Ottoman Empire. Kaiser Wilhelm and Ministers sometimes recognized its value, but often too easily dismissed it until WWI started. Agreed. And...

To sum up my posts and arguments in this thread, I think Germany would have gotten better outcomes for itself through encouraging third party wars or launching preventive wars at any of several intervals in the Bismarck era and the early Wilhelm era up through 1909. The results likely would...

Really? Wouldn't any such project be doomed to be torn up by Afghan tribesmen for never getting sufficient pay-offs to stop interfering? Or, if built, it would constantly be robbed and broken. I mean that's been the history of the ring road reconstruction attempts.

There's a slight timing problem with attributing Germany's problems with Britain significantly to colonialism, and specifically to *Wilhelm II* era colonialism. The vast majority of Germany's colonies, in terms of land area, and population, were acquired under Bismarck's chancellorship and...

This isn't for lack of trying on the part of both Bismarck, and then Wilhelm, and Wilhelm's Ministers. The stars never aligned that way, and not solely because of Wilhelm's gaffes and his Ministers' initiatives - also because incompatible priorities or expectations that Russia and Britain had...

***a few edits made Sunday*** We have been told that Germany made too many powerful enemies (which itself presumes total responsibility on Germany’s part for how their Russian and British relations worked out), but there are many other things we are told as part of this, or which are...

But wait a second, if South African issues were what made Britain sore about Germany, why wasn't she equally or more sore against Russia and France. Those two, were, if anything, more forward leaning in taking the anti-British, pro-Boer stand and sending volunteers, trying organize a...

I'm thinking that the best opportunities for Germany were actually already in the past by the time 1904 rolled around.

Its 43 years of great power peace and rising power, almost matching the 44 peaceful years of the FRG-GDR divide, and exceeding the 32 peaceful years of the Berlin FRG, were not ruined by Germany aggressively provoking everyone and getting itself boxed into a war that it couldn’t win. It’s era...