Resolved, the 2nd German Empire’s actual mistake is the opposite of what you’ve been told

raharris1973

Well-known member
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 of rising power was instead ruined by Berlin’s failure to go to war as early as possible, with the right allies, in a war it couldn’t lose.

OTL’s Germany stayed aloof from either of Germany’s vital two potential partners, Britain or Russia, for far too long, trying to avoid being drawn into a war. The result was that diplomacy moved on without Germany, and both of these potential allies ended up allied with France, and each other, because they demonstrated their relevance to each other.

And when Germany decided to stand by its remaining, weak ally in 1914, far too late, it wasn't feared enough. Instead the club of the strong, fearsome, and relevant stuck together, and the German-Austrian club of lesser losers was overmatched.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
You know, Adolf Hitler himself reached the same conclusion in either Mein Kampf or his Second Book. Specifically, Hitler argued there that had Germany waged a preventative war against France in 1904, then the whole bloodbath of 1914-1918 could have been avoided. I'm inclined to agree with him, but would have been even more inclined to agree with him had the Haber-Bosch process already been developed and commercialized back then. Had this actually been the case, it would have been a crime for Germany not to wage preventative war against France in 1905 during the Moroccan Crisis, after which it could head towards the East and impose an extremely crushing Brest-Litovsk-style settlement on Russia while also possibly imposing regime change on Russia.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
But Yeah, waging a war with both Britain and Russia as Germany's enemies was really stupid, especially if France was also Germany's enemy--and it was! And then bringing the US into the war on top of that! Granted, I understand that the Germans' situation at the end of 1916 was not exactly ideal without the benefit of hindsight, but still, relying on U-boats seems like a risky strategy, no? The kind of magical thinking that Germans previously thought could end the war in the West in six weeks if only they would invade Belgium and then execute a giant Cannae of the French forces in northeastern France! But that didn't work and ultimately USW didn't work either!

Ironically, Germany hasn't lost too much as a result of its defeat in both World Wars. It lost the lives of millions of its young men, true, but the former Soviet Union suffered much more and also currently Germany has a sphere of influence that rivals what it obtained at Brest-Litovsk in 1918. That's certainly a very enviable position for Germany to be in right now, frankly. One can say that Lenin really was Germany's most successful agent in history.
 

raharris1973

Well-known member
You know, Adolf Hitler himself reached the same conclusion in either Mein Kampf or his Second Book. Specifically, Hitler argued there that had Germany waged a preventative war against France in 1904, then the whole bloodbath of 1914-1918 could have been avoided. I'm inclined to agree with him, but would have been even more inclined to agree with him had the Haber-Bosch process already been developed and commercialized back then. Had this actually been the case, it would have been a crime for Germany not to wage preventative war against France in 1905 during the Moroccan Crisis, after which it could head towards the East and impose an extremely crushing Brest-Litovsk-style settlement on Russia while also possibly imposing regime change on Russia.

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

Skallagrim

Well-known member
I don't actually disagree with any particular point here, but there is a bit of logical conflation going on in this whole thesis statement.

The German Empire’s actual mistake is the opposite of what we’ve been told? Okay. What have we been told? Well, that Germany made too many powerful enemies. And what's the suggested "opposite"? That Germany failed to draw powerful nations into an alliance with itself, at which point it could have won an earlier war easily. That's true, but "Germany failed to make the right friends" is another way of approaching "Germany made the wrong enemies". Because we're talking about the exact same powers here. Britain and/or Russia.

Persomaly, I'd say that "Germany made the wrong enemies" is more accurate than "Germany failed to make the right friends", because... well, because Germany did actively antagonise its eventual enemies (and ATL would-be allies) for no good reason at all. And this was primarily the work of Wilhelm II and his really stupid ideas.

I would therefore say that this is in no way the "opposite" of what we typically believe, but rather an elaboration. One with which I agree, mind you, but hardly a very shocking reversal of insight. My own view, I'd line up like this:

A) The traditional view, that Germany made the wrong enemies, is 100% accurate. Had Germany managed to turn either Russia or Britain into a long-term ally, and had the war still started in 1914, their side would have won.

B) The expanded view, that every moment the war was delayed strengthened Germany's enemies, is also 100% accurate. Had Germany fought the war earlier, and against the same enemies, each year by which the war's commencement is hastened ends up favouring Germany more. I have to agree with ol'Adolf (of all people!) that the Central Powers would have won a war in 1904. (However, I also agree with @raharris1973 that earlier would be better still.)

C) The ideal scenario would actually be "both", which is the "war Germny can't lose" that @raharris1973 referred to. If Germany had turned either Britain or Russia into an ally, and had launched a war at the earliest opportunity during the reign of Wilhelm II, it would have been a very short war indeed. The enemy would have been flattened.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
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 of rising power was instead ruined by Berlin’s failure to go to war as early as possible, with the right allies, in a war it couldn’t lose.

OTL’s Germany stayed aloof from either of Germany’s vital two potential partners, Britain or Russia, for far too long, trying to avoid being drawn into a war. The result was that diplomacy moved on without Germany, and both of these potential allies ended up allied with France, and each other, because they demonstrated their relevance to each other.

And when Germany decided to stand by its remaining, weak ally in 1914, far too late, it wasn't feared enough. Instead the club of the strong, fearsome, and relevant stuck together, and the German-Austrian club of lesser losers was overmatched.
Germany offered Britain an alliance historically around 1900, it was Britain would refused to ally with Germany. Russia's ultimate goals were incompatible with Germany as well, hence the three emperor's league falling apart, same with the Reinsurance Treaty. Plus Austria was really a loyal ally and Germany had good reason to think Russia was not.

At the time the latter fell apart Germany was trying to court Romania and Britain, so Russia's demands regarding the Balkans and Bosphorus made those goals and Russia's incompatible.

Ultimately the alliance situation shouldn't have been that big of a problem but for Britain resolving to defeat Germany ASAP after the Berlin-Baghdad Rail Road was started, since it would decisively undermine Britain's push to dominate the Middle East and with it oil, the resource of the future (as they had upgraded their navy to the much more efficient oil), effectively meant Germany was screwed. Already Britain and Germany had come to conflict over South Africa, which really is what undermined any potential they might have had to have an 'entente', which was driven by Britain and her ambitions to dominate certain shipping routes and resources.

Clark's "Sleepwalkers" and McMeekin's "Russian Origins of the First World War" really gets into the bullying Britain did and how they were pretty decisive in causing the war by supporting Russia's Balkan ambitions to cut off the German routes to the Middle East and break the forming alliance between the Ottomans and Germany.

I'd dispute that the Germans were destined to lose WW1; A-H was a serious problem (really only because of Conrad) and could have done much better in the war, which would have meant it was ended much sooner in the CP's favor, and H-L screwed up badly around the issue of unrestricted submarine warfare and the economy, though partly this was in hindsight and it is understandable why they made the mistakes they did even if others wouldn't have if they were in charge instead.
 
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Germany and Britian have had this sort of rivalry going on since at least the industrial revolution and it's still going on. Heck the white ethnonationalist movement (in my experience at least) seems to be boiled down to whether the US rightfully belongs to the Brits or the Germans. it's almost like the colonization rivalries never ended so much as they switched targets.

This to say, saying Germany lost world war I because they "sided with the wrong ally" is redundant as if they had sided with the "Right ally" there would have been no world war to begin with. history can be summed up as "Every failure we have committed has led us to this moment." As most catastrophes in human history are the result of a decades or even centuries long fuse finally blowing.
 
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Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
But Yeah, waging a war with both Britain and Russia as Germany's enemies was really stupid, especially if France was also Germany's enemy--and it was! And then bringing the US into the war on top of that! Granted, I understand that the Germans' situation at the end of 1916 was not exactly ideal without the benefit of hindsight, but still, relying on U-boats seems like a risky strategy, no? The kind of magical thinking that Germans previously thought could end the war in the West in six weeks if only they would invade Belgium and then execute a giant Cannae of the French forces in northeastern France! But that didn't work and ultimately USW didn't work either!

Ironically, Germany hasn't lost too much as a result of its defeat in both World Wars. It lost the lives of millions of its young men, true, but the former Soviet Union suffered much more and also currently Germany has a sphere of influence that rivals what it obtained at Brest-Litovsk in 1918. That's certainly a very enviable position for Germany to be in right now, frankly. One can say that Lenin really was Germany's most successful agent in history.

Actually, it lost way too much. One of reasons why Marxism is dominating the West are world wars. First World War made it almost a crime to be a monarchist (despite monarchs having opposed the war) and also created Communist Russia, while the Second World War exported Communism abroad from USSR and also helped spread Marxist ideas in the West, creating modern-day Progressivism.

Basically, two world wars destroyed the West.

Back on topic, main mistake of First World War was having a war in the first place. Regarding that, main mistake was a net of alliances: or rather, in abandonment of Bismarck's system of balance of power. Second mistake, related to the first one, was the Anglo-German naval race: essentially, Germany acted as if Britain was certain to be an enemy, and thus built a fleet it could not sustain due to massive Army requirements; yet one of reasons Britain became German enemy was the fact that German naval programme was seen as a threat to its security. Third mistake was in strategy itself. The original Schlieffen Plan basically sacrificed Eastern Prussia to quickly knock out France; but because Bismarck was dead, and because Russia mobilized more quickly than expected, German command was not willing to abandon Prussia (and maybe even Berlin) to Russians and shifted troops from the Western Front - troops that will have been crucial in the battle for Paris. And thus Germany had to fight a two-front protracted war it could not afford.

But yes, antagonizing Britain and Russia was a very bad idea. That being said, Austria-Hungary was an important ally, if nothing else then for the length of the border two countries shared. In fact, one of main reasons for Austria's relatively poor performance in the war (though that is sometimes overstated) is its long border (second reason was lack of prewar modernization of both economy and military, and third are idiots like Potiorek and Hotzendorf (though neither was as stupid as Italy's Cadorna).
 
Actually, it lost way too much. One of reasons why Marxism is dominating the West are world wars. First World War made it almost a crime to be a monarchist (despite monarchs having opposed the war) and also created Communist Russia, while the Second World War exported Communism abroad from USSR and also helped spread Marxist ideas in the West, creating modern-day Progressivism.

Basically, two world wars destroyed the West.

Back on topic, main mistake of First World War was having a war in the first place. Regarding that, main mistake was a net of alliances: or rather, in abandonment of Bismarck's system of balance of power. Second mistake, related to the first one, was the Anglo-German naval race: essentially, Germany acted as if Britain was certain to be an enemy, and thus built a fleet it could not sustain due to massive Army requirements; yet one of reasons Britain became German enemy was the fact that German naval programme was seen as a threat to its security. Third mistake was in strategy itself. The original Schlieffen Plan basically sacrificed Eastern Prussia to quickly knock out France; but because Bismarck was dead, and because Russia mobilized more quickly than expected, German command was not willing to abandon Prussia (and maybe even Berlin) to Russians and shifted troops from the Western Front - troops that will have been crucial in the battle for Paris. And thus Germany had to fight a two-front protracted war it could not afford.


even these aren't the roots though with France being crippled thanks to its revolution. (Which was an end result of years' worth of instability and social unrest which again was a result of some bad assumptions and decisions made early on) The British were the only major colonial powers left, and with those other countries saw opportunity in comes Germany stage right. With France off the picture Germany was always going to size itself up against Britain.
 
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WolfBear

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

The mid- and late 1870s were certainly better for Germany, no doubt. But 1905-1906 was still a good moment for Germany if the war could be concluded quickly. If it couldn't, then Germany's lack of access to Chilean nitratine could create very serious problems for it due to Germany's lack of ability to produce ammonia due to the lack of a Haber-Bosch process being developed and commercialized yet.
 

raharris1973

Well-known member
Already Britain and Germany had come to conflict over South Africa, which really is what undermined any potential they might have had to have an 'entente', which was driven by Britain and her ambitions to dominate certain shipping routes and resources.

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 continental coalition than Germany was.

Similarly, if the Middle East was the issue, why does Britain suck up to Russia, the more direct threat to Persia, the Persian Gulf and the straits?
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
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 continental coalition than Germany was.

Similarly, if the Middle East was the issue, why does Britain suck up to Russia, the more direct threat to Persia, the Persian Gulf and the straits?
Neither was as economically powerful as Germany even with the French Empire. Germany was rising and a lot stronger than Britain, so the British got uneasy; Russia far away, Germany is close. France is manageable.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Neither was as economically powerful as Germany even with the French Empire. Germany was rising and a lot stronger than Britain, so the British got uneasy; Russia far away, Germany is close. France is manageable.

Russia was relatively close to British India, though. But Yeah, Germany was much more industrialized than Russia was, especially per capita.
 

Chiron

Well-known member
Tirpitz strategy to fight a naval war was flawed from the start and no one pointed out his fleet would be better used to crush the Soviet Baltic Fleet and seize Saint Petersburg via amphibious landing.

Had this been done along with a decision to win in the East first, the Russians could have been knocked out of the war in 1915 to 16 timeframe. The Royal Navy would then be irrelevant to the war.

Also cargo submarines, render the entire blockade irrelevant and laugh.

The mid- and late 1870s were certainly better for Germany, no doubt. But 1905-1906 was still a good moment for Germany if the war could be concluded quickly. If it couldn't, then Germany's lack of access to Chilean nitratine could create very serious problems for it due to Germany's lack of ability to produce ammonia due to the lack of a Haber-Bosch process being developed and commercialized yet.

Nitrates are the easiest thing to get, just collect shit and piss and ferment it. Haber–Bosch process just was a more efficient and faster way of doing things than either the Frank–Caro process or Birkeland–Eyde process.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
Russia was relatively close to British India, though. But Yeah, Germany was much more industrialized than Russia was, especially per capita.
Power projection into India was virtually non-existent. They'd have had to go through Afghanistan, which as the British knew from experience wouldn't go well for the Russians. The bigger issue was about Persia, which they sort of resolved with the Anglo-Russian treaty. Besides even there modern historians blame Britain for ginning up a crisis that really didn't exist:

The end seemed to be to justify the occupation of more of Asia for Britain and Russia was largely a non-actor in the "Game" other than fearing Britain expansion.

The Great Game began on 12 January 1830, when Lord Ellenborough, the president of the Board of Control for India, tasked Lord William Bentinck, the governor-general, with establishing a new trade route to the Emirate of Bukhara.[2][3][7] Britain intended to gain control over the Emirate of Afghanistan and make it a protectorate, and to use the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire, the Khanate of Khiva, and the Emirate of Bukhara as buffer states blocking Russian expansion. This would protect India and also key British sea trade routes by stopping Russia from gaining a port on the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean.[2][3] Russia proposed Afghanistan as the neutral zone.[8] The results included the failed First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838, the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845, the Second Anglo-Sikh War of 1848, the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878, and the annexation of Kokand by Russia.
So yeah, the problem wasn't a Russian threat, it was British politicians justifying their aggressive behavior by blaming someone else. Basically a theme in British imperial history. The phrase "Perfidious Albion" didn't come out of nowhere and may go back as far as the 1200s!:
 

Scottty

Well-known member
Founder
The UK had a long-term policy of not allowing any single European kingdom or nation to become strong enough to dominate the entire continent. This would in itself have put Bismark's German Empire in their crosshairs from the moment it was established.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
The UK had a long-term policy of not allowing any single European kingdom or nation to become strong enough to dominate the entire continent. This would in itself have put Bismark's German Empire in their crosshairs from the moment it was established.
To a certain extent, "crosshairs" is true, but we must consider that Britain was warily looking at a lot of possible enemies. France, not Germany, was the historical foe. Rapprochement only became viable after the Fashoda incident was resolved without erupting into war, and only became effected after Edward came to the throne (he did a lot of personal diplomacy to create closer ties with France).

Russia, meanwhile, was actually seen as the major threat to Britain, for a lot of the 19th century.

Germany was viewed relatively favourably, compared to these two. This only shifted after Wilhelm II came to power, and most especially as of the later 1890s. (British public opinion, initially, was very warm towards him. He ruined that thoroughly.) Since Wilhelm's relationship with his uncle Edward was notoriously terrible, Edward's efforts to cozy up to France must be seen in light of his perception of Germany as a potential common enemy.

There was plenty of opportunity for Germany to make Britain into a friend and ally. This would cause Anglo-French and Anglo-Russian relations to go into deep freeze, rather than thawing out as in OTL. As a result, historiography would depict the "axis of France and Russia" as the dangerous power that threatened to become strong enough to dominate the entire continent. And alliance with Germany would be described as the logical choice for Britain, to counter this threat.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
Germany was viewed relatively favourably, compared to these two. This only shifted after Wilhelm II came to power, and most especially as of the later 1890s. (British public opinion, initially, was very warm towards him. He ruined that thoroughly.) Since Wilhelm's relationship with his uncle Edward was notoriously terrible, Edward's efforts to cozy up to France must be seen in light of his perception of Germany as a potential common enemy.
That's largely the excuse that British propaganda used to justify their increasingly hostile behavior towards Germany. See the book "Sleepwalkers". Germany was trying to be friendly to Britain it was Britain who pushed them away and targeted them since they were economically threatening. The fallout really started during the Boer Wars when the British power elite targeted the Boer Republic for annexation due to the diamond and gold mines of South Africa and desire to dominate the trade routes to Asia via the Mediterranean and South Africa. Germany made the mistake of making a play of being the protectors of the Boers and speaking up for their commercial interests in the region and were threatened with a blockade that would collapse their economy if they dared get in Britain's way. Immense amounts of money and resources were at stake and the British imperialists got very upset that the increasingly powerful Germany was getting in the way of their expansion plans.

The final straw for them was the Berlin-Baghdad RR, which incidentally started in the 1890s:

As you saw from my earlier post about the Great Game, the British had major designs on the Ottoman Empire and the RR and German-Ottoman relationship put the kibosh on that. Then there was the competition for control of ME oil resources that were suspected in the Ottoman Empire; Daniel Yergin's "The Prize" about the history of competition for oil in the 20th century is a fantastic resource for explaining part of the origins of conflicts throughout the century. Not only that but it would have given Germany a route around the Suez Canal and would break the British lock on trade routes to Asia, which is talked about in the article above.

Britain really hates not being able to be in control and saw Germany as slowly breaking down their dominance in the game of empire, which would only continue as the German economy developed and Britain's increasingly financialized economy started to fall further behind the main industrial power of Europe; Britain had the disadvantage of having industrialized first, so had an outdated industrial sector while Germany had industralized late, so had arguably the world's most innovative industrial sector and showing no signs of faltering in the increasing industrial gap between them. If economic development were an arms race Britain was losing rather badly, something that would go into overdrive if the Germans could develop the right non-European relationships and empire to export to.

British bankers and imperialists (one and the same really) realized their relative wealth was going to falloff in the future unless something drastic was done, which led to a rapid shift in British policy as quite a few of those guys were actually in parliament and had powerful friends like Grey, who engineered the British turn against Germany:
Grey later dated his first suspicions of future Anglo-German disagreements to his early days in office, after Germany had sought commercial concessions from Britain in the Ottoman Empire; in return they would promise support for a British position in Egypt. "It was the abrupt and rough peremptoriness of the German action that gave me an unpleasant impression"; not, he added, that the German position was at all "unreasonable," rather that the "method... was not that of a friend."[17] With hindsight, he argued in his autobiography, "the whole policy of the years from 1886 to 1904 [might] be criticized as having played into the hands of Germany."[18]
Incidentally his tenure as foreign secretary coincided with the start of the so-called naval race with Germany:
When Campbell-Bannerman formed a government in December 1905 Grey was appointed Foreign Secretary—the first Foreign Secretary to sit in the Commons since 1868. Haldane became Secretary of State for War. The party won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election.
....
In the event, Grey continued as Foreign Secretary, and held office for 11 years to the day, the longest continuous tenure in that office.

HMS Dreadnought was launched in February 1906, just 14 months after being approved.[7] Jane's Fighting Ships, an annual reference book on naval warships, noted that HMS Dreadnought was equivalent to two or three normal battleships.[2]
...
In the beginning of 1905, the German naval attache in Britain reported to Tirpitz that the British were planning a new class of battleship. That summer, Tirpitz consulted with his advisers; by autumn, he had decided that Germany would match the British naval building plan.
Note they said match, not exceed. They were just trying to keep up with British naval developments, which incidentally Britain seemingly had no problem with when France and Russia started doing the same thing.
...
Wilhelm and Tirpitz, among other German leaders, viewed British actions as working in concert with France and Russia to encircle Germany. Tirpitz believed that the British knew that they had made a mistake in building the expensive dreadnoughts and armored cruisers, and that they would realize their folly if Germany did not flinch in following them. German leaders had also become increasingly nervous about a 'Kopenhagen,' a British strike to disable their fleet like that conducted in the 1807 Battle of Copenhagen. In December 1904, during the heightened tensions of the Russo-Japanese War, rumors spread that Japan's ally Britain would attack and the German ambassador to Britain, who was in Berlin, had to reassure Wilhelm and other senior officials that Britain did not intend to start a war.
The reason they were worried about a 'Copenhagen' is because Britain actually threatened such during the 2nd Boer War and were planning on using their navy to blockade Germany since 1905, before the naval race actually even started:
From 1905 onward, Admiral John Fisher developed war plans for blockading the German coast; it became a central British strategy and was implemented in 1914.[8] In 1906, Fisher declared that Germany was the "only probable enemy" and that the Royal Navy should keep a force twice as powerful as Germany's navy within a few hours of Germany's shores.[9] Eyre Crowe of the British Foreign Office wrote a memorandum on 1 January 1907 to Foreign Secretary Edward Grey that became policy. In it, Crowe urged stalwart resistance to what he viewed as Germany's attempts at hegemony in Europe. He argued that German actions might be the result of a confused strategy, but that the intent was irrelevant to British national security.[2]
So British planners were the ones who decided that they needed to keep a massive lead over Germany, who they viewed as the 'only probably enemy' and the key instrument to fight them was maintaining a massive naval lead. They put the crosshairs on Germany despite acknowledging that German intent might be benign, but that was irrelevant to Britain war plans.

Meanwhile the Germans didn't even realize that they were playing into the hands of the British war faction:
In March 1908, Tirpitz got a fourth naval bill – the second supplementary bill – passed by the Reichstag. It increased the rate of new battleships from three to four per year for the next four years, before stabilizing at three per year. If implemented, Germany would have had 21 dreadnoughts in 1914. Tirpitz continued to assume that Britain would not be alarmed by the German naval buildup and assured Kaiser Wilhelm of the supplementary bill that "internationally and domestically it looks as small and harmless as possible."[2]
In August 1908, King Edward VII visited his nephew Wilhelm in Kronberg. He had been provided with a paper outlining British concerns but decided not to raise the issue of naval spending, as it might spoil the congenial mood. Wilhelm cheerfully commented to Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Charles Hardinge that he thought relations between Germany and Britain were quite good. Hardinge politely disagreed, stating that British concern at the German naval buildup would likely result in the Liberal government asking Parliament to expand British naval shipbuilding, resulting in a naval rivalry that would greatly increase tensions between the two countries. Wilhelm sharply replied that there was no reason for British concern and, that the German naval bill did not threaten the relative strengths of the two navies. No resolution was reached, and Wilhelm left the Kronberg meeting believing that he had convinced the British of the justness of Germany's position.[2]
So despite the German naval bill not changing the relative size of the two navies before the bill passed, Britain decided it was threatening anyway because it conflicted with their potential war plans against Germany.

Instead of reducing naval construction to free up money for social programs as planned the war faction in Britain instead used the German naval bill as a reason for even more military spending:
However, the Conservative opposition, the Navy League, and British arms industry advocated for the spending. In popular sentiment, they were joined by King Edward VII, who supported eight more dreadnoughts.[2] A Conservative MP coined the popular slogan 'We want eight and we won't wait!',[10]

As things got more tense the Germans were the ones who tried to ease the tensions, not Britain:
In 1912, German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg ended the naval arms race. His aim was to secure an understanding with the British to end the increasingly isolated position of Germany. Russian military expansion compelled the Germans to prioritise spending on their army and therefore less on the navy, a policy known as the Rüstungswende or ‘armaments turning point'.[11] The initiative led to the Haldane Mission in which Germany offered to accept British naval superiority in exchange for British neutrality in a war in which Germany could not be said to be the aggressor. The proposal was rejected, as Britain felt that it had nothing to gain by such a treaty since its naval superiority was secure, but the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey favoured a more assertive policy against Germany.[12]
And once again Grey shows up to push for increased tensions with Germany even as Germany was making an extremely reasonable offer.

So I'm not seeing where Germany could have avoided conflict or even allied with Britain, since every effort they made to play nice with Britain was rebuffed from at least 1900 onwards.

There was plenty of opportunity for Germany to make Britain into a friend and ally. This would cause Anglo-French and Anglo-Russian relations to go into deep freeze, rather than thawing out as in OTL. As a result, historiography would depict the "axis of France and Russia" as the dangerous power that threatened to become strong enough to dominate the entire continent. And alliance with Germany would be described as the logical choice for Britain, to counter this threat.
Nope. There was zero chance that the Germans could have allied or even remained friendly with Britain unless they completely submitted their foreign policy to British demands. They actively tried in the late 1897-1901 and Britain rebuffed them and shortly there after declared a naval arms race against Germany.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
That's largely the excuse that British propaganda used to justify their increasingly hostile behavior towards Germany. See the book "Sleepwalkers". Germany was trying to be friendly to Britain it was Britain who pushed them away and targeted them since they were economically threatening. The fallout really started during the Boer Wars when the British power elite targeted the Boer Republic for annexation due to the diamond and gold mines of South Africa and desire to dominate the trade routes to Asia via the Mediterranean and South Africa. Germany made the mistake of making a play of being the protectors of the Boers and speaking up for their commercial interests in the region and were threatened with a blockade that would collapse their economy if they dared get in Britain's way. Immense amounts of money and resources were at stake and the British imperialists got very upset that the increasingly powerful Germany was getting in the way of their expansion plans.

The final straw for them was the Berlin-Baghdad RR, which incidentally started in the 1890s:

As you saw from my earlier post about the Great Game, the British had major designs on the Ottoman Empire and the RR and German-Ottoman relationship put the kibosh on that. Then there was the competition for control of ME oil resources that were suspected in the Ottoman Empire; Daniel Yergin's "The Prize" about the history of competition for oil in the 20th century is a fantastic resource for explaining part of the origins of conflicts throughout the century. Not only that but it would have given Germany a route around the Suez Canal and would break the British lock on trade routes to Asia, which is talked about in the article above.

Britain really hates not being able to be in control and saw Germany as slowly breaking down their dominance in the game of empire, which would only continue as the German economy developed and Britain's increasingly financialized economy started to fall further behind the main industrial power of Europe; Britain had the disadvantage of having industrialized first, so had an outdated industrial sector while Germany had industralized late, so had arguably the world's most innovative industrial sector and showing no signs of faltering in the increasing industrial gap between them. If economic development were an arms race Britain was losing rather badly, something that would go into overdrive if the Germans could develop the right non-European relationships and empire to export to.

British bankers and imperialists (one and the same really) realized their relative wealth was going to falloff in the future unless something drastic was done, which led to a rapid shift in British policy as quite a few of those guys were actually in parliament and had powerful friends like Grey, who engineered the British turn against Germany:

Incidentally his tenure as foreign secretary coincided with the start of the so-called naval race with Germany:



...

Note they said match, not exceed. They were just trying to keep up with British naval developments, which incidentally Britain seemingly had no problem with when France and Russia started doing the same thing.
...

The reason they were worried about a 'Copenhagen' is because Britain actually threatened such during the 2nd Boer War and were planning on using their navy to blockade Germany since 1905, before the naval race actually even started:

So British planners were the ones who decided that they needed to keep a massive lead over Germany, who they viewed as the 'only probably enemy' and the key instrument to fight them was maintaining a massive naval lead. They put the crosshairs on Germany despite acknowledging that German intent might be benign, but that was irrelevant to Britain war plans.

Meanwhile the Germans didn't even realize that they were playing into the hands of the British war faction:


So despite the German naval bill not changing the relative size of the two navies before the bill passed, Britain decided it was threatening anyway because it conflicted with their potential war plans against Germany.

Instead of reducing naval construction to free up money for social programs as planned the war faction in Britain instead used the German naval bill as a reason for even more military spending:


As things got more tense the Germans were the ones who tried to ease the tensions, not Britain:

And once again Grey shows up to push for increased tensions with Germany even as Germany was making an extremely reasonable offer.

So I'm not seeing where Germany could have avoided conflict or even allied with Britain, since every effort they made to play nice with Britain was rebuffed from at least 1900 onwards.


Nope. There was zero chance that the Germans could have allied or even remained friendly with Britain unless they completely submitted their foreign policy to British demands. They actively tried in the late 1897-1901 and Britain rebuffed them and shortly there after declared a naval arms race against Germany.
Your entire post is extremely one-sided, to the point of becoming almost satirical. I understand that there is a correction underway regarding the "Germany wanted WAR!!!" narrative that has dominated for too long. Indeed, I was never a fan of putting the blame for the war altogether on Germany (either explicitly or explicitly). To make a point, one may even credibly compile a whole thesis serving exclusively to give evidence of Anglo-French war guilt.

This does not mean, however, that blithely leaning towards the "evil Anglo" narrative is any more reasonable than uncritically believing that Germany was evil.

Unfortunately, your post is precisely an example of that lamentable over-correction. You consequently cherry-pick examples, ascribe the wort motives to every British decision, but the most noble ones to every German decision, and utterly drop the context when it comes to many events and issues. The result is an utterly warped picture. A falsehood, woven together of highly selective truths mixed with extremely dubious interpretations.

To you, what Britain claims is, by default, "largely the excuse that British propaganda used to justify their increasingly hostile behavior". But what Germany says must be the truth. So when Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg ended the naval arms race, we must uncritically accept that this was an overture of peace. The fact that the German economy was stalling and Germany simply realised it couldn't afford to keep up the arms race is happily ignored. German claims must just be taken at face value, while British claims are always suspect. hat's a double standard, my friend.

Similarly, you happily take Wilhelm's words on the relative size of the navies as gospel truth, but ignore that on several other occasions, Wilhelm had explicitly said -- to Edward's face -- that he would one day have a navy to rival that of Britain.

In the same vein, you suggest that Britain was somehow disproportionally worrried about German naval ambitions, but the fact is: only Wilhelm explicitly made it a point that his navy was intended to rival the Royal Navy. France and Russia never gave such indications. The British worry wasn't unreasonable. Wilhelm clearly had designs, and they could well be dangerous ones. Nor was Britain somehow alone in reaching this conclusion.

You appear to absurdly blame Britain for being worried and angry about Germany making a play of being the protectors of the Boers. That's not an unreasonable response. Moreover, German interests in Southern Africa were quite recent, and were also purely a result of Wilhelm seeking his "place in the sun".

Which brings us to the centre point of this whole debate. @Scottty argued that Britain targeted Germany because Britain didn't want to allow a contental hegemon. I have disputed this. You... actually prove my point for me, albeit unintentionally. Because nothing you talk about is remotely related to continental hegemony.

Germany agressively sought to expand its naval power, with the (uniquely) explicit aim of rivaling Britain in particular. Germany sought colonies, where it had previously been a power aloof of that game, and in fact a respected mediator. Germany involved itself in the foreign affairs of other powers, with no excuse.

Were there Francophile elements in Britain? Certainly. Were there British politicians who were overly eager for war against Germany? Certainly. But were they fated to be a majority? Certainly not. Germany needlessly turned Britain into an enemy by a senseless sequence of poorly considered actions. Because did the British worry about the German army? No. Did they worry about Germany's continental ambitions? No.

Therefore, the thesis that I dispute -- that Britain was fated to be Germany's foe because Germany was looking for continental hegemony -- is simply false. Britain became Germany's foe because Germany took step after bloody step to make it so. All Germany would have to do to gain permanent peace was to spend all the OTL naval investments on the army; seek no colonies; and don't oppose British war aims in far-flung corners of the Earth that Germany shouldn't give a damn about anyway.

You call this, I suppose, "completely submitting their foreign policy to British demands". But what does this leave Germany free to do? Well... become continental hegemon. Which what Britain supposedly wouldn't ever allow. But clearly, that was never the reason for enmity at all.

Britain and Germany could easily be allies. One rules the waves, the other rules the land. One has the strongest army on the planet, the other has the strongest navy. They have their own spheres, and no conflicting interests at all. It makes perfect sense. The fundamental reason why it didn't happen isn't that Britain is exclusively dominated by scheming psychopaths. It's that Wilhelm II was obsessed with goals that did directly conflict with British interests. How foolish. How pointless. What did some stupid colonies ever provide for Germany? What did those damn ships ever gain the Kaiser? And what the fuck did the Boers ever do for the Germans?

In a world where Wilhelm was born stable and competent, the Germans and the English could have shaken hands, like Blücher and Wellington, while celebrating in a conquered Paris.

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