[QUOTE=MichaelQReilly]
More specifically, why did they get so involved in the land war? England’s strategy, since Napoleonic times, had been to let its European allies do most of the land fighting while they maintained naval superiority. Yet in WWI, they threw this away and got deeply involved in the land war.
Furthermore, why jump into the war at all?
[/QUOTE]
One of the things about late 19th century diplomacy was the prevalance of alliances to stave off war.
As more and more money and material was built up in larger armies and navies, and as the weapons systems themselves become more deadly, nations can’t, or dont want, to face an equally powerful opponent alone.
So, Great Britain had to honor it’s treaty commitments, if it ever wants to be able to enter any mutual defense pacts again in the future. (If it dishonored itself by not coming into a war, say allied with France against Italy, France may seek revenge sometime in the future by hammering together an alliance with the purpose of bringing revenge or ruin to Britain.)
That’s one reason.
Another is that Britain could not afford to have the Continent dominated by a single power. With Kaiser Wilhelm being such an over-the-top bombast, Great Britain could never be sure of friendly intentions from Germany. The language written into Germany’s Naval Law of 1898 was clearly directed towards Great Britain.
Germany had defeated France once in 1870, and looked like it could credibly do so again. If the Channel becomes a base for German subs, minelayers, and such, Great Britain could be in some serious doo-doo. Also, The distance from Dover to Calaise is much shorter than the distance from Dover to Wilhelmshaven. This equates to less of a reaction time for the British battle fleet to repel a potential invasion, compared to one that had to sail from Germany.
There is, and never was, no such thing as a single wonder weapon system, that all on it’s own, wins wars.
In the 1890’s, battleships typically mounted 4 of the best naval guns in service, along with a host of smaller weapons for dealing with smaller ships. (The rate of fire of the largest guns was 1 or 2 rounds a minute. The rate of fire of a 4 or 5 inch weapon, was 1 round every 4 or 5 seconds.)
Moored mines (called torpedoes in the American Civil War) have always been a threat to ships, but typically, they were only found around enemy bases and such. Bigger guns were developed to shell enemy forts and harbor from further out to sea. (In an attempt to avoid the dangers of running through minefields.) Minefields are expensive in both money and manpower to put in place, and to maintain over a prolonged period of time, so large minefields are not found in peacetime, and large stocks of mines typically do not get funded by penny pinching politicians. Mines don’t move, so they are limited to defense anyway.
Self propelled torpedoes, on the other hand, have a more serious potential for offensive use. The first torps were very short ranged, and they had guidance bugs to work out. But as time (and the industrial revolution) wore on, torps became better in every way. (That is, range, accuracy, speed, warhead.)
The all big gun dreadnought was in responce to the perceived need to push the battle range (and the battleship) out further and further from enemy torps (and the enemy battle line). Long range gunfire (in the age before radar and computers) requires accurate plotting of the enemy’s speed and course, and the spotting of your own shellfire (for corrections). It is easier to see a whole bunch of splashes than a single shell splash, from a distance of 10000 yards. (5 miles) Also, at this range, the smaller caliber weapons (5 inch and under) are much less effective (they lose a bit of their energy faster than a heavier shell). So it made sence to do away with the useless intermediate battery in favor of more of the heaviest guns you can ship, which simplifies salvo spotting and fire solution calculations.
Battleships were not failures if viewed as one weapon system (albiet an expensive one) in the whole arsenal of strategic naval warfare.
Assuming seapower is needed (as it would be when fighting Britain), a smaller nation has to resort to commerce warfare. Surface raiders, Auxiliary warships (including merchant ships converted to wartime use/surface raiding, and posibly flying false flags), subs, mines. If you can make the war expensive enough (and assuming that the stakes for Britain aren’t high enough), you may convince Britain to come to the peacetalks with reasonable terms, like the USA did in the War of 1812.
