Actually, it was Wilhelm that caused the war to go the way it did, by abonding KreuzerKreig and trying for naval parity with GB. We are conditioned to think of GB as an enemy of Germany but up until WWI, it wasn’t so- in fact, GB had been long term historical enemies with France and just recently Russia. And, the Kaiser was a close relative of the King, too.
If Wilhelm hadn’t frightened GB by trying for Naval parity/supremacy, GB might have stayed neutral in WWI. This would have changed things a LOT.
That would be none at all. By far the most significant military operation of the Empire before WW1 was the contribution to the intervention against the Boxer Rebellion. There were also smaller uprisings in the African colonies, but no full-scale wars. You were probably thinking of the Wars of Unification (German-Danish War, German War of 1866 and Franco-Prussian War) up to the creation of the Empire.
Interesting that many of you agree that war could not be avoided because it was wanted.
Historian John Keegan wrote an introduction to his Second World War called “Every Man a Soldier”, excerpted and, if I’m not mistaken, paraphrased a bit here.
Short version: Keegan agrees that war was wanted, but even more than that, the newfound military power was intoxicating to governments and created dangerous illusions.
Keegan emphasized that demographic changes brought on by better public health and improved farming had given Europe unprecedented numbers of healthy young men, and coupled with industrial wealth to arm them and railroads to move them, nations were suddenly possessed of a seemingly invincible military force. The temptation to use it to settle, once and for all, Europe’s old grievances, must have been enormous.
The problem was, of course, that everyone else had this bumper crop of soldiers, too. Flooded with arms and preserved food and working mass transportation, Europe was a tinderbox. Collision was all but inevitable. No one understood what the consequences would be.
Well, it won all of those, too (assuming you mean the German-Danish of 1849-50, although Prussia were forced to pull out by threats from Russia and Austria).
I don’t think it’s true to say that Germany was Britain’s friend prior to the 1902 Navy Act (an intiative started by the Chancellor of the period, Von Bulow, BTW). Certainly, after WWI Llloyd George said “Now we can go back to hating the French and making deals with the Germans”, but France hadn’t been Britain’s enemy since 1815. They’d co-operated with them in the Crimean War and against the Boxers, as well as making a rough agreement with Britain to try and freeze Germany out of the Empire game in the late 1880’s. In contrast, Britain had been pretty suspicious of Germany (already by 1900 the greatest continental European power) since unification in 1871.
When I refered to it as futile, it was in the fact that they prepared for a stagnent war as much of WWI was. Air power and quick moving partially mechanized armies made those types of plans moot.
I still suspect had the French not mistaken the the Ardennes as impassible by armour and had, in fact, finished the fortifications, the Germans would still have found a way to breech and exploit the defenses rather quickly.
Though no one can say with absolute certainty it is likely the defenses would have fallen the same as the siegfried line and many forts that were built within German cities and Italy.
I think he mean that trhere was no German Empire at atht time. You can Talk about Prussian victories, but not German.
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I don’t think it’s true to say that Germany was Britain’s friend prior to the 1902 Navy Act (an intiative started by the Chancellor of the period, Von Bulow, BTW). Certainly, after WWI Llloyd George said “Now we can go back to hating the French and making deals with the Germans”, but France hadn’t been Britain’s enemy since 1815.
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ermany and England shared ties in their Royalty (Whilhelm was Victoria’s Nephew) and There was the alliance between Prussia and England that had originated with the Napoleonic Wars. England had no problems with German Unification as it acted as a bullwork against any further French expansionism. Bismark tried to maintain, through alliances, French isolation on the continent which suited the English quite well.
It wasn’t until Germany began venturing into Colonization and Veltpolitik that England began to grow alarmed.
The French English alliance was not tight even though over 100 years old teh Napoleonic wars had left a deep scar in European relations. France was kept contained until the Entente Cordial but even then that was a shakey alliance that threatened to break on several occasions. It wasn’t solidified until the actual outbreak of war.
It is clear that german naval expansion frightened great britain. however, GB was never threatened by the small number of german colonies-most of what the germans got was pretty worthless. I’m even more puzzled by the kaiser’s fear of france-germany was leading europe in technology, and waht would the conquest of France have meant? The coalfields of Lorraine? Suppose the kaiser (in 19150 told cousin George the following: “see here cousin george-this war has killed far too many of my army…let’s make a pact to disengage-we withdraw back to the pre-war borders, and set up a joint committtee to repair the damage”. Or was this never going to happen?
Wilhelm was Victoria’s grandson. Her eldest grandchild, in fact. His mother was her oldest child, the Princess Royal.
But that didn’t mean anything-Wilhelm was NOT very popular with his relatives. The King of Great Britain was also the first cousin of the Tsar on his mother’s side, and the Tsarina on his father’s, but that didn’t mean anything when the Imperial family had a chance to escape to England-George was too frightened of the reaction of the people, supposedly.
Just because the royals were all related didn’t make them allies. Nicholas and Alexandra were both related to Wilhelm and neither of them could stand him. Alix’s own sister was married to Wilhelm’s brother Henry, and her own brother was a German Grand Duke (of Hesse), but they were still enemies, officially during the War.
Never going to happen for all the reasons previously listed in the thread. I think you are putting too much into the fact that the Kaiser was cousin to the English monarchy. Once the shooting started the thing was going to play itself out until one side or the other folded. As it turned out BOTH sides very nearly folded…they were all on the verge of collapse near the end, it was just the Germans who collapsed first (or second I guess…the Russians folded their hand a bit before).
What I always wonder is…what would have happened if Germany had somehow managed to keep the US completely neutral…i.e. not only did we not enter the war as a combatant but we also stopped shipping anything to ANY of the combatants for the duration.
How come the Kaiser was allowed to retire to Holland? Since he did precipitate the war(and kept it going, long after there was any hope of “victory”), he jsut abdicates and shuffles off to a palace in Doorn? Why didn’t they put him on trial? At least it would have aswered some questions, and exposed the rotten underbody of those all-entangling alliances. heck, the german people might have gotten to know how they were mislead, instead of falling for that “stabbed in the back by the jews/socialists/communists, etc.” lies?
Not sure…probably the same reason they didn’t put Napoleon on trial or shoot him. He was royalty after all…and family too I suppose. It was enough that he was out of power.
Actually I meant the one in 1864. I forgot that qualifier because “German-Danish War” usually refers only to that one in German. The other one is known as the war of Schleswig-Holstein.
My point was simply that there were no wars after the Franco-Prussian War but several before. Actually the gap between the end of the Franco-Prussian War and WW1 was remarkably long by German standards.
Article 277 of the Treaty of Versailles (full text here) included provisions for trying him, but the Dutch government never extradited him, making this point moot.
Ah, sorry, I have only studied German history from the British perspective ;).
As to Germany’s intervention, I think it made remarkably little difference in the long run. American aid to Britain was useful, but hardly significant; Britain’s (and France’s) economy was still far from collapse in 1918, while it was ultimately German economic woes (caused chiefly by the British blockade) that caused the 1918 revolution and forced the armistice, not military defeat (although that happened as well). I would say that although Germany might have held out slightly longer, ultimately American intervention did relatively little to impact the outcome of the war.
I think American intervention won the war for the Allies. Not because of our military aid so much as the morale changes caused by American intervention. England and france were about on the same edge of exhaustion that Germany was, but American intervention made Germany just give up.
I wonder what it was like for the poor soldiers of 1918-who probably knew that negotiations were going on. What was the point of sacrificing your life in another useless attack across “no mans land”? I understand that the german draftees by 1918 were pretty unwilling to fight-maybe tha war would have ended when all the soldiers just would give up.
Hell, I wonder what it was like for those poor bastards asked to charge across several hundred yards of cratered landscape into machine gun and rifle fire…knowing that these attacks almost always fail, and knowing that the odds of making it are pretty slim.
My grandfather (my mothers father) was an officer in WWI and told me tales of how the Euro’s would charge the trench lines, all weighed down with packs and such…it sounded completely horrific. He said most Americans took one look at that stupidity and revised their tactics on the spot (no idea if this is true…might just be wishful thinking after the fact).
I assume you meant America’s intervention here.
I suppose its a matter of perspective. The way I learned history was that the US had a significant impact on the rapid conclusion of WWI…that all sides were pretty much spent and that us coming in fresh made a big difference, not just in terms of numbers or troop strength but in terms of our morale (which hadn’t been shattered by years of trench warfare). YMMV…I think its an open question as to how much or how little impact the US had. Personally I think it was stupid for us to have gotten involved at all…it was your fight, not ours.
I simply don’t think is backed up by the historical record. Germany wasn’t giving up because of the morale factor- they were giving up because they were starving and unpaid (and that goes for the troops on the front as well as the civillians- apparently German soldiers were so astonished at the quanity and quality of food available in the Entente food depots they captured during the Ludendorff offensive that they stopped to gorge rather than continuing the assault). Plus consider that, despite the military exhaustion of the army, it was ultimately the surrender on the home front (begun by a series of naval mutinies, as a matter of fact, which you wouldn’t have thought the Americans would have much effect on, given the relatively small contribution they made to the British fleet.) In strategic terms, the influx of American troops (the majority of whom were, in all fairness, poorly trained and experienced in comparison to the European veterans) meant little- the French and British had been throwing troops at the German defences since 1914, and gained scarcely any territory.
In a sense you might be right that American intervention was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and caused the armistice to occur in November, 1918- but, while I’m not demeaning the efforts or contribution of American soldiers, the Allies already had military superiority before the influx of American troops. American non-intervention might have prolonged the war, but could not have changed its result.
Well, apparently when the Americans first arrived they adopted the “charge across no-man’s-land” tactics that the Entente had by then abandoned due to bloodbaths like the Somme… and the British and French commanders were astonished when the demoralised German infantry broke before tactics that would have, pre-1917, had them reaching for the machine guns and laughing.
:smack: Yes, America.
Look, I’m not saying that American intervention didn’t shorten the war; obviously it did, significantly. But it didn’t actually determine the victory of the Entente, which was pretty much an inevitabilty, perhaps from as early a time as 1915 (German overextension and entrenchment meant they couldn’t advance, forcing an economic contest which Germany was certain to loose before the combined economic and industrial muscle of France and Britain).
Well, that depends whether you consider unrestrained submarine warfare to be a legitimate tactic against a neutral (although admittedly involved, economically) country during wartime. Or, for that matter, Germany attempting to get Mexico to invade America from the south (wiki or google “Zimmerman Telepgraph”).