Should England have stayed out of WW1? A very good discussion, english, of course :)

[Catfish]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqO5CnnKLtA

Just listened to this to and fro, good arguments both sides, and very fair – of course, since it takes place in England (and no joke meant at all here).

Having read some books i heard again being spoken of in those speeches, i really enjoyed this. IMHO it is well worth the time :cool:

[Betonov]

YES !!!

Why, Slovenia was a part of central powers :O:
And a German victory would prevent the rise of hitler and stalin

[MGR1]

Plenty of pros and cons each way, but there is something of a consensus that Britain :03:(and Empire) should have stayed out of it.

The war may well have been over by Christmas if we had elected not to get involved.

The Middle East probably wouldn't be in such a mess either.

Although if WW1 and WW2 did have a benefit is that they eliminated Prussian militarism and the power of the Junker aristocracy, to Germany's long term benefit.

If Wilhelm II hadn't been a breech birth, history could have been quite different.:hmmm:

Mike.

[Catfish]

Hello,
thanks for your opinions, but i really urge you to listen to what the speakers have to say (sorry if you did, i just thought you did not ;) )
:)

[Betonov]

Hello,
thanks for your opinions, but i really urge you to listen to what the speakers have to say (sorry if you did, i just thought you did not ;) )
:)

Speakers ??? :hmmm:

I think you may have forgot to link a link

[MGR1]

Hello,
thanks for your opinions, but i really urge you to listen to what the speakers have to say (sorry if you did, i just thought you did not ;) )
:)

There were two programmes on BBC Two back in June presented by Professor Niall Ferguson and Max Hastings that covered the same subject:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01nl00x

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03wtmz6

There aren't any links in your first post, but are either of those the programme you were referring to?

Mike.

[Catfish]

Sorry, i forgot the link :oops: – fixed now :)

[THEBERBSTER]

The answer to your question is absolutely no.

There are a number of reasons why.

The Kaiser had imperial ambitions that threatened the British Empire at the time especially India which was England’s jewel in the crown.

The Kaiser was related through Queen Victoria to England’s royalty and resented what we had and what he did not have.

He also had total control of the armed forces and the people as in his position as ‘the Kaiser’ he was looked on as a God, a chosen person.

His orders were carried out without question.

Germany started building up its navy in the early 1900’s by building its might in the Dreadnaught’s as England at the time had the most powerful navy in the world.

If we had not supported the French, the German armies would have over-run Europe and with France falling as it would have done along with Belgium the Netherlands etc, England would then stand totally alone with its territories now wide open for invasion.

So if we had not gone to war with Germany with French support in 1914 then we would undoubtedly been forced into war with a stronger Germany at a later date.

There was only one option at the time, sooner rather than later.

Peter

[ikalugin]

YES !!!

Why, Slovenia was a part of central powers :O:
And a German victory would prevent the rise of hitler and stalin
Or a Russian victory for that matter.

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi Tribesman

We are talking about 1914.

Britain decides not to support France

Even though popular thinking is if we do it will all be over by Christmas.

France is alone there are no British forces on the continent.

Could France hold on its own?

The Germans nearly got to Paris even with us in France.

As it happened we did get involved and send troops.

The British high command had never fought what is termed ‘modern warfare’ and are inflexible to change things in the middle of battle when their plans were not working unlike the Germans.

There were 10s of thousands of needless deaths because of that and opportunities lost.

We only had a small professional army compared to the Germans.

The Germans were better prepared and better armed.

We still had the attitude of, “You can’t do that old boy, that’s not cricket”.

When you capture countries you get the resources and the manufacturing capabilities as well as the opportunity to take their assets.

The Germans would not have ended up with a starving population.

The Germans would have continued to have got stronger and stronger if we had stayed out and at some point they would have been able to have taken on the Royal Navy.

If France had fallen they would have had their naval ships as well.

We would not have been able to defend ourselves standing alone with Germany ruling Europe.

Russia as we know capitulated later on as they were in turmoil with the revolution and before that were poorly led even though they had overwhelming numbers.

America was not interested in activities happening thousands of miles away.

The Germans biggest mistake was opening up the U-boat war which was one of the reasons that brought America in to the war.

The Kaiser wanted a large Empire.

England had one.

Peter

[Jimbuna]

The Kaiser had imperial ambitions that threatened the British Empire at the time especially India which was England’s jewel in the crown.

Germany started building up its navy in the early 1900’s by building its might in the Dreadnaught’s as England at the time had the most powerful navy in the world.



I agree that Britain was pushed into a position of having little or no choice, mainly because but not solely on the above points and whilst accepting that hindsight is a wonder to behold it must have appeared to the British government at the time that Britain had potentially more to lose than the other belligerents.

Once the lid on the European pressure cooker was removed Britain had little choice other than to protect her interests as was the position for so many other countries.

[Dread Knot]

For better or worse, Britain, in 1914, was doing what she had been doing since the days of Elizabeth I, namely throwing her weight in on the side of the "balance of power" so that any ambitious state which looked like it was bringing all Europe under its sway should be cut down to size and made to reconcile itself to just being one power among several. In the event it certainly didn't work out the way it had done on previous occasions, but it's not at all obvious how any government could have forseen that, or done much about it even if they had. Going to war meant the end of British power in the long run, but in the eyes of the men in power at the time, standing aside while Germany possibly gained hegemony over Europe would probably have meant the same thing in the short run.

It's interesting to consider the knock-on effects had Britain stayed on the sidelines. While there is no guarantee that the Central Powers win, with no British distant naval blockade on trade and foodstuffs their staying power would have been substantially enhanced and the threat of food riots and revolution recedes. Without the British in, would would Italy have joined the Central Powers? Without the threat of conscription would the Irish Uprising of 1916 been delayed? Would Indian independence have had to wait another generation? Would the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans have succeeded without British assistance? I think without British involvement, the possibility of American involvement goes by the wayside too. Especially if Germany has to no need to conduct intensive U-Boat warfare. The "American Century" would have to wait, depending not on wars but on markets.

Possibly, British non-involvement in the world wars would have given the Empire two or three extra decades to flourish at the most. Any more and they'd face a subcontinent-wide uprising they couldn't defeat. With India gone, it's only a matter of time before most of the rest of the Empire followed.

It's interesting to think of the ponderous literary and cultural benefits of staying out too. How many potential great english authors, artists and poets died unknown in the mud and wire of Passchendaele and Thiepval? On the other hand, there might be a Hemingway, but No Farewell to Arms. There might be a Tolkien, but no Lord of the Rings.

[Betonov]

Or a Russian victory for that matter.

A quick Russian victory or a quick defeat would have saved the Romanovs. Revolution was inevitable but perhaps it would have been more of a sudden shift to a constitutional monarchy than a full blown rebellion and civil war.

Dragging the war on would have brought in the same results, victory or defeat.



Let's not forget this was 1914 Germany. Ruthless as they were, their goal was not a conquest of Europe. Germany was just upholding their end of the deal in being an ally to Austria-Hungary and Wilhelm II even urged the Russian Tzar to forgo Serbia to prevent a war with Russia and consequently France.

In case France lost the war they'd loose colonies, no occupation, no concentration camps, no Hohenzoller eagle across the continent

[MGR1]

A quick Russian victory or a quick defeat would have saved the Romanovs. Revolution was inevitable but perhaps it would have been more of a sudden shift to a constitutional monarchy than a full blown rebellion and civil war.

A constitutional monarchy in Russia would have required another Tsar.

Nicholas II appears to have been psychologically incapable of accepting any limit on his power. His belief in his divine right to rule was as strong as any medieval monarch.

His inability to compromise doomed him and his dynasty.

In the same way, proper modernisation of the Dual Monarchy would have to have waited until Franz Joseph popped his clogs. Once that happened, history being different, Franz Ferdinand's proposals may have had a chance of working, assuming Karl became monarch and had time to implement it. But that would have required a short, victorious war against Serbia. Since the KuK Wehrmacht made heavy weather of their attack in the real world, I have my doubts if that would have occurred. Getting rid of von Hötzendorf and his monumental ego may have helped, but I think the basic War Plan used was faulty.:hmmm:

Mike.

[Betonov]

A constitutional monarchy in Russia would have required another Tsar.

Nicholas II appears to have been psychologically incapable of accepting any limit on his power. His belief in his divine right to rule was as strong as any medieval monarch.

His inability to compromise doomed him and his dynasty.



If the entire aristocratic class in Russia would slowly star to feel the heat, the the Tzar would have been forced from the inside of the elite to do some changes. Even medieval monarchs were forced by their own direct vasals to relegate some power.
The war just made the revolution more explosive and more lower class oriented (for lack of a better phrase)



In the same way, proper modernisation of the Dual Monarchy would have to have waited until Franz Joseph popped his clogs. Once that happened, history being different, Franz Ferdinand's proposals may have had a chance of working, assuming Karl became monarch and had time to implement it. But that would have required a short, victorious war against Serbia. Since the KuK Wehrmacht made heavy weather of their attack in the real world, I have my doubts if that would have occurred. Getting rid of von Hötzendorf and his monumental ego may have helped, but I think the basic War Plan used was faulty.:hmmm:


Yes.
Franz Ferdinand was a polar opposite of Franz Joseph.
He was a pacifist and would have tried to work out a diplomatic way to punish Serbia, since Serbia already wanted to pay some sort of reparations to prevent an all out war.
Unfortunately Franz Joseph was probably already half demented and lived in the glorious old times when war was a gentlemens game and not a slaughterhouse of a generation.
Plus Franz Ferdinand had a plan to relieve internal tension to give slavs, Czheks and Slovaks the same status inside the dual monarchy as the Hungarians, turning it into a federation of states ruled by the Habsburgs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Greater_Austria

It's a shame this mess happened. There's should be an age limit for emperors.

[Catfish]

Just lost two pages of text i had typed, as an answer to The Rebster and others.

I'm out :dead: :/\\!!:/\\!!

[THEBERBSTER]

So why was there a war in 1914?

The Serbians capitulated to all the outlandish demands by the Austrians.

These demands originated in Germany and Austria was pressurised in to delivering them.

Countries call on other countries for support as the French had with England.

Once troops start to mobilize logic and reasoning seem to go out the window and governments then lose control to the military.

The Kaiser wanted a war and he got one.

[Betonov]

So why was there a war in 1914?

The Serbians capitulated to all the outlandish demands by the Austrians.

These demands originated in Germany and Austria was pressurised in to delivering them.



No.

Austria went head long in a foolish desire to claim Serb lands, ill prepared and overconfident the Germans will keep the Russians at bay.

Austria started it, Russians did what they promised to the Serbs, France did what they promised to the Russians, Britain joined it because they supported the French and suddenly the Germans were dragged into a war on two fronts and being blamed for it all, just because they had the misfortune of being allied to a loose cannon.

[Dread Knot]

and suddenly the Germans were dragged into a war on two fronts and being blamed for it all, just because they had the misfortune of being allied to a loose cannon.

"Fettered to a corpse" seems to have been the favorite colloquialism from the German High Command.

[Betonov]

"Fettered to a corpse" seems to have been the favorite colloquialism from the German High Command.

prisoners of national pride shackled together by treaty obligations

[Bilge_Rat]

interesting topic.

What would have happened if England stayed out? Dreadknot covered some of the points, but England includes the British Empire (25% of the world at that time), including Canada, Australia, India, vast manpower, resources and the Royal Navy. So at a minimum:

1. no blockade of germany, they are free to import all the food, raw materials they need;

2. probably no U.S. intervention, without the U-Boat campaign and with the British neutral, it is unlikely the U.S.A. would get involved;

3. Germany wins WW1. Probably not in 1914, but the French needed British manpower and resources. Even with British help, the French Army was close to collapse in 1917. Without the British, the Germans could have accelerated their basic plan: go defensive on the Western Front, Knock Russia out of the war and then concentrate on beating France. They could have won by 1916 or 1917.

After that, who knows?

4. based on the treaty of Frankfurt (1871) and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918), any peace treaty would have been punitive and just setup conditions for the next war;

5. Russian Revolution? it was already an accident in oct. 1917, more a coup than a revolution. It might never have happened.

6. Rise of Nazism? with the Kaiser still in power and no Communist Russia, its doubtful Hitler would ever be more than an obscure painter.

but then, we will never know what might have been.

[ikalugin]

I think it is important to remember that there were 2 revolutions that killed the Russian Empire. First one was by the Russian Empire elites, where everyone found Nicholas the 2nd just plainly inconvenient and scrapped him. Only then did the Bolsheviks come.

That said a successful operation onto the German strategic depth was possible (provided Russian Empire was to form cav armies, such as the ones used in the Civil war, all the pre requisites existed), as was the defense of forward fortifications (such as Warsaw Fortified Region, it was abandoned too quickly).

This is all alternative history material though :)

[Bilge_Rat]

Embargo. Resricts imports without blockade.
Britain had the trump card there due to its dominance of maritime trade


True, but if Britain is neutral, why restrict trade with Germany?

Germany pushed for a peace treaty before 1917, they knew they were buggered and close to collapse in 1916 just like they knew they were buggered by the second week of September in 1914.

True, but that was when Britain was a belligerent. In WW1, Germany was still able to mount the 1918 spring offensive, even after 4 years of war. Without Britain, its a whole other ball game.

[ikalugin]

True, but if Britain is neutral, why restrict trade with Germany?

True, but that was when Britain was a belligerent. In WW1, Germany was still able to mount the 1918 spring offensive, even after 4 years of war. Without Britain, its a whole other ball game.
Considering that Germans lacked break through exploitation forces (and capability to sustain offensive in depth) it is not. Closest you get to those are the Cav armies of Russian Civil War (used by both sides), but those would probably have sustainability issues if used against an industrial adversary.

[STEED]

We should have stayed out.

[Betonov]

I think it is important to remember that there were 2 revolutions that killed the Russian Empire. First one was by the Russian Empire elites, where everyone found Nicholas the 2nd just plainly inconvenient and scrapped him. Only then did the Bolsheviks come.



And they came with a ''special train'' organized by the Germans.
If the Russians would have lost/won before that, then Lenin would haven't found a way out of Switzerland.
Russia would either have a new Tzar or a less autocratic government.

[Wolferz]

Britain should have stayed out of it so America wouldn't have been dragged into it. England has displayed a bad habit of doing that. All for the sake of maintaining a crumbling empire. You opened the door for us to become the dominant empire and burned your bridge behind you.

Maybe I'm totally out in left field on this but, I've always known that wars aren't about who wins. They're about who's left.

[Oberon]

Eh, what the heck, I'll throw my tuppence in. Wasn't going to, but I will now.

It was inevitable that Britain would wind up at war with Germany or one of the major European powers before the 20th century was done.
We were an empire at near the peak of our power (I believe in regards to land mass and finance we actually peaked in 1920, of all times) and our foreign affairs showed that. Germany was an up and coming empire with an industrial and military base to rival ours, France was militarily powerful but we had already crushed it once back in the early 19th century and her navy was little match for ours...but Germany, Germany was a threat to our prestige, our dominant power.
Ask anyone who has played Victoria II, and they will tell you that left alone Germany becomes a real powerhouse by the 1920s and will run up the leaderboard like a rat up a drainpipe.
If you put two large superpowers that close to each other, they will come to blows in some shape or form, be it through economical warfare (still in its infancy back then) or through direct open warfare, and thus the stage was set. You add to that the complex interlocking treaties of the time and when the dominoes start falling its almost impossible to stop them.
Ultimately it was the Treaty of London, signed in 1839 that would be the direct method of Britains entry into the war, but I think that even if Germany had not invaded Belgium we would have entered somehow, probably through a naval skirmish in the North Sea or perhaps something like how the Ottoman Empire wound up in the war. :hmmm: