The idea that British participation in the Great War was a bad idea has also been mooted by Scottish economics professor Nial Ferguson in his book The Pity of War. One mentioned earlier on this thread that it would be interesting when the foriegn office and MOD files are released in 2018 but there is a some pretty solid evidence (see Winter Haig's Command and Gordon Rules of the Game) that large quantities of WW1 documents were purposely destroyed in the twenties. Ferguson also discovered that, as early as 1912 the British War Office in the event of war with Germany, planned to invade Belgium if the latter refused to grant free passage to British arms. Assuming the the Germans knew this already, then Bethmann's surprise at Grey's speech is really justified.
Any of this sound familier? Also there is evidence that elements of the Belgian General Staff had conducted secret official talks with their British counterparts in violation of the multi-national neutrality treaty. If accurate, it places much of what "moscowexile" writes on pretty firm ground.
Putting a modern perspective on the Great War, Serbia of the day was a defacto terrorist state, ruled by a regicide royal house with a very aggressive military that often operated outside of national juristiction. Twice in the preceding years they had had wars of conquest (both Balkan wars 1912-13) and they supported and exported terrorists and assassins to their nieghbour, Austria-Hungry. That British political spin turned them into poor innocent victims of Austrian aggression is a pretty good indicator of how much Britain wanted to prevent German domination of continental Europe.
English language accounts of WW1 tend to portray the Kaiser as some sort of proto-Hitler and of course German militerism is constantly played up as a factor. None of this survives close scrutiny, though: Wilhelm was a constitutional monarch and may have been many things but never a ruthless dictator totally lacking in morals. Likewise in 1914 France spent more on her military in relative and per capita terms than Germany and actually had a larger peace time army. So who was really more militerized? Britain's per capita defence spending was almost as great as that of Germany and when the Empire is included, total defence spending was greater in absolute terms.
The Great War has been called the greatest tragedy of the 20th Century, so many of the international issues effecting us today can be traced directly to 1914-18. It is a facinating subject, even though it has drifted so far off topic. Hope the mods don't shut it down.
Good Hunting
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