A First: New book about WW1 subs (but ...

[horsa]

Guys, why not read a few more books/articles about the origins of WW1 before you jump to any conclusions. Get a more balanced picture. Clay Blair's book is only one point of view.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Catfish
Hello,
It was France that had declared war to Germany, because of the Russian declaration of war towards Austro-Hungary. After the Austro-hungarian declaration of war against Serbia, Russia instantly declared war to Austro-Hungary, and thus to Germany, having treaties to help in case of war.


Catfish

I don't know how you've ended up with this. Who actually declared war on who is not usually a matter of historical interpretation.
It was Germany who declared war on Russia on August 1st and then later on Aug 3rd declared war on France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I ( but choose your own source if you think this is history written by the victors)

[Catfish]

Hello,
i will still have to translate parts of the abstract and conclusion, i will at least have to at the aerodrome forum.
While some history probably is written by the "winner", reading some history books certainly helps . I do not write here how it really was - i am neither able nor in any position to do that. It is simply that this book and its quotations made me re-think about what i thought i knew.

Horsa, you are certainly right in that Germany declared war to Russia. However since Germany had an assistance treaty (or alliance? attack faction? is this the right word?) with Austro-Hungary it must have been clear for Russia, after declaring war to Austro-Hungary, it then would have to deal with both signers of that treaty. As well Austro-Hungary cannot have been too surprised Russia did not take their declaration of war towards Serbia without a reaction. And there can be no doubt that Austro-Hungary used the assassination in Sarajevo as a welcomed "occasion", or better pretext, to declare war on Serbia.

I may be wrong with the following, and have to re-read some passages in the books - i will definitely not trust the internet in that respect, even if i appreciate the Wikipedia project:

I am not so sure here that Germany declared war to France, and then later and not without a cause - there were already military hostilities by the french army trying to re-acquire the region of Elsass-Lothringen along the upper rhine, a region France had lost in the french-german war of 1871. It was however forced back by german forces, so there may already have been an officially undeclared war going on.
Following the book and the papers of the foreign offices Germany was forced into the war with France, and would not have started it - after all to prevent this dreaded two-front war which was considered impossible to win. For what is written in the book the german military did not see any other possibility as the Schlieffen-plan after the declaration of war had happened: To win at one front quick enough to have time, soldiers and enough support for the other one. According to the book Moltke literally had tears in his eyes after the french (!) declaration of war, saying " ... this two front war will probably end in an international war no one can want !". Mayby this is german propaganda of the time ?

Another thing is without invading Belgium Great Britain as a "guarantor of Belgium's neutrality" would have had no official reason to go to war against Germany.
England would only have had a reason to help France "... in case of ... [a country] ... declaring war to France ...", but this was not the official reason of England's declaration of war against Germany.

I will try to find evidence and post this here, until then you can consider this as unproven bull**** .

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

[horsa]

I will try to find evidence and post this here, until then you can consider this as unproven bull****

No, I don’t think it is bull. What I do think is that you have a complex historical situation where every nation (to varying degrees) carries some responsibility for creating the Great War ( and yes, and that includes Britain as well ) The difficult bit is coming up with a judgement on who did most to propel the nations of Europe along this course. That is sufficiently complex to have occupied the minds of historians ever since 1914.

I believe that three things should be understood

1) In 1914 war was considered a legitimate tool of diplomacy.
2) All the nations had their own agendas, and (largely) acted with self interest.
3) Not everyone within any one nation had the same spin on things.( some had a good idea what “modern” war would mean, others were dangerously naive )

Cutting through a lot of complex issues, my own judgement is :-

1) The most unfair part of the Versailles Treaty of 1919 was the “blame” clause. This caused the most resentment amongst Germans than anything else (and with justification). This made it easy for any tin pot narcisstic wannabe to set up a political party on the ticket of “lets make Germany great and respected again”. If it hadn’t been Hitler it would have been somebody else.

2) On balance the autocratic governments of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia were more irresponsibly belligerent than the democracies of France or Britain. But that is the nature of autocracies. As France, Britain and the USA were the chief architects of the Treaty you can see where the blame clause originated (however unfair). France was particularly bitter, and with justification.


What Blair’s book seems to be doing ( which I can only base on your notes) is reiterating the familiar argument that “Germany was threatened by encirclement and annihilation, forced into a war of self defense, and then humiliated by a Treaty which forced them to accept the total blame for everything, and made them pay punitive reparations”. That viewpoint is neither new, nor is it totally wrong. It’s also not particularly right either.

The “dangerous” thing is that certain impressionable minds ( hopefully not including you, Catfish ) will be too ready to accept that thesis as an absolute truth.
………….. or worse try and run with it as a rallying point for their own crack pot neurotic ideas. ( sounds familiar ?)



As a footnote

Horsa, you are certainly right in that Germany declared war to Russia. However since Germany had an assistance treaty (or alliance? attack faction? is this the right word?) with Austro-Hungary it must have been clear for Russia, after declaring war to Austro-Hungary, it then would have to deal with both signers of that treaty. As well Austro-Hungary cannot have been too surprised Russia did not take their declaration of war towards Serbia without a reaction. And there can be no doubt that Austro-Hungary used the assassination in Sarajevo as a welcomed "occasion", or better pretext, to declare war on Serbia.

You have just accurately described the inevitable tragedy of why Europe went to war with all its dire consequences.


.

[Catfish]

Hi,
thanks for your comments, i just wrote a lot here, but Subsim threw me out, and it's all gone. I hate it.
Will write later,
greetings,
Catfish

[Deamon]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Hi,
thanks for your comments, i just wrote a lot here, but Subsim threw me out, and it's all gone. I hate it.

Use firefox. It doesn't throws away the session when something goes wrong. You can simple page back to it.

[Catfish]

Hello,

this is a translation of the final consideration of J. Schroeder. I am far from perfect in translating. If you do not understand s.t., or can make a better proposal to express it, please feel free to corrrect me ! (if anyone reads this at all). Words in [brackets] are own comments to explain s.t. when i thought it necessary. As well i will split this up into several passages.

In my opinion this explains the often mentioned zig-zag course of Kaiser William the 2nd's politics, and points out the Kaiser was not an ignorant war monger, or a tyrant. This belongs to the propaganda that built up during the war, and has never been put down since.

I may add that the contents does not necessarily describe my own opinion, however i found this well researched, which is probably due to the fact that there is a new german archive, the Bundesarchiv, where the documents of the former GDR, and those of the BRD have finally found a common place where everyone can study it.

"Final consideration
The conflict surounding the u-boat war in WW1 surely belongs to the most complicated, lengthy and hardest disputes ever to be dealt with between politics and military. [Kaiser William 2nd never had the command about the german military, the only military branch he had command of was the naval department of the surface fleet].
It came to no surprise that shortly after the outbreak of the war and during its course, the u-boat command and more and more high-ranking members of the Navy, demanded an unconditional operation of the U-boat weapon against enemy and neutral sea trade.

This meant a complete turning away from the original naval operational plan, which goal it had been to fight one decisive naval battle [surface ships] against England. However this underlying original plan was lacking its fundaments: On one hand it was not necessary for England to face a naval battle, due to its choice of the far blockade of the german coast which crippled the german sea trade. On the other hand the Kaiser initially wanted to avoid any decimation [decimation not in the roman sense of the word to kill a tenth portion] of his fleet, and forbade all greater action.
So the u-boats remained, and represented the only offensive weapon of the Navy. It was only an unintentional attendant symptom of this compromise solution, that from the aspect of naval strategy the u-boat war against enemy trade traffic as the actual goal of the naval warfare, became the focus [/was envisaged ?].

Furthermore the grade of ruthlessness, which determined the behaviour of a lot of participants in the dispute between politics and military, has to be emphasized. Especially has to be named Admiral of the fleet von Tirpitz, who did not hesitate to reveal military secrets of the german u-boat weapon to foreign countries, only to distract from the failure of his own fleet politics [evidence is given in the main part of the book]. With the exposure during the Wiegand-interview Tirpitz announced the upcoming first u-boat offensive move for the end of the year of 1914, and did considerable military and at the same time political damage to the Kaiserreich [Kaiser's Empire]. Tirpitz and his abetters also tried with success, to put false colours on and diffame the opponents of the so-called unrestricted u-boat war in their own country, especially Kaiser Wilhelm II and chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg.
They [Tirpitz and his abetters] created a mass movement for this kind of warfare, which meant an unconditional sinking of enemy, but also neutral shipping that supported the enemy; and during fall 1916 they knew they had the support of the commanding officers of the OHL [Oberste Heeres Leitung = Supreme army command], Ludendorff and von Hindenburg, and also from the political parties as well as major parts of the press and the public opinion, as well they had support from a strong lobby in the economic, cultural and scientific parts of the society. The members of this movement reacted like hypnotized and with blind faith at the Navy's promises.They showed an almost fanatic belief, and vehemently critcized the cautious kind of warfare by the Reichsleitung [head of the Reich], and not secretly, but publicly. Thus was missing an effective political concept of propaganda [1], like it was to be found in the other belligerent states: The censorship could not, or did not want to, prevent those critics of the own government.

That, in january 1917, the Reichsleitung ordered the unrestricted U-boat war, was not because of the strong opposition within the own country, and not because the military would had enforced their will upon the politics (thus turning around Clausewitz's axiome of the primacy of politics over the military). This statement astrays. The primacy of politics remained intact well into 1917, and the military could not act against the declared political will of the Reichsleitung. It has also be shown, that the pretended "surrender" of Bethmann-Hollweg, the chancellor's statement he would join the view of the OHL, never existed - on the contrary.

[Chancellor] Bethmann-Hollweg was in the frontline in the controversy against the military, but only the support of the Kaiser ensured his success for a long time. It is not alone the power of self-assertion of the chancellor, but the uncompromising eventuation of the Kaiser for political concerns, that the plans of the military could be defeated again and again. If the Kaiser had failed until 1914, to safeguard his constitutional role as a connective link between politics and military, he saw himself, during the war, where every decision about the guidance of the U-boat war was also an important political one, confronted with a special challenge. And [this time] he definitely stood his ground against this challenge.

[1] see: Jeffrey Verhey, War and mental mobilization: War Propaganda, in: Kruse, "A world of enemies", part VI, p. 181 f."

Sometimes hard to translate because the author uses endless sentences, !"§$%&/!!



It becomes clear that Germany's unrestricted U-boat war was the reason for the USA to enter the war at all. Following the documents of the foreign office the reason for the unrestricted U-boat war was the Entente's rejection of Germany's 3rd offer for peace.
President Wilson represented humanitarian politics, and would not enter a war voluntarily. As well he clearly saw the british "far blockade" as a warfare against the law of the nations, as well as english civilian ships transporting ammunition and troops to provoke an international incident, and thus being able to again point the finger at Germany for its atrocities against civilians.

And while the passenger ship "Lusitania" indeed carried ammunition, was listed as a troop ship in its freight papers, and was even warned by the US and Germany, its final sinking then was an accident. President Wilson was now really furious, and even thought of joining Germany against the Entente, to "... free the seas from starving out civilians, and british arrogance." And since almost a third of the US population consisted of germans or german descendents, there was some fear of a civil war if the US would try to join the war on the Entente side.
Problem was the german government did not explain/communicate clearly enough to the US, that Germany did in fact not lead a total, unrestricted war. This was due to the several factions within the german government and the military, but also due to that it would have been impossible to publicly explain a restricted war to the german population, who was suffering badly from the british blockade, but as well it would only have been a german admission of weakness for the Entente nations.

Greetings,
Kai

[horsa]

Thank you Catfish.

I don't think there is much there to disagree with.

The Kaiser was never an all powerful dictator in the sense that Hitler was, and his historical image has probably suffered because many people choose to make that simplistic comparison. By 1916 the military were effectively governing the country and not the Kaiser.

The point still remains that Germany was not a democracy in the sense that Britain, France and the USA were. There were too many people directing Germany's governance who were not accountable, and who were relatively willing to pursue militaristic and expansionist policies.

The Kaiser must, however, shoulder some of the blame for destabilising the fragile politics of Europe, but probably for reasons of sillyness rather than outright aggression. He was undoubtedly somewhat "unbalanced" ( some heads of state even questioned whether he was mentally all there !).

None of that detracts from the point that ALL countries and their heads of government acted with self interest, and this, in itself, vitually guaranteed a major European war at some point or another.

To reiterate what I said earlier, the autocratic countries were, on balance, more culpable for the tragedy of WW1 than the democracies. However the "blame" clause of the Versailles Treaty was unecessarilly harsh. It made it easy for somebody with more hair brained dictatorial ambitions to lead Germany into a second major war

[Catfish]

Hello Horsa,

thank you for your post. As it is also written in the book (next part of translation) the Kaiser really was most probably ill, suffering from a well known disease that was widely spread among the relatives of the royal families.

The situation and atrocities of WW2 indeed hide the time before 1933, and give a picture that is not correct regarding the Germany before this time - "thanks" to Hitler.
Germany was not a democracy until 1918, but even after this time the political classes and factions tried to de-stabilize the young democracy of the Republic of Weimar at each and every moment. They blamed this democracy for having lost the war, which certainly made no sense - but if you repeat something long enough the people will tend to believe it.
And unlike England and France, Germany had no long history of democracy or elections, indeed Germany as a nation did not exist before 1871. So the self-conscience you would expect from a sober and enlightened state was badly missing here ...

Greetings,
Catfish

[Deamon]

Originally Posted by Monica Lewinsky

The Deck Guns on the WWI subs did most of the sinking.

It is perhaps worth to mention on a side note that many ships were not sunk only by gun or torpedos. In many instances they were stopped and sunk with blasting cartridges or by opening the sea valves.

[Deamon]

Catfish you are from germany ?

[Robert Fulton]

Originally Posted by Catfish

...
Indeed William 2nd intended to use the fleet internationally for securing the colonies, and german warships like the "Emden" and "Nuernberg" helped smash riots overseas - as other colonial powers certainly also had, and did.

Greetings,
Catfish

I am currently reading "The Last Cruise of the Emden" by Edwin P. Hoyt. It is an amazing story of the cruiser and its crew who were in China when the war broke out in 1914. Hoyt is a prolific American author; I was familiar with him for his book on the USS Bowfin.

Highly recommend the Emden book; the Bowfin book is OK but nothing special.

[Deamon]

Originally Posted by Robert Fulton

Highly recommend the Emden book; the Bowfin book is OK but nothing special.

I second that. All of this stories are totally amazing. If you do not have interest in this subject this stories will draw you in!

I have the publications of the german naval archive and the stories blew me away. This skyrocketed my interest in this subject and there is a huge unexploited potential for gaming.

[Catfish]

Hello,
thanks for your comments. A bit lame here, all are posting at those modern sub forums from WWII and on ... how boring lol

@ Robert Fulton: Thank you for this book tip, i will try to get it. I have read von Luckner's book about the "Seeadler" and its fate as an auxiliary "cruiser", and about the "Emden", if not Hoyt's book.

@ Deamon: Yes, i'm from Germany, near Hannover. I am currently more interested in the time before WWII ..

There is also a good book with a half fictious story (but mostly historically correct) about another theme, a german trade steamer at lake Tanganyika (how does this spell in english?) from Alex Capus, title is "Eine Frage der Zeit" which would be "A question of time", but i do not know whether this has been translated or published in english (?). Really great to read. If you are interested i could post some links to sites having info about this steamer (the "Graf Goetzen" (ö=oe)).

Apart from that i am interested in the life of a distant relative (Berthold Schilling), who died in 1918 during a bombing mission aboard an airship. We have already lots of information and intend to write a half-fictious story about the airship that was involved.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Deamon]

Originally Posted by Catfish

@ Deamon: Yes, i'm from Germany, near Hannover. I am currently more interested in the time before WWII ..

Perhpas you also know the book: "Unsere Marine im Weltkrieg" ?

"Ritter der Tiefer" Maybe ?