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As we all know, this Sunday marks 100 years since the guns fell silent on the Western Front, and tribute is paid to the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their respective nations. Here in Britain, there are a number of poignant and respectful events which are planned up and down the country, with the poppy display at the Tower of London being a particular moving display to Britain's war dead.

Like most people on dakka, I've read a lot about the Great War, the causes, the aftermath, the foundations being laid for WW2 etc etc, but when I look at my own nation in 1914, was it really necessary for Britain to get involved? Britain obviously won it, but the nation was never the same again. The stuffing had been knocked out of the whole imperial project, The USA had usurped London as the global financial centre, and the huge sacrificies involved by British and Commonwealth troops fostered huge social changes and a sense of bitterness and betrayal at the carnage of the Soome, Passchendaele etc etc

Here are my reasons why Britain should have avoided it:

1. A German victory, and/or a German dominated continent, isn't necessary a bad thing for Britain. We'd been here before with the Napoleonic wars, and survived.

2. The Royal Navy was powerful enough to keep any invaders at bay, even if the German Navy had continued to expand.

3. By intervening, Britain prolonged the war and turned a limited regional conflict into a 4 year bloodbath. A quick German victory, with limited casulties, might have seen Germany content with grabbing a few French colonies, some reparations, and possibly a demilitarised zone in Eastern France, as the price of peace. This is what happened in the aftermath of the Franc-Prussian War. Not great for France, but preferable to millions being slaughtered, and Empires collpasing in Russia and Austria-Hungary.

4. Much has been made of preserving Belgian neutrality, but by allying with Czarist Russia, an Autocracy, Britain showed it was flexible when it came to the moral high ground.

I'm in a hurry, so I'll try and post more later, but these are my main arguments. I think Britain got involved in a War it didn't have to fight, and who knows how different history could have been?

I haven't read much at all about the wars themselves, but other stuff pokes in from around the edges that might have a bearing on this.
How widespread was Queen Victoria's family in the rules elite of the area? Was it a family scuffle to an extent, and we had no way to stay out with various royals having it out?

 Skinnereal wrote:
I haven't read much at all about the wars themselves, but other stuff pokes in from around the edges that might have a bearing on this.
How widespread was Queen Victoria's family in the rules elite of the area? Was it a family scuffle to an extent, and we had no way to stay out with various royals having it out?

The Kaiser was Queen Victoria's Grandson, and George V and the Czar were cousins, but with regard to the Kaiser, he was caught up in a power struggle between the civilian government, and the old Prussian military establishment.

Christopher Clark did a sympathetic biography on the Kaiser, and although he bears some responsibility for war, he was not as powerful as is often made out to be. He was squeezed between the army and the government.

I'm no expert on pre-WW1 German Empire constitution, but checks and balances were all over the shop.

George V was a constitutional monarch, and the Czar was obviously an Autocrat, so a big difference there.

I'm not convinced by the family struggle argument.

It was just a thought.
I've heard nothing to suggest it was a cause, but Queen Vic's offspring were married into a lot of the ruling families by then.

I've read that concerns about falling behind Germany and America in terms of land area, population and industrial capacity was a big driver for expansion in Africa.

Fundamentally, the driving strategic imperative in creating the alliances which triggered WW1 was to contain German expansionism.
England needed to do something to contain an upstart rival and remain as top dog, and once these great alliance blocks were created war was very likely.

So I can see an argument that it didn't need to declare war at that moment, or with those particular allies. But I do see the need to intervene to prevent itself from being eclipsed by a 'greater' Germany.

 Kroem wrote:
I've read that concerns about falling behind Germany and America in terms of land area, population and industrial capacity was a big driver for expansion in Africa.

Fundamentally, the driving strategic imperative in creating the alliances which triggered WW1 was to contain German expansionism.
England needed to do something to contain an upstart rival and remain as top dog, and once these great alliance blocks were created war was very likely.

So I can see an argument that it didn't need to declare war at that moment, or with those particular allies. But I do see the need to intervene to prevent itself from being eclipsed by a 'greater' Germany.

Any German expansionism would obviously bring it into a fist-fight with France and/or Russia, so to me, the Germans were limited in where they could go, without defeating those two countries. Colonies are obviously vulnerable if you can't get men and supplies out there to defend them.

In such a war, Britain could have sat back, supplied the Russians with the odd cash injection, and made a lot of money out of selling weapons to the French, whilst making the English Channel and North Sea a 'quarantine zone.'

France and Russia obviously suffered some setbacks in 1914, but with better decisions in the field, they could have contained Germany.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
As we all know, this Sunday marks 100 years since the guns fell silent on the Western Front, and tribute is paid to the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their respective nations. Here in Britain, there are a number of poignant and respectful events which are planned up and down the country, with the poppy display at the Tower of London being a particular moving display to Britain's war dead.

Like most people on dakka, I've read a lot about the Great War, the causes, the aftermath, the foundations being laid for WW2 etc etc, but when I look at my own nation in 1914, was it really necessary for Britain to get involved? Britain obviously won it, but the nation was never the same again. The stuffing had been knocked out of the whole imperial project, The USA had usurped London as the global financial centre, and the huge sacrificies involved by British and Commonwealth troops fostered huge social changes and a sense of bitterness and betrayal at the carnage of the Soome, Passchendaele etc etc

Here are my reasons why Britain should have avoided it:

1. A German victory, and/or a German dominated continent, isn't necessary a bad thing for Britain. We'd been here before with the Napoleonic wars, and survived.

Germany did not exist yet after the Napeolonic wars. The new unified German state was vastly more powerful than the old Prussian kingdom had been, especially when allied with the massive Austrian-Hungarian Empire. After the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia had become a major power, but it was still outmatched in power and influence by France, Austria (and at the time, Prussia and Austria were fierce enemies) and Russia, so there were lots of powers on the continent powerful enough to easily keep Prussia in check. Therefore, Prussian power and ambitions were no threat to British interests. Germany on the other hand, when allied with Austria-Hungary, was easily more powerful than France and Russia combined. A German-Austro-Hungarian victory over France and Russia would have meant that these two allied powers would have completely dominated the European continent, and Germany would likely have taken over France's colonies. And guess who then would be next on the hit list? Britain and her colonial empire. The Royal Navy was the most powerful navy in the world, but the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires could build up their navies much faster (just look at the incredible rate at which Germany build up a major navy), and on land Britain already was greatly outmatched. It would have been the end of British hegemony, Now it is debatable whether that would have been a bad thing or not, but in the eyes of the British establishment of that time, it certainly was.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

3. By intervening, Britain prolonged the war and turned a limited regional conflict into a 4 year bloodbath. A quick German victory, with limited casulties, might have seen Germany content with grabbing a few French colonies, some reparations, and possibly a demilitarised zone in Eastern France, as the price of peace. This is what happened in the aftermath of the Franc-Prussian War. Not great for France, but preferable to millions being slaughtered, and Empires collpasing in Russia and Austria-Hungary.

Arguably, the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires collapsing worked out pretty well for most of the nations involved. Russia saw major progress and became a more just and equal society, and the many peoples subjected to the Austrians and Hungarians got freedom and political self-determination. The only ones for which it did not work out well were Austria and especially Hungary, who lost most of their territory and population (which came back to bite everyone in the ass in WW2 when both joined up with the Nazis).

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
4. Much has been made of preserving Belgian neutrality, but by allying with Czarist Russia, an Autocracy, Britain showed it was flexible when it came to the moral high ground.

*looks at the history of the British Empire* Yeah, I don't think Britain could ever claim any sort of moral high ground. Preserving Belgian neutrality was never actually about Belgian neutrality, but purely about British interests.

@Iron Captain.

I wasn't attacking Russia for the sake of it. I'm obviously aware of the British Empire, and was making the point that it was hypocritical of Britain to say they're defending Belgian freedom, when they're allied with a Russian regime ruled by an autocrat. It's a matter of fact that Czarist Russia was hardly a beacon of freedom and human rights.


As for your second last point, Russia a more just society after 1917?

Have you forgotten 70 years of Communism, gulags, Stalin, and the NKVD/KGB?

I could buy the equal society argument, when you consider the rise in living standards and industrial reforms under Communism, but just?

You're pulling my leg

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
As we all know, this Sunday marks 100 years since the guns fell silent on the Western Front, and tribute is paid to the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their respective nations. Here in Britain, there are a number of poignant and respectful events which are planned up and down the country, with the poppy display at the Tower of London being a particular moving display to Britain's war dead.

This thread caught me on the first pages of my 2nd re-reading of David Stevenson's History of WWI.

Still some 600 pages to go but it's a book I'll plug every time.

I disagree that Britain should (or even could) have kept themselves off the WWI mess, but more on that when I have a few quiet minutes to spare in front of the computer.

The answer to this is no we didn't need to fight in WWI. We could have immediately surrendered and handed everything over to the other side. As such Germany would have likely won in short order and Europe would have become a German state.

On the other hand Germany wouldn't have then been repressed, Hitler wouldn't have found a ground swell of public support, and WWII might have been avoided.

 Whirlwind wrote:
The answer to this is no we didn't need to fight in WWI. We could have immediately surrendered and handed everything over to the other side. As such Germany would have likely won in short order and Europe would have become a German state.

On the other hand Germany wouldn't have then been repressed, Hitler wouldn't have found a ground swell of public support, and WWII might have been avoided.

Britain would not have been occupied by Germany if they lost ww1. As mentioned, France is who would get the shaft. Britain could have walked away and Germany wouldn’t have been in a position to make demands of them. The Royal Navy still rules the seas and Britain had enough troops to protect their holdings.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

2. The Royal Navy was powerful enough to keep any invaders at bay, even if the German Navy had continued to expand.

For how long? If Germany controlled the entire EU side coast we'd have to resort to America to provide anything we couldn't grow/mine, and they'd have an order of magnitude of resources at their disposal. Would they have bothered a costly invasion? Probably not, but a blockade would finish us off eventually with minimal cost to German lives or banks.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Britain would not have been occupied by Germany if they lost ww1. As mentioned, France is who would get the shaft. Britain could have walked away and Germany wouldn’t have been in a position to make demands of them. The Royal Navy still rules the seas and Britain had enough troops to protect their holdings.

Not lost, conceded immediately. The question is whether we needed to fight WW1 and the answer to that was no, we didn't. If we immediately conceded and handed over everything then we wouldn't have needed to fight. I wasn't really referring to losing, more handing everything over from day one.. Really the point is that this is a meaningless question and really hypothetical. There are any number of situations we can make up as to why we didn't need to fight WW1. A better question is whether any of the British actions made such a conflict inevitable because it allows discussion as to what happened rather than what could have happened.

jouso wrote:


I disagree that Britain should (or even could) have kept themselves off the WWI mess, but more on that when I have a few quiet minutes to spare in front of the computer.

The long answer is that if Britain stays out of WWI there's a good chance everything stops in Serbia. If Britain makes it clear to France they aren't going to war for them, Russia doesn't go to war for Serbia either since the whole mobilisation depends on the Russo-French agreement of a war on two fronts.

If Britain stays out after the war is on (no declaration after Belgium) then France gets defeated in '15, '16 tops, Italy stays out. Germany turns Belgium into a puppet state and carves extra bits from France (Pacific and African colonies are surely changing hands) and Russian Poland. So suddenly Germany is the hegemonic power she can't counter, which was the whole thing British policy was designed to counter for decades (and in turn German naval policy was geared towards challenging British power, Britain out of the war and the HSF eats the French and Russian navies for breakfast).

You'd have to change decades of British policy for Britain to stay out of the war, it was just not possible. The war not going beyond a local conflict is much more likely.

Herzlos wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

2. The Royal Navy was powerful enough to keep any invaders at bay, even if the German Navy had continued to expand.

For how long? If Germany controlled the entire EU side coast we'd have to resort to America to provide anything we couldn't grow/mine, and they'd have an order of magnitude of resources at their disposal. Would they have bothered a costly invasion? Probably not, but a blockade would finish us off eventually with minimal cost to German lives or banks.

You're forgetting you're British history.

If your scenario plays out i.e enemy occupation of the Western European coastline, then Britain would have been in exactly the same position it was during the Napoleonic wars. We could have still put up some sort of blockcade, and with Britain's de facto control of the Mediterranean i.e Suez and Gibraltar, we could have sniped at Austria-Hungary from the sidelines, and waged a periphary war through Greece or Italy. Britain still would have had options to get back onto the continent.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

jouso wrote:

jouso wrote:


I disagree that Britain should (or even could) have kept themselves off the WWI mess, but more on that when I have a few quiet minutes to spare in front of the computer.

The long answer is that if Britain stays out of WWI there's a good chance everything stops in Serbia. If Britain makes it clear to France they aren't going to war for them, Russia doesn't go to war for Serbia either since the whole mobilisation depends on the Russo-French agreement of a war on two fronts.

If Britain stays out after the war is on (no declaration after Belgium) then France gets defeated in '15, '16 tops, Italy stays out. Germany turns Belgium into a puppet state and carves extra bits from France (Pacific and African colonies are surely changing hands) and Russian Poland. So suddenly Germany is the hegemonic power she can't counter, which was the whole thing British policy was designed to counter for decades (and in turn German naval policy was geared towards challenging British power, Britain out of the war and the HSF eats the French and Russian navies for breakfast).

You'd have to change decades of British policy for Britain to stay out of the war, it was just not possible. The war not going beyond a local conflict is much more likely.

Good points, and I agree with most of that, but none the less, I did forget to mention that if Britain abandons its treaty obligations to France and Russia, other nations would be reluctant to trust Britain in the future, and national honour would be stained. That's the sort of domestic pressure that could force Britain into war. Certainly, we know that defending Belgian sovereignty was a big thing for the British newspapers and average citizen.

Lord Kitchener made that point to the Prime Minister just days before the war started.

and anti-German sentiment is quite a big thing in Britain at that time.

And I also forgot to mention earlier that even if Britain kept out of WW1, it would likely have a war on its hands anyway: a civil war in Ireland. There was big trouble in Ulster in 1914. Hostilities on the continent put the Ulster problem to one side for the time being...

Whirlwind I think gave the best answer on this. It is kind of a silly question. No. Of course Britain didn't need to fight WWI, no more than any country generally needs to fight any war. I don't really see why Britain wouldn't fight it given the culture and attitude of the time and the nature of international politics. History is often more the bungling of happenstance than the product of necessity.

 LordofHats wrote:
Whirlwind I think gave the best answer on this. It is kind of a silly question. No. Of course Britain didn't need to fight WWI, no more than any country generally needs to fight any war. I don't really see why Britain wouldn't fight it given the culture and attitude of the time and the nature of international politics. History is often more the bungling of happenstance than the product of necessity.

I disagree with you and whirlwind

As far as I'm concerned, and in no way insulting the men who fought and died (including some of my family members) I think WW1 was the greatest act of self-harm Britain has ever inflicted on itself.

It may have 'won' the war, but from then on, its power and prestige was diminished, and your own nation filled the void somewhat.

In both World Wars, America is the only country that finished stronger than when it started.

British statemen in 1914 would have been horrified at a 1 million casualties and surrendering the crown to the USA, at the war's end, had they been able to see the future.

I would argue that the UK almost certainly did not need to fight it. It is likely that the British Empire would have remained stronger for longer had it not blown multiple lifetimes worth of colonial wealth and uncountable lives in the process, for what otherwise likely would have ended in a Franco-Prussian style settlement, at least in the West.

However, hindsight is 20/20, and almost every major nation could have made better choices and emerged stronger for it. The US being the primary exception, the US came out of the first world war as the big winner of everything, with even less real justification for entry than other powers

I'm not really sure how that's disagreeing with either of us. Yeah WWI was the start of a decline in not just British hegemony in the world but of all of Europe, but I don't think of any war as "necessary." Countries often think in those terms, and I think Britain at the time viewed the war as necessary for their long term interests, but that's a separate issue from whether or not it actually was necessary or beneficial to long term interests. In both cases I'd say the answer is "probably not." The shift though was within Britain itself as much as anywhere. Nations throughout the world lost their taste for old fashioned Imperialism after watching millions of young men, women, and children die in it's defense and sure if they knew it would end that way they probably wouldn't have done it in the first place but that's like everything.

I'd never have ordered that cherry churito if I knew what it would do to me, and to be fair the name should have been a dire warning, but hindsight is 20/20.

Too few people appreciated how lethal a modern war could be when WWI started. Hell even after WWI as a guide too many people failed to appreciate how lethal a modern war could be when WWII started.

In both World Wars, America is the only country that finished stronger than when it started.

That's because America is like that guy in your Call of Duty match who hides behind some boxes for the whole fight and then comes out in the last minute to score the kill cam and brags about how 1337 he is

 Vaktathi wrote:
I would argue that the UK almost certainly did not need to fight it. It is likely that the British Empire would have remained stronger for longer had it not blown multiple lifetimes worth of colonial wealth and uncountable lives in the process, for what otherwise likely would have ended in a Franco-Prussian style settlement, at least in the West.

However, hindsight is 20/20, and almost every major nation could have made better choices and emerged stronger for it. The US being the primary exception, the US came out of the first world war as the big winner of everything, with even less real justification for entry than other powers

Agreed. You lot even 'stole' the P14 Enfield from us, which should have been the standard issue weapon for the British troops, and not wasted on damn colonials. Grrrr!




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
I'm not really sure how that's disagreeing with either of us. Yeah WWI was the start of a decline in not just British hegemony in the world but of all of Europe, but I don't think of any war as "necessary." Countries often think in those terms, and I think Britain at the time viewed the war as necessary for their long term interests, but that's a separate issue from whether or not it actually was necessary or beneficial to long term interests. In both cases I'd say the answer is "probably not." The shift though was within Britain itself as much as anywhere. Nations throughout the world lost their taste for old fashioned Imperialism after watching millions of young men, women, and children die in it's defense and sure if they knew it would end that way they probably wouldn't have done it in the first place but that's like everything.

I'd never have ordered that cherry churito if I knew what it would do to me, and to be fair the name should have been a dire warning, but hindsight is 20/20.

Too few people appreciated how lethal a modern war could be when WWI started. Hell even after WWI as a guide too many people failed to appreciate how lethal a modern war could be when WWII started.

In both World Wars, America is the only country that finished stronger than when it started.

That's because America is like that guy in your Call of Duty match who hides behind some boxes for the whole fight and then comes out in the last minute to score the kill cam and brags about how 1337 he is

You and I have discussed history quite a lot over the years on dakka, and as most people know, pragmatism is usually my middle name.

I look at British statemen in 1914, and wonder what the feth they were thinking. It certainly wasn't the cold and analytical approach to international relations that they had taken in the 19th century.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I look at British statemen in 1914, and wonder what the feth they were thinking. It certainly wasn't the cold and analytical approach to international relations that they had taken in the 19th century.

I don't really know that I find either of those characterizations accurate, mind you I'm not an expert on 19th century British international relations so...

WWI is pretty easy to understand from the perspective of a cold pragmatist. Hell arguably the entire war came about because European geopolitics had become so coldly practical. Then they ended up in the actual war, and oh gak right people have emotions and gak and this is a hell of a lot more dying than we expected. The Post-WWI years featured a swelling of dissatisfaction across the powers that fought it (even in the US, though the causes were more varied). The Revolutions in Russia and the Ottoman Empire brought great powers to their knees and saw new countries rise from their remains. Germany, Britain, and France spent most of the 20s dealing with resurgences in political dissent that had spent most of the prior decades on low burn.

I don't think British statemen changed at all. They were operating just like they always had. The public willingness to go along with them is what changed. The British people no longer saw good cause in going off to die in foreign ventures for the glory of an Empire that arguably offered them little tangible benefit. Glory is nice and all, but the typical Londonite, Londoner?, idk, the typical British citizen wasn't the one getting the bulk of the benefits of Empire. The statesmen were, and they built a foreign policy around protecting that Empire and failed to appreciate that they needed that typical citizen on board to maintain the venture.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
@Iron Captain.

I wasn't attacking Russia for the sake of it. I'm obviously aware of the British Empire, and was making the point that it was hypocritical of Britain to say they're defending Belgian freedom, when they're allied with a Russian regime ruled by an autocrat. It's a matter of fact that Czarist Russia was hardly a beacon of freedom and human rights.


As for your second last point, Russia a more just society after 1917?

Have you forgotten 70 years of Communism, gulags, Stalin, and the NKVD/KGB?

I could buy the equal society argument, when you consider the rise in living standards and industrial reforms under Communism, but just?

You're pulling my leg

I wasn't seeing it as an attack on Russia or anything (I mean, "autocracy" is probably the most accurate description possible of the Russian Empire). I was just pointing out that Britain at the time had little actual concern for moral issues, not unless it fitted in with their imperialistic ambitions. It is the same behaviour you see of the US in the present day, or of the Soviet Union or any world power really. Morals and ethics are all good and well if you can use them as a weapon to attack your rivals. But when those same moralistic arguments hinder your own ambitions they are quickly abandoned and ignored. If defending Belgian neutrality had not directly been within British interests (which were to contain unified Germany), nobody would have really made a commotion about Germany invading Belgium.

Not to derail this thread, but I said "more just", not "just". The Communist regime was bad, especially during the earlier years of Stalin, but overall it was an improvement compared to the conditions under the Tsarist regime. The redistribution of property and legal reforms under the Communist regimes enabled Russia to finally become a modern nation and catch up to the rest of Europe (Russia had been pretty much stuck in the Middle Ages under the Tsars). And not just property, but also political, military and legal court positions were reserved only for members of the nobility in the Russian Empire. The Communists allowed everyone to participate in politics. The Communists also allowed people to go to school and learn to read and write or even go to university and attain a degree. That had only been reserved for the nobility and the wealthy in the Empire. The Soviet Union may not have been a democracy, but everyone could pursue a political career and take part in decision-making processes if he or she so wished. Everyone could pursue whatever career he or she wanted to (provided you were able, of course). People were free to study, become judges, engineers, generals or whatever. All of that was never possible in the Empire, not unless you were a member of the nobility or exceptionally wealthy.
Basically, what the Soviets did is that they made all people equal in front of the law, and allowed increased freedom and social mobility. That is why the Soviet Union was a more just society than the Russian Empire.
Again, it doesn't mean that it was a just society. Just that it was more just than the Russian Empire (and that is not a very high bar to jump over).

 Kroem wrote:
I've read that concerns about falling behind Germany and America in terms of land area, population and industrial capacity was a big driver for expansion in Africa.

Africa was something of an empire by accident. British expansion there was more conducted to stop other people laying claim to strategic bits which might have otherwise inconvenienced already claimed British bits. Britain really wasn't mad keen on claiming sovereignty over most of it; on account of what they had was expensive and unproductive enough already. I remember reading one case where a Navy captain had accepted the allegiance of a local King on behalf of the British Crown; who wanted to pledge because he hated the pushy Germans making demands and threats all over his territory and saw Britain as the obvious counterweight. The Foreign Office was extremely hacked off about the whole thing and the captain disciplined for adding yet /another territory to the British dominion. They wanted to try and give it back to the King, but in the end thought it might create the wrong impression internationally. .

Fundamentally, the driving strategic imperative in creating the alliances which triggered WW1 was to contain German expansionism.

The strategic alliance between Britain and France didn't exist in the manner commonly taught at school. If you take Britain out the equation, it just becomes another European war as opposed to a 'World' war.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Germany on the other hand, when allied with Austria-Hungary, was easily more powerful than France and Russia combined. A German-Austro-Hungarian victory over France and Russia would have meant that these two allied powers would have completely dominated the European continent, and Germany would likely have taken over France's colonies. And guess who then would be next on the hit list? Britain and her colonial empire. The Royal Navy was the most powerful navy in the world, but the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires could build up their navies much faster (just look at the incredible rate at which Germany build up a major navy), and on land Britain already was greatly outmatched. It would have been the end of British hegemony, Now it is debatable whether that would have been a bad thing or not, but in the eyes of the British establishment of that time, it certainly was.

This is untrue on most levels. Germany and Austria Hungary had infinitely inferior shipbuilding capacity to the British. And a neutral Britain at the end of a slugfest with France and Russia would likely have left Britain in a position with considerable input on the short term outcome of the peace treaty with France (no colonies would have changed hands without Britain's concurrence).Global sea power and European land power are two very different kettles of fish. Mahan was popular if you want to read more into the Blue Water school at the time.

jouso wrote:

The long answer is that if Britain stays out of WWI there's a good chance everything stops in Serbia. If Britain makes it clear to France they aren't going to war for them, Russia doesn't go to war for Serbia either since the whole mobilisation depends on the Russo-French agreement of a war on two fronts.

The basic chain of events regarding military mobilisations and international ultimatums renders this impossible/inaccurate.

So suddenly Germany is the hegemonic power she can't counter, which was the whole thing British policy was designed to counter for decades (and in turn German naval policy was geared towards challenging British power, Britain out of the war and the HSF eats the French and Russian navies for breakfast).
You'd have to change decades of British policy for Britain to stay out of the war, it was just not possible. The war not going beyond a local conflict is much more likely.

British naval and international policy was geared primarily towards containing a French and Russian combination until the turn of the century (so not decades). German policy was geared towards attempting to persuade Britain to stay out of any continental war and accede to Germany developing their colonies; rather than 'challenging British power'.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

I look at British statemen in 1914, and wonder what the feth they were thinking. It certainly wasn't the cold and analytical approach to international relations that they had taken in the 19th century.

That depends very heavily on which specific statesman you're talking to. Even the Cabinet was split on much of this.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I wasn't seeing it as an attack on Russia or anything (I mean, "autocracy" is probably the most accurate description possible of the Russian Empire). I was just pointing out that Britain at the time had little actual concern for moral issues, not unless it fitted in with their imperialistic ambitions.

This is an anachronistic view of the past which assumes that the moral issues of today are the ones which would have troubled those of Victorian and Edwardian British statesmen. Such men had plenty of concern for various moral causes; it just isn't the ones which predominate today. The world was a very different colour.

What is similar to current times however, is that different men also championed or prioritised different moral causes, and occasionally did so inconsistently. Because they were human.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I would argue that the UK almost certainly did not need to fight it. It is likely that the British Empire would have remained stronger for longer had it not blown multiple lifetimes worth of colonial wealth and uncountable lives in the process, for what otherwise likely would have ended in a Franco-Prussian style settlement, at least in the West.

However, hindsight is 20/20, and almost every major nation could have made better choices and emerged stronger for it. The US being the primary exception, the US came out of the first world war as the big winner of everything, with even less real justification for entry than other powers

 LordofHats wrote:

Too few people appreciated how lethal a modern war could be when WWI started. Hell even after WWI as a guide too many people failed to appreciate how lethal a modern war could be when WWII started.

These are broadly correct.

I do aim to at least be broadly correct

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
The answer to this is no we didn't need to fight in WWI. We could have immediately surrendered and handed everything over to the other side. As such Germany would have likely won in short order and Europe would have become a German state.

On the other hand Germany wouldn't have then been repressed, Hitler wouldn't have found a ground swell of public support, and WWII might have been avoided.

Britain would not have been occupied by Germany if they lost ww1. As mentioned, France is who would get the shaft. Britain could have walked away and Germany wouldn’t have been in a position to make demands of them. The Royal Navy still rules the seas and Britain had enough troops to protect their holdings.

How long though? Nothing is eternal so eventually royal navy wouldn't be best fleet in the world. What happens if new best would be german? Or some other hostile to england?

There could be broader effects as well. If Britain stays out, and the war ends faster (perhaps with German victory and a treaty similar to Franco-Prussian war) maybe Japan doesn’t start picking up all of Germany’s Far East colonies and never snow balls into China?

Unlikely. Lack of resources that drew Japan outwards would still have remained same.

Yeah, Japan's expansionism was largely independent of what was going on in Europe.

Honestly: If we look at the policy of it's time Britain could've very well taken a stance torwards mainland Europe that it did not need to concern itself with them, so long they remain in controll of gibraltar. Potentially a victory for the German Empire could have lead to a refocus on Land over seapower, leading to a more relaxed relationship?

@Iron Captain: Self determination of these people?
Most of these states, are even by todays standarts of "Nations" artificial. Czeckoslovakia, or Yugoslavia, etc. were states which in many ways were way worse for it's inhabitants and structures then the old Empire was.
The main problem the empire had however, was especially in the hungarian part which was outside of the controll of vienna, the forced magyarization policy. It broke the first rule of all multination/ethnical states there is (i should know it), namely: don't be a dick torwards minorities within your country.

The follow up was even worse in a way, because Hitler was literally able to just roll over these smaller insignificant states which were troubled within and had not enough weight to be considered relevant enough to defend for the allies later. Not to mention that Hitler now had access to the vast industry that the Austrian- Hungarian empire had, generating a industrial base far beyond what he had before.

I don't think they could have realistically avoided the conflict simply because too many people in government and in the country at large thought it would be an easy and quick victory

any government that had backed down from such a 'simple' challenge would have looked fatally weak and most likely have fallen because of it (political opponents wouldn't have let the chance lie),

and having come to power by calling the previous administration weak they would then have trotted merrily to the slaughter a few weeks later