Imperial Germany - Pre 1914

meathstevie

Fratton Fred is right pointing to a naval arms race between the Brits and the young up and coming unified Germany. The malarky in the Balkans was only an excuse to get going. You have to keep in mind that since after Waterloo Bismarck's unified Germany ( that man was a political and military genius ) was the first serious challenger on the scene who could have threatened the British position on a global level. The US was still a very small relatively insignificant military power in those days. And as for Tsarist Russia. Chaos and disorganisation was it's natural state of being, something like the Jeltsin years in the more recent past.

Fratton Fred

meathstevie wrote: »

Fratton Fred is right pointing to a naval arms race between the Brits and the young up and coming unified Germany. The malarky in the Balkans was only an excuse to get going. You have to keep in mind that since after Waterloo Bismarck's unified Germany ( that man was a political and military genius ) was the first serious challenger on the scene who could have threatened the British position on a global level. The US was still a very small relatively insignificant military power in those days. And as for Tsarist Russia. Chaos and disorganisation was it's natural state of being, something like the Jeltsin years in the more recent past.

Since Trafalgar, Britain had pretty much full control of the seas, certainly from a European perspective. With the race to build the Dreadnought's and German/French aggression towards each other, suddenly Britain was facing a threat. The German navy was still smaller, but if the Germans invaded france and took over their navy, it would have created a force much larger than Britain's. This threw Britain into the unusual position of becoming a French ally.

Britain didn't give a knats chuff about France or Belgium, it was looking after it's own interests and trying to maintain the status quo in Europe which was being threatened by Germany. As you say, the shenanigans in the Balkans was the spark that ignited the tinder box.

meathstevie

A little sidetrack since people mentioned the Maginot line. Those defences went on into Belgium allright and included a few fortresses and anti-tank defences. France was by all means technically superior to Germany at the start of WWII and recently before and could have probably made a decisive move against Germany when they reoccupied the western bank of the Rhine in 1938.

The French Renault tanks and front wheel drive vehicles for example were vastly superior to the German armour and trucks ( even later on the Eastern front the Wehrmacht relied heavily on horsedrawn wagons ) in 1940 but what made the difference was German strategy.

They for example used paratroopers to eliminate the main Belgian fortifications and came straight through the Ardennes and the Elzas what very few deemded to be possible. What really made the difference was that the French were stuck in WWI way of thinking : defence along a broad front while the Germans used a tactic they called "Schwerpunkt" ( excuse my spelling ). They massed their armour and very effective Stuka divebombers in a very thight formation and literally broke through the French lines and steamed straight for Paris while the French were spread out and out manoeuvred. It probably also didn't help that Petain's political convictions were fairly compatible with Hitler's and that 1 in 4 French men of fighting age were casualties in WWI to put fire in their bellies.

jhegarty

Baldrick: The thing is: The way I see it, these days there's a war on, right? and, ages ago, there wasn't a war on, right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right? and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is: How did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?

Edmund: Do you mean "Why did the war start?"


Baldrick: Yeah.


George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire-building.


Edmund: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.


George: Oh, no, sir, absolutely not. [aside, to Baldick] Mad as a bicycle!


Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry.


Edmund: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.


Baldrick: Nah, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir.


Edmund: Well, possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort not to have a war.


George: By Golly, this is interesting; I always loved history...


Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.


Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?


Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.


George: What was that, sir?


Edmund: It was bollocks.


Baldrick: So the poor old ostrich died for nothing.

Capt'n Midnight

jhegarty wrote:

Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.

George: What was that, sir?

Edmund: It was bollocks.

qft

brianthebard

meathstevie wrote: »

Fratton Fred is right pointing to a naval arms race between the Brits and the young up and coming unified Germany. The malarky in the Balkans was only an excuse to get going. You have to keep in mind that since after Waterloo Bismarck's unified Germany ( that man was a political and military genius ) was the first serious challenger on the scene who could have threatened the British position on a global level.

I'm not sure I agree about Germany's threat in the early days at least, firstly Bismarck declared Germany a satiated state, so that other nations would know that he had got all the war out of him and wasn't planning on continuing to expand. Secondly as we know the monarchies of Britain and Germany were quite close at the time. However when it came to alliances Germany had to maintain ties with Austria, its germanic brother, (and I'm not certain but I think A-H was an enemy of Britain) and from then on relations between Germany and Britain were less close.

PDN

Shutuplaura wrote: »

One of the lesser known fronts of the war was in German East Africa. The German forces consisted mostly of natve troops and a few German officers and NCO's. In the 1950's the Bundesrepublic decided to pay the veterns pension to the remaining native veterns left alive in the region. To prove that they were former soldiers they had to pass a german parade drill test using a broom as a makeshft rifle. Oddly, a few episodes of the Young Inmdiana Jones Cronicles were set in the middle of it.

I am currently reading Edward Paice's Tip & Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa. Paice states that one out of every eight adult inhabitants of British East Africa died during the war. If this astounding figure is correct then that would mean that British East Africa suffered, proportionately, the second highest death toll of any nation (after the Ottoman Empire). Of course the Ottoman figures are somewhat skewed by the fact that the Turks slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians which, while it occurred in the war years, was not actually part of the war per se.

TerrorFirmer

brianthebard wrote: »

I'm not sure I agree about Germany's threat in the early days at least, firstly Bismarck declared Germany a satiated state, so that other nations would know that he had got all the war out of him and wasn't planning on continuing to expand. Secondly as we know the monarchies of Britain and Germany were quite close at the time. However when it came to alliances Germany had to maintain ties with Austria, its germanic brother, (and I'm not certain but I think A-H was an enemy of Britain) and from then on relations between Germany and Britain were less close.

Well there was the incident in 1875 when they suggested another preemptive war and were bluffed, so I don't think anybody felt that Germany was a content state. Also, I think Austria Hungary was viewed fairly passively by Great Britian, as a natural enemy of Russia who was in turn Britain's greatest adversary until 1914 generally in terms of expansionism they probably would have been more inclined to look upon them favorably before the war forced sides.

Capt'n Midnight

PDN wrote:

I am currently reading Edward Paice's Tip & Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa. Paice states that one out of every eight adult inhabitants of British East Africa died during the war. If this astounding figure is correct then that would mean that British East Africa suffered, proportionately, the second highest death toll of any nation (after the Ottoman Empire).

Interesting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 up to 3 million dead.

Shutuplaura

PDN wrote: »

If this astounding figure is correct then that would mean that British East Africa suffered, proportionately, the second highest death toll of any nation (after the Ottoman Empire). Of course the Ottoman figures are somewhat skewed by the fact that the Turks slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians which, while it occurred in the war years, was not actually part of the war per se.

Thanks for that interesting tidbit. Niall Ferguson is always talking about how the Scottish if considered seperately suffered the highest proportion of war dead per involved states. Taking a nationalistic pride in the numbers of your countrymen killed is grisly to say the least.