"Did Germany 'Want' War with Britain ?" Topic

Talking with ny wife today, she told me how the current History sylabus at her school starts withe the question 'Why Did Germany Want War with Britain ?

She listened to my assertion that they didn't really, and it was more a consequence of interlocking alliances in 1914, but she maintains that current teaching has the Germans spoiling for a fight.

I'm not at all convinced – are many of you ?

Pete

So this refers to World War I, The Great War.

I understand that both Britain and Germany were involved in an arms race up to that point as the German King wanted to emulate the power and prestige of Britain and of his aunt Queen Victoria. Neither nation wanted to back down. A series of alliances led to the outbreak of war as one nation declared war on the other and no one wished to concede anything (except poor old Serbia).

King Wilhelm II would not back down but I don't regard him particularly as spoiling for a fight – just an arrogant, pompous and dangerous man. You get them from time to time.

I'd be interested to see how this post pans out. I am willing to learn.

Having read a few of the medium to lightweight books on the politics of the pre-WW1 period I can't say that any real consensus seems to exist – or didn't when those books were written.

Germany was ready for war, which is not quite the same as wanting it. I think that they accepted the innevitability of war and prepared well for it.

France wanted her losses from 1870 back – debatable how strong the desire to fight for them was though. France was a mess politically so I think it very difficult to pin down one opinion floating around at the time and say it was the 'national' mood.

Britain worried about the German naval 'threat' but not quite as much as some authors would have you believe. More worrying was the increase in German activity in colonising Africa & their increasing influence in Turkey & the middle-east and the belief that, if war happened, the French were not likely to win.

Nobody trusted the Russians.

As I understand it, from reading etc, no one actually wanted war, they just were all prepared for it to happen.

A very good comparison would be with the cold war period, 1950 – 1990. Neither side actually wanted the war as they were not certain to win. Its just that in 1914 a flashpoint occurred that caused it all to Domino out of control.

Britain had concerns about the emergence of a new Naval power (Germany) and Germany did seem to be looking at Britain rather than France as its key rival on the world stage.

There was also some hope that as in 1870 Britain would sit out the war between Germany and France.

The first World War had been averted a couple of times diplomatically when solutions to other flashpoints that could have cascaded into it.

SO while none of the great powers were specifically looking for war, they were all prepared to fight one if it came along.

Had Germany not invaded Luxembourg and Belgium it is difficult to know now, if Britain would have become involved.

We had treaties with France but none that required the instant support of the other, unlike the Franco-Russian treaty.

In fact WW1 can be argued as Britain siding with its natural enemy (France) against its natural allies (Germany/Austria).

No, until recently, historically, Germany has seen France as it's enemy, and historically mid-long term so did the English. Anyway, I go with Guthroth, and a bit of historical revisionism.

Usually there is an ideological agenda behind such revisionism. The humanities prof across the hall from my office does it all the time. I'm amazed at what he convinces his students to believe as fact. Actually this seems to be the norm in higher education. I try to fight against it in my classes, but it's difficult. Perhaps in an Owellian sense, this has been happening for millennia.

From what I know, the above posts are right on it. It's amazing how all our wars are so interconnected for 100s of years.

The Germans knew full well of Britain's treaty with Belgium. Spoiling for a fight with us? Maybe not but they were happy to take us on for a supposed short term strategic advantage. If there had been no invasion of Belgium then I doubt the war would have dragged on long enough for Britain to get involved on mainland Europe.

As I read it the Germans didn't want a fight with the Brits but also didn't want to be seen to back down – the crossing thru Belgium was a calculated gamble and I suspect some bright light in the Gross General Stab reckoned the Brits might blink and let them pass

The whole start of WWI was a bun-fight with a lot of miscalculations and faulty assumptions – at one point the German Foreign Ministry asked about going to war only with Russia, but the War Ministry vetoed it as it would have disrupted the train schedule too much!

I do not think that Kaiser Bill wanted to fight his cousins. He just did not think that they would be very influential in the outcome.
Everybody knew how large an army the British could put in the field immediately, and no one thought the war would last long enough for the British to field all that many men.

Quick sharp fight (too bad about those deaths, old boy), claim a few territories, and back to business as usual.

I also think that the Germans were surprised that the British were not as cynical about the neutrality of Belgium as they were.

I am, of course, constitutionally prevented from agreeing with John the OFM, but his arguments seem to me to encapsulate the nub, crux or essence of the question with compelling accuracy.

All the best,

John.

I'm not sure of the current state of play on this one.

Thirty-five years ago, when I did me A levels and you could meet a WWI veteran in any public bar, it was accepted that the Germans were pushing the Austrians into quarrelling with Serbia, and were mimeographing copies of the Schlieffen plan so every conscript knew what he was to do when it came to the big holiday to France.

Later on, the Germans seemed to get a bit of an easier hand on the Guilty Party front. Train timetables and brinkmanship and that idiot chauffeur who stopped right in front of Gavrilo Princip standing on the kerb ("Angriest pedestrian ever").

Maybe the pendulum has swung back towards "The Germans Dun It".

I am, however, reminded of Frank Chadwick's view of the thinking of all the Great Powers in 1914; "How bad could it possibly be?"

Not sure if anyone wanted it, although there were a lot of romantic notions about war in people's heads. The relatively short Franco-Prussian War probably skewed ideas on how long the next European conflict would be.

I think anyone that bothered to think about it knew that serious trouble was inevitable. A quote attributed to a friend of Hiram Maxim in 1883:

"If you want to make your fortune, invent something to help these fool Europeans kill each other more quickly."

I'd say pretty much the same in WWII as well.

I think everyone was itching to fight everyone

You could just as easily ask did Britain want war with Germany? The answers to both questions would be remarkably similar – yes, kind of, but not really. Your foreign policy is in a lot of trouble when this is the clarity of your thinking.

If causality – one's actions – equated to 'wanting' war, then actually it was the British Labour Party Pacifists who wanted the war!

These crises has occured fairly regularly in the 20 years or so prior to 1914. Every time the British cabinet had met and resolved to warn Germany that Britain would intervene if Germany attacked France, and the Germans eventually backed down….

However in 1914 the Cabinet, for the first time, had 2 of the new British Parliamentary Labour party as minority members of the Liberal party, both ardent, and of course wholly ignorant, Pacifists.

They vetoed the sending of an ultimatum to Germany, whose government took this first ever silence from the UK as something of a 'green light' to continue backing Austria Hungary….

Result – the bloodbath of WW1….

Just read a very good book about whether Britian & Germany wanted war in 1914, Niall Fergusons "Virtual History". He argues that ( I summarise a lot, forgive me).

1. Germnay wanted its place in the sun, and felt it had to go head to head with Britain to do it. To do this it needed a fleet, hence the arms race.

2. Post Boer War the European view was the British forces were pretty poor, no one could credit the Boers with their true effectiveness. No one, except some British, could imagine the scale a modern war war would be. 1870 was in everyone's mind (Over by Christmas)

3. Germany seemed to be preparing for a war, and no one knew what their war aims were, which rattled them most –
Russia, France and Britain so much they signed various Ententes with each other. These Ententes also had the effect of being colonial agreements, reducing the spend they all had to make matching each other (Great Game, Scramble for Africa etc).

4. In 1906, Dreadnought tipped things – and by 1910 Germany's battle fleet was losing the arms race, they could not afford to replace it – the longer time dragged, the worse their position. The various Ententes against them made them feel time was draining away on land too. This ramped up Germany's machinations, and the Balkan crisis provided an ideal opportunity to push things hard..

5. When the Balkan crisis hit the majority of the British cabinet wanted to stay neutral, in fact wanted to downplay support for Russia as that may have given the Russians confidence to go to war with Germany..

6. When it looked like France and Germany may go to war, the largest Parliamentary faction wanted no truck with ideas to send a army into Europe, and wanted to use sea power at most. They also argued the BEF plan was too small to ake any difference.

7. Germany read these events as signalling that Britain would not go to war.

8. The British never thought the Germans would be so dumb as to risk a war with Britain and France.

9. Ultimately, when France looked like it may be on the losing side, Britain decided that it did not ant to see France beaten so used Belgium as its excuse to enter the War.

WW1 effectivley bankrupted Britain, Fergusson argues Britain would have been better off not going into a land war but engaging in a naval/colonial war, much like the 7YW.

Blame it all on the Zulus – if they had not 'allowed' Smith-Dorrien to get away at Ishandlwhana, the BEF would have collapsed at Le Cateau, no Dunkirk-like evacuation, the French army would have collapsed as it was already in retreat leaving the BEF hanging.

A repeat of 1870 in the west, no need for the Germans to try to destabilize the Russian Monarchy by sending Lenin back east, no strong Communist prescence in the seemingly inevitable Russian Revolution which would probably have taken place once the Russians collapsed under a combined German & Austrian attack, like the abortive 1905 revolt. A likely outcome would have been a Constitutional Monarchy on the British model or a Republic on the Freench or US model.

No bankrupted European nations, millions of lives lived to their natural conclusion. Maybe no Great Depression in the 1920-30's. No WW2, not even really a WW1 unless things dragged on.

So, it was all the Zulu's fault. Just saying.

France was the major European rival, Britain was the world rival in the eyes of the Germans. They didn't want or plan war, but were making sure they could take on Britain should the great plan to move on the world/colonial stage go awry. But it was an incident in the Balkans that started it. Should it not have happened we may well have seen a British/German naval/colonial war with France jumping on board, keen to get revenge on the Boche for 1870 and anyone else to get a stab at owning a sausage factory in Tanganyika.

"Should it not have happened we may well have seen a British/German naval/colonial war with France jumping on board, keen to get revenge on the Boche for 1870 and anyone else to get a stab at owning a sausage factory in Tanganyika"

Fergusson argues that the French/British/Russian axis served them all quite well, they essentially all "locked in" their land gains with each other and de-militarised those areas against each other, leading to huge savings.

Germany hated this as it closed out their "place in the Sun" to just taking over old Portuguese colonies, areas no one wanted, or fighting the Spanish for theirs.

I think teh Zulu hypothesis is the truest :)

and anyone else to get a stab at owning a sausage factory in Tanganyika.

i see what you did there…

People across Europe wanted war because it was seen as short and sharp (1848,1854, 1864, 1866,1870, 1877, 1912) all had been relatively short and mostly decisive. War was widely seen as delivering a Darwinian verdict, the fittest would come out on top.
Germany had every reason to believe that a war would bring them assured dominance in Europe to match their economic and demographic position. The French thought that engineering a war with the Russians as allies would defaet the Germans and reverse the verdict of 1870. The Austrians thought that a war would hore up their Empire.
The only people who did not want war were the British who just did not want anyone dominating the continent and installing themselves on the channel.
Fergusson is right, better for the British to stay out and concentrate on trade . Similarly in 1940, better to have done a deal that did not bankrupt Britain fighting America's war.
Roy

That's not showing any animus against the USA, they have their own legit interests, one of which in the 20th century was to see the end of the British Empire.

"During the highly emotional conversation between Sir Edward Goshen, Britain's ambassador to Germany and the German chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg expressed astonishment that the British would go to war with Germany over the 1839 treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium, referring to the treaty as a "scrap of paper" compared to the "fearful fact of Anglo-German war.""

link

My poli-sci 231 (International Relations) professor blamed the entire mess on the 'hair-trigger' status of all those interlocking alliances.

All the armies were going to go to war as soon as the other guy blinked.

Similarly in 1940, better to have done a deal that did not bankrupt Britain fighting America's war.
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That would have been to say the least out of character with the way the British behave and there's no reason to think that the kindly Nazis would have let us alone anyway (notwithstanding, as a Celt, all the 'he respected the British as a fellow Germanic people' guff)– aside from anything else a country with its own Jewish population and a centre for exiles would have been an affront to them anyway. Not quite sure how its America's war, as by the time they came in, it was already our war.

I find Ferguson far too pro-German (and right wing)for my liking and 'The Pity of War' is one book that I threw at the wall with all its 'the evil Brits forced the poor Germans into war' slant – along with his assertions that for instance British troops routinely killed German POWs, that the German Army was superior to the British and French – all good examples of why economic historians should stick to economics. Though I'd better be careful as he's quoted as saying (of critics) "Nobody should ever imagine that they can do that kind of thing to me with impunity. Life is long, and revenge is a dish that tastes best cold. I'm very unforgiving."
A big right wing historian – I'm scared!

All historians drag their own baggage with them to the door of the research library. Most of them have the good grace to at least pretend they leave it there when they write up their findings.

Ferguson has the positive value (his only one) of letting us all know that he is happy to drag all his political and social prejudices in with him and stick them into his books. So we know which bits (most) to consign to the bin with a happy heart.

As for the question:
No Germany didn't want a war with Britain. They would have been quite happy for Britain to roll over without a fight and let Germany have European continental hegemony from which to later challenge the British trading empire overseas. As it was, we wouldn't, and they proved quite conclusively by their actions that if war was what it took, they were content to achieve their aims that way.

Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for the rest of Europe they didn't manage it. Unfortunately the allies didn't make it clear enough how badly beaten they had been and it had to be done properly 21 years later.

"They vetoed the sending of an ultimatum to Germany, whose government took this first ever silence from the UK as something of a 'green light' to continue backing Austria Hungary…."

Essentially right. Britain, despite being asked by Germany, at no point made it clear that that they would stand by the Treaty with Belgium if German troops violated Belgium's neutrality. It is open to question as to whether Germany would have continued with her attack on France if they'd known that it meant war with Britain as well. My own view is that they'd have been much less likely to attack if they'd known the consequences.

PS. I'd take a big pinch of salt with any view expressed by Fergusson, a right wing economic historian with his own agenda. Don't get me started on his views on History Teaching in Britain!

I don't think the Germans wanted a war with Britain, but they weren't going to shy away from it.

After reading about a dozen books on the lead-in to the Great War my sense is that everyone wanted a war-- their war. That is, they all wanted a war in the way they wanted to have it. One of the best books on this subject is of course Barbara Tuchman's "The Proud Tower" and as a counerpart Massie's "Dreadnought."

The problem that caused the war was that everyone really believed their own bullcrap and thought that they could control the drift of diplomacy and that THEY were the only "actors." That is, that the other guy was going to do exactly what they thought or pick one of the options that they anticipated, and nothing else-- and no one did. This is pretty much the standard opinion of Tuckman in "Guns of August." What she points out that is the most dangerous background to this is the mental and intellectual status of the elites in each country, democratic or not. Each country had an "elite" made up of essentially lavishly rich and connected people who not only considered ruling their natural right, but even in democracies conceived of the people as more or less on a par with their favorite hound, intensely loving and loyal to them. Bored, interested only in spending money, not amassing it, and completely unprepared by their education to do anything, and here Tuchman pretty much says this is true of all the major European powers, they not only were completely unwilling to recognize new social problems, but could not conceive of a society of any worth beyond their intimite circle of friends in the hunt club or the next cotillion. Their whole training and education was, in fact, to make them "fit" for government-- not to DO governing-- but simply to be IN the government. One must remember this is the great age of Messers G&S with their satires of "The very modern major general (Sir Garnett Woolsey and later Kitchener) and "The Monarch of the Seas " (W.H. Smith and to an extent Sir John Beresford).

Indeed, Massie in his massive work "Dreadnought" portrays part of the problem in the Kaiser seeing the naval race between England and Germany as little more than an extension of a yachting rivalry between him and "Bertie" his cousin in England. This ascerbated by nationalism (which saw such high-blown terms as needing a fleet to "protect German interests in Morocco" which in fact turned out to be little more than one business man, created an enviornment of complete unreality.

Make no mistake about it. If Germany had taken Paris in 1914 or the Russians bashed into Berlin in that year, it would have been a short, sharp incredibly violent event in the early 20th century which shocked everyone, but which on the whole, went the way everyone thought it would and the world not have changed much. However by Christmas 1914 I could have given each of the heads of state of Europe a one page analysis showing the total number of men they had, how far they had penetrated towards the enemy capital, and with a few bits of division showed that they would run out of them long before they got close enough to worry about hotel reservations. The problem is that none of them would have done the slightest thing about it simply because, coming from that very Elite world, they could not conceive that things could go ANY other way than they wished.

So I think, to restate it, EVERYONE wanted War in 1914 (including some absolute loons who thought it would "cleanse" their states of such things as democracy, socialism, revolution, and the ennervating effects of civilization), but they wanted a war that went the way they thought it would.

Wars have a habit of not doing that. As the Athenian Envoys said to the Spartan Ephors at the start of the Peloponnesian Wars- "Do not be hasty in involving yourself in the affairs of others, consider while there is still time the inscrutable nature of war, and how, when prolonged it often ends by being a matter of pure chance."

OSchmidt
You may be right that Germany wanted war – but not, I still contend, at that time with Britain – which was the original question.

Sorting out the Russians was one thing, and a major step towards continental control, reminding the French of what had happened in 1870 wasn't a problem either, but I don't think taking on all three of the Entente in one go was their aim at that time.

The naval build up was essential for a future trial and to let Britain and France know there was a new global, rather than a simply continental land, power on the block. But as Jutland showed, they weren't ready to take on the Royal Navy, let alone that and the French navy as well.

Belgium was a massive miscalculation, although they must have known it was at least a possiblilty Britain would react, which is why I said they didn't WANT a war with Britain but they were content to have it happen if it did. They would have preferred to take things one step at a time and deal with France, and Russia (with Austria's help) before moving on to the more complex maritime and colonial confrontation.

Having said that I agree we shouldn't import current social mores into the early 19th century and there was certainly no abhorrence of the idea of war as a means of settling disputes between European elites.

So I think several European leaders and their coteries wanted war to sort things out in Europe, but I'm sure, as you said, that the war they wanted wasn't the one they got, and in Germany's case they didn't want a war with Russia, France and Great Britain.

Dear Gwydion
I don't think we disagree. I said that EVERYONE in Europe wanted War, but they wanted war on their terms and their times. Germany, no more than any other power and any power no more or no less than Germany wanted a trial of strength. Again, what they got was NOT what they wanted, and in the last few weeks before the war it started to dawn on the chanceries of Europe what indeed they were getting and all of them began to furiously back-pedal to try and avoid the abyss, but by that time it was way too late. They all wanted the war THEY wanted to fight, on their terms, but alas- that was not to be.

Perhaps the greatest misconception was that one short, sharp violent war would settle everything and of course as we see, it settled nothing.

One other dimension makes one puzzle.

Literally EVERYONE in Europe's Elite was related to everyone else not only in some of the monarchies, but also in the Elites and the aristocratic and propertied classes and one wonders why some sort of family reunion or accomodation could not have been made. We can talk about this or that strategy, or this or that maneuver, but that's all too late. The very question of going to war, essentially with ones cousins and uncles strikes one as very strange, unless you have the conception of war as something as a little sharper critic match or a riding to the hounds with steel reinforced riding crops.

Dear OSchmidt,
I agree [almost :^)] that we don't disagree.
I'm with you except on the original question – I don't think Germany wanted a war with Britain in 1914.
A war – yes – but not with Britain. Not then. Later, probably. With the others yes but Britain was a later target.

As for your last point – family feuds are the worst!
But there were rivalries that outweighed kinship (even if they were as in control as they may have thought). And again – they didn't believe it would last as long or be as dramatic in its consequences.

Of course if you like conspiracy theories, it may all have been a plot to engineer some kind of global change – although how the Prussian, Austrian or Russian Royal families and nobility benefited I'll leave to those who believe such stuff to explain.

The very question of going to war, essentially with ones cousins and uncles strikes one as very strange, unless you have the conception of war as something as a little sharper critic match or a riding to the hounds with steel reinforced riding crops.

Emphasis mine.

The nastiness and brutality of family feuds notwithstanding, the italicized part of that statement is *exactly* the attitude of most of the Europeans at the time.

The US had most of that attitude beaten out of the national mindset in 1860-65, with some small relapses at the point of the Spanish-American war.

Germany's position as I understand it was based on paranoia about being surrounded by the Franco-Russian Alliance.
Britain's defence of Belgium was to prevent a European Hegemony gaining control of the Channel ports and thus threatening a blockade of British ports – so Self Interest.
Austro-Hungary had to be seen to rebuke Serbia following the Assassination so that makes sense.
The real question marks hang over Serbia, and more seriously Russia.
The standard excuses that Russia stepped in because they were fellow Slavs or Orthodox Christians are pathetic.
I'm currently reading 'The Russian Origins of the First World War' by Sean McMeekin.
He makes a good case that it was Russia forcing the series of events following the Assassination pushing Europe into a general war in a bid for Constantinople, (though it starts to smell of conspiracy theory when he tries to implicate Russia in the Assassination itself).

Whatever the national/imperial objectives of the European powers doesn't mean Germany 'wanted' a war with Britain.

I wouldn't read too much into the inter-relationships between the various monarchs and aristocracies of Europe. Generally, such kinship was respected, especially during Victoria's lifetime, and some regiments in all the major armies except that of France had foreign chefs/inabers. However, in most cases, it was the "home-grown talent" and local lesser nobility who most resented such folk as either "foreigners" or at the very least "unpatriotic" in respect of their kinship with non-nationals.