Pre WWI naval arms race

[Karl Heidenreich]

In a poll´s thread the issue about the beggining of WWI was touched, so it´s seems important to discuss it. Very important indeed because it was the way WWI ended that WWII started, and our beloved battleships had their chance to fight between themselves (well, at least those that had the real test of surface combat) once more.
Common wisdom puts the blame in the hands of Kaiser Willy and the Germans as those whose criminal behaivour ignited WWI. But that simplist way to see things is good for a Hollywood screenplay and not for educated people.
WWI origins went as far as 1870ies when Moltke victorious armies defeated Napoleon III and Germany was unified under an emperor. But Germany became a nation late in History when British, French, Dutch and Russians had split the colonial approaches and the trade routes. Germany´s industries and enterprises become strong enough because of the unification and soon the British sensed a menace from the development of such activities. That´s when by British Trade Law the logo "made in England" and "made in Germany" had to be branded in each product, for making sure people would buy non-German products... only to had the reverse: German quality was such that people all around the world buy from Krupp than from anybody else. But taxes, quotas and control of the commerce routes by the British were harsh and the developing German economy and policy must do something about it or simply surrender to the Britannia Rule.
Of course, if by the late 1890 ies Otto von Bismarck was leading the German Nation then things must have happened different. But it was not Bismarck´s but Willy´s policy and he made his decisions, not wise but not criminal neither: the building of the HSF being a factor that threw England and Germany in the naval arms race, which was the Race that led to WWI.
But it´s arguable this, because by the second half of the 1900ies the Germans had quit to their idea of a "Bigger Than England Fleet".
Anyway WWI wasn´t started even by Kaiser Willy and his psicologycal problems but by a Serbian that shoot a not so much inteligent Habsburg heir at Sarajevo. It wasn´t Germany who issued the ultimatum to Serbia, it was Austria; it wasn´t Germany the one that mobilized her troops in order to retaliate against such a threat: it was Russia supported by her ally France. It was until that point that Germany sent her ultimatum to Russia, not before.
OK. Willy did nothing to prevent the war, but Austria, Russia, France or England did nothing something to prevent it neither. Germany, in such a way, was compelled to act, because as the sole real Central Power she was alone against three superpowers, so she had to attack first before being attacked. Her numerical inferiority was the reason of such a move, a bold one by the way of securing the Channel ports and attacking France by the Northen route with fewer units than her combined enemies of Belgium, Holland, France and the BEF.
Of course, such an interpretation would be under attack from leftist propaganda or the allies that put all the burden of guilt to those who "lost" (the German Army in 1918 was far from defeated... it was still in French soil on November 11th.!). But I asked myself: was the German Imperial Regime worse than that of Tsar Nikki? Or the French Chaotic Republic? Remember that WWI Empire was not Hitler´s Reich, and that Reich was born from the "wise" decisions at Versailles...

[marcelo_malara]

Personally I don´t blame Germany for the begining of WWI, but the system of alliances then extant. The succesive German governments til then had made the remarkable feat of making a recently unified country a superpower in less than 40 years. That contrast well with the fact that Great Britain and France (the other European superpowers of the era) were more than 400 years old.
The tzarist regime in Russia was totally corrupted and was calling for a revolution, red or not. I think that the German regime was far better that Russia´s.