Why built useless battleships?

[OpanaPointer]

The Color Books, on ibiblio.org/pha, give the official correspondence.

[Byron Angel]

By all means, read the "Color Books", which are the collected official diplomatic correspondence, color-coded by nation state, for each such nation involved in the orchestration of the first great holocaust of the 20th century.

But I suggest that interested parties should ALSO read the following book -

"The Russian Imperial Conspiracy 1892-1914"
by Robert L Owen

This book can be accessed via Google Books for free. It makes for fascinating reading.

Mr Owen was a United States Senator during the WW1 era and served on the Senate committee charged with reviewing and weighing the huge dump of secret clauses, codicils and side treaty agreements established among the signators to the "Dual Alliance" and "Triple Entente" pacts. These secret treaty documents plus a trove of related secret diplomatic correspondence exchanged among France, Russia, Great Britain and some other states was made public by the Bolshevik government after their over throw of the Tsarist regime in Russia.

WW1 did not start in 1914, nor was it a "tragic accident". It started in 1892 with the creation of the "Dual Alliance". It was only the shooting that started in 1914.

Extra credit question - Who was Theophile Delcasse?

Byron

[OpanaPointer]

And the multivolume alternate history the Soviets produced after the war, for the lols.

[Byron Angel]

And the multivolume alternate history the Soviets produced after the war, for the lols.

You’re certainly entitled to your opinion. It seems the US Government felt rather differently.

B

[OpanaPointer]

Chortle.

[Mostlyharmless]

It is easy to blame Russia if you study Russia and "The Russian Origins of the First World War" by Sean McMeekin https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Origins- ... 0674072332 is a fairly modern version.

However, German historians tend to study Germany and so they find reasons to blame Germany. Annika Mombauer's "A Reluctant Military Leader? Helmuth von Moltke and the July Crisis of 1914" https://www.jstor.org/stable/26013968 or her "The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B5F ... tkin_p1_i1 gives some of the arguments.

If you want to argue that Britain deliberately pushed Russia towards the Balkans, you might like "Imperial Interests in the British Decision for War, 1914: The Defence of India in Central Asia" by Keith M. Wilson Review of International Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Jul., 1984), pp. 189-203.

However, I take issue with the idea that it was not an accident. Had nobody lost their way in Sarajevo, there would have been a completely different crisis later in the year (probably between Greece and Turkey) but Austro-Hungary would not have chosen war because Franz-Ferdinand would have said no as he had in previous crises.

ps. Everyone agrees that the French wanted war but what if Caillaux had been more influential?

[OpanaPointer]

Let's not make opinions be a life or death matter.

[Mostlyharmless]

The question is so famously complicated that it is suggested as an ideal study for teaching history as in "Why Did They Fight the Great War? A Multi-Level Class Analysis of the Causes of the First World War" by Aaron Gillette, November 2006, The History Teacher 40(1):45 https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _World_War

[Byron Angel]

Hi MH,

It is easy to blame Russia if you study Russia and "The Russian Origins of the First World War" by Sean McMeekin https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Origins- ... 0674072332 is a fairly modern version.

>>>>> I’m not altogether up to speed on modern (i.e., post WW2) scholarship on the origins of the Great War. My interest in that topic arose after I had dropped out of college (History Major) and gotten a horrifyingly boring job as a clerk in a freight forwarding firm – so boring that I started collecting history books on periods and topics that interested me. Young and fairly strapped for disposable cash at the time, I did my shopping at the Brattle Bookshop, which sold secondhand books. The Brattle was not a run of the mill operation. It had been in continuous business since 1825 and was at the time the place where the book collections of retiring and deceased college professors from many of the colleges and universities in the greater Boston area would end up. A lot of the books I acquired were pretty old publications, some dating back into the late 19th century. I kept the military history books, but moved the diplomatic and political histories along after reading. My bad. That’s why, when I reference books, they are often “dated”. But those were books written before the great Bolshevik document dump was “forgotten” or “dismissed” (pick the term of your choice).
That having been said, my interest in the origins of WW1 arose once again as a result of a length intellectual “spat” I had on TMP a couple of years ago, which has sent me back looking for those titles (from 50-odd years ago) which I now can barely remember. The upside is that nowadays, the internet makes it a lot easier to get data on related issues like government budgets of the era, economic analysis, etc. So I’m just getting my feet wet again.

- - - - -

However, German historians tend to study Germany and so they find reasons to blame Germany. Annika Mombauer's "A Reluctant Military Leader? Helmuth von Moltke and the July Crisis of 1914" https://www.jstor.org/stable/26013968 or her "The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B5F ... tkin_p1_i1 gives some of the arguments.

>>>>> Have not (yet) read any of the references you have cited. I have been finding a few “old (and free) friends” through on Google Books and the Mises Institute, like “The Russian Imperial Conspiracy” by R L Owen, and I just found “Origins of the World War” by Sidney Fay at the /Mises Institute website (freebie PDF!).

- - - - -

If you want to argue that Britain deliberately pushed Russia towards the Balkans, you might like "Imperial Interests in the British Decision for War, 1914: The Defence of India in Central Asia" by Keith M. Wilson Review of International Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Jul., 1984), pp. 189-203.

>>>>> No argument, other than to say that Great Britain’s induction into the Triple Entente must certainly have influenced Russia to re-direct its expansionist energies away from India, Afghanistan and Persia and more towards the Balkans (arch opponent – Austria-Hungary and Turkey), Eastern Europe (arch opponents – Austria-Hungary and Germany) and the Baltic states (arch opponent Germany).

- - - - -

However, I take issue with the idea that it was not an accident. Had nobody lost their way in Sarajevo, there would have been a completely different crisis later in the year (probably between Greece and Turkey) but Austro-Hungary would not have chosen war because Franz-Ferdinand would have said no as he had in previous crises.

>>>>> Re “accident”, you and I will have to agree to disagree. Both the motivations and the evidence IMO is far too weighty in favor of premeditation on the part of the Triple Entente. Just consider the machinations at work inside the Russian imperial court to keep Nicholas in the dark (Sazanov IIRC)
As far as the Balkans are concerned, the region was akin to “The Crisis of the Month Club” – there were IIRC four wars in the span of years between 1897 and 1913 alone.

- - - - -

ps. Everyone agrees that the French wanted war but what if Caillaux had been more influential?

>>>>> If his wife had held his ministerial post - War for sure. …..

>>>>> Just curious - Have you read “The Russian Imperial Conspiracy 1892-1914”?

B

[wmh829386]

This topic has been derailed to a fascinating topic. I am sure that Germany do not want the Great War by the simple fact that the German war plan is very aware of it's dire strategic position in a war with Triple Entente.

To put it bluntly, the German war planners were clearly aware that a long war would be impossible to win unless the Royal Navy can be defeated OR both Russia and France are defeated: The same predicament of Napoleonic France.

[The biggest irony here is that in 20/20 hindsight, with the efficient of the German army and the difficult of offence (which nobody knew before 1914), it is possible to have a successful defensive campaign against both Russia and France to make continuation of the war politically impossible and keep Britain neutral.]

Will have to continue later, but all this will circle back to the original topic.

[OpanaPointer]

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy." (Don't remember who said that first.)

[wadinga]

Hi All,

It is attributed to Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, but I expect George Custer probably said much the same, and Publius Quinctilius Varus may have said something similar (in Latin) when ambushed in the Teutoburg Forest.

Germany had been preparing for another war with France for years, and might have scored their quick victory if the silly Belgians had just let them transit to and fro through their country as they arrogantly expected to. The paper they had signed guaranteeing Belgian security was not a problem. In the naïve German mentality the Kriegspiel game was against France and Russia and no other players should be on the board.

It is hilarious to read the outrage in von Hase and Scheer's memoirs that "perfidious England" should muscle in on the game, just because of a few Treaties, especially when it used its sea-power to cut off international supplies into Germany. German regard (with Royal connections) for the British Empire and its international interests meant they never really considered it would involve itself in a continental dust up. Unfair British involvement was the first of the "stab-in-the-back" excuses for losing WWI. In the German militaristic imagination the Kriegspiel player should be allowed unlimited access to strategic materials, including foodstuffs, so that he could play his best game. The initial reaction of trying to mobilise British public opinion against the war, and get them out of the game by killing some civilians in the seaside resort of Scarborough, and later by bombing from Zeppelins backfired spectacularly.

German battleships did turn out to be fairly useless, except in the Baltic, but if the Grand Fleet battleships did spend most of the war swinging on their moorings, they fulfilled their purpose by strangling Germany's trade from a distance. Despite the unanticipated U-boat threat, there was still a continuous flow of men and munitions across the Channel, guaranteed in part by the Grand Fleet, which kept the "High Seas Fleet" locked up in tidal waters pretty much all of the time.

All the best

wadinga

[Byron Angel]

Read more deeply into French, Russian, British and American diplomatic history ... starting from the establishment of the Dual Entente (France & Russia) in the 1890s

You might be quite surprised by what you find if you are willing to conduct a truly dispassionate inquiry. I certainly was.

B

[OpanaPointer]

I remember* Jackie Fischer's comment: "I wanted six battleships, the exchequer would only pay for four. So we compromised on eight."

[wadinga]

Hello Byron and all,

The manoeuvrings and finagling of various diplomats and their opinions, based on their own constrained perceptions of reality, are as nothing compared with the actual arrival of boots on somebody's else's ground. Contingency plans are just files left in a cabinet, which may never be used. I suspect American opinions were somewhat favoured by "Empire Envy", after their own, hotly debated, start down the road against the Spanish.

German war planners were clearly aware that a long war would be impossible to win unless the Royal Navy can be defeated

German war planners never considered the British would become involved. Von Hase's frankly racist comments that the two "white Nations" in Europe would never fight each other were held equally by many RN officers. Various diplomatic inducements were offered to Britain to stay out of any conflict, and the German hierarchy were appalled when a fellow Anglo-Saxon nation declared war against them.

German attempts to present their actions as their "hands being forced by others" started in August 1914, and were vastly amplified after the War. Denial of war guilt and the reparations demanded by the victorious Allies were a major motive. We all know who played on this feeling of "injustice" to prod the German people into another, even greater, and even more catastrophic war of aggression. Today, an army of historical academics seem to justify their status by uncovering (or generating) new angles to run counter to an accepted and more balanced consensus.

I have found Max Hastings book Catastrophe, to be an excellent source, drawing on many pieces of historical research and which presents a truly balanced view IMHO. He shows the two major actors in the German military, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger and Erich von Falkenhayn to be the major force in the rush to war, responding to and accelerating the aggressive extremes of the somewhat unhinged Kaiser, and overriding him when he vacillated the only way.

Interestingly he includes the following passage:

It was ironic that after 1890, the elder Moltke argued that Europe's fate should thenceforth be decided diplomatically rather than on the battlefield: he thought the usefulness of war to Germany was exhausted. But from 1906 onward his much less gifted nephew [ the Younger] professed to think that Schlieffen's concept of a grand envelopment offered the prospect of securing German domination of Europe.

My opinion,

with the efficient of the German army and the difficult of offence (which nobody knew before 1914)

I suspect the Elder realised this only too well, leading to his opinion. The Western Front mainly consisted of the Germans staying in defence of their gains of 1914 and using deep fortification, barbed wire, machine-guns and artillery to decimate the offensives of France and Britain.

There appears to be more than a grain of truth in suggesting the Younger was inadequately attempting to emulate his namesake who secured the Kaiser Reich through his victory in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.

However many battleships Jacky Fisher got, there was apparently no plan for them to bombard Togo, German East Africa or Samoa.

All the best

wadinga