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Should Britain Have Entered World War 1

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Then without Britain entering the war in 1914 there would have been a negotiated peace in say 1916. In our timeline Germany didn't take much territory in the Brest-Litovsk treaty of 1917 with Russia in 1918. Yes, on those maps you can see Russia losing a lot of territory to new states like Poland, Finland, Estonia etc. but that didn't go to Germany.

Because at the time of this negotiated peace in 1916 Germany had occupied large chunks of Russian/French/Belgian/Serbian territory Germany and its allies would have benifited. By the way Italy would have been an ally of Germany because that country tends to end wars at the winner's side.

To Germany: Luxemburg, Lorraine, some African en Pacific colonies.
To Belgium: The Calais area, French Congo (to pay it for damages, sort of why Poland got eastern Germany after 1945)
To Italy: Corsica
To Austria: Northern Serbia
To Bulgaria: Southern Serbia
To Turkey: Some moslem areas in the Caucasus

And the new countries of Finland, Poland and the baltic states.

And very probably no Lenin sent to Russia to stir up a marxist revolution. Insted they would have locked him up in a nice prison cell together with his revolutionary pal Gavrilo Princip, the humanitarian that killed the Arch-Duke and his wife. And there Lenin would have died of paralysis of the insane in 1924.
Japan would have stayed out of the war against Germany too and might have joined against Russia in 1916 or so to grab some Siberia. So Sakhalin and Kamchatka to Japan.

Who knows, Britain might have joined to war on Germany's side to pick up some colonies from France. For instance the french enclaves in India that were still untidying the map. Some pacific island. Maybe Calais because everyone thinks that would have been the invasion port to start the invasion of England.
Anyway I don't see Germany having total mastery over Europe, it would have been as powerful in Europe as Brazil is in Southamerica.

Why does everyone seem to think that the Germany of Queen Victoria's grndson Wilhelm II wanted to conquer Great-Britain? Because they read it in some book?

Anyway, no Britain entering the war in 1914. So no nazis. No communism. Millions of lives saved. Horrible isn't it.
 
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We - Germany - didn't needed the holle world to alive, like France.
The German Kaiser and the Russian Zar were very good friends, because of family. And they tried to stop the beginning of a big war. And if Germany had win the war, then it's right, there were no nazism.
 
Originally posted by sean9898
If you assume the 3:1 ratio of troops to engage in continous offensives and proportianaly higher casualties inflicted on Germany then the loss of Britain isn't so severe.
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I'm not sure what this 3-1 number means. The Allies never enjoyed this on the Western Front until the last days of the war, so saying that the German lack of it was critical misses the point. The fact that appears from an analysis of the war dead (see ferguson's The Pity of War) that the Germans inflicted greater losses on the allies whether the Germans were attacking or defending. The defeat of France under these circumstancxes is surely a reasonable assumption.

Agreed, the loss of the naval blockade would have hurt France more than the loss of British infantry.
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I disagree with this. The presence of the BEF was critical, IMO, to the failure of the German Schlieffen Plan. It is true that the SP suffred from flaws from the start, but it was planned without the benefit of the knowledge of the French Plan 17, which in and of itself almost handed Paris to the Germans. With the SP executed as it was, Plan 17 as it was, and no BEF, I think Germany takes paris on or about 6 September, 1914.
 
Originally posted by grumbler

I disagree with this. The presence of the BEF was critical, IMO, to the failure of the German Schlieffen Plan. It is true that the SP suffred from flaws from the start, but it was planned without the benefit of the knowledge of the French Plan 17, which in and of itself almost handed Paris to the Germans. With the SP executed as it was, Plan 17 as it was, and no BEF, I think Germany takes paris on or about 6 September, 1914.
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How will you prevent Kluck pursuing Lanrezac east of Paris, leaving his flank open to the sixth army and Maunory? Bulow was intending to withdraw even absenting the BEF, as the French were curling round his flank. Even though Kluck was beating the French forces advancing from Paris, Bulow's withdrawal, which I suspect Hentsch would still have supported given his staff training and knowledge of the logistical/command problems of the German army, would have forced Kluck to withdraw as his inner flank would have been left hanging. This would threaten him with a double envelopment as to protect his flank he would have had to have eased up on the French sixth army from Paris. The BEF had a surprisingly effective role given their size relative to the German onslaught, but their presence at the Marne was only one of many factors. For instance, Kluck was operating on the assumption that the BEF had been shattered to badly to matter anyway!
 
Originally posted by grumbler
I'm not sure what this 3-1 number means. The Allies never enjoyed this on the Western Front until the last days of the war, so saying that the German lack of it was critical misses the point. The fact that appears from an analysis of the war dead (see ferguson's The Pity of War) that the Germans inflicted greater losses on the allies whether the Germans were attacking or defending. The defeat of France under these circumstancxes is surely a reasonable assumption.
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One of the fundementals of attacking entrenched positions is that you have a 3:1 advantage in numbers. Of course the allies did not have those numbers across the front, but when moving on an offensive, men were concentrated.

The Germans did not generally inflict a greater number of casualties when attacking.

I disagree with this. The presence of the BEF was critical, IMO, to the failure of the German Schlieffen Plan. It is true that the SP suffred from flaws from the start, but it was planned without the benefit of the knowledge of the French Plan 17, which in and of itself almost handed Paris to the Germans. With the SP executed as it was, Plan 17 as it was, and no BEF, I think Germany takes paris on or about 6 September, 1914.
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It was road capacity, not the BEF which condemed the Schlieffen Plan. It could not have worked whether the BEF was there or not.
 
But another reason the Schlieffenplan failed was bad german leadership...von Moltke sent too may troops to the eastern front and at the battle of the Marne he panicked.

Anyway if Germany would have taken Paris, would that have knocked France out of the war? I think not because the french government was in Bordeaux anyway.

imho the role of the BEF in the first month of the war is overrated...

You never know, but i think that after the conquest of Paris the same stalemate would have happened...the war of the trenches that is. It would have given Germany a better position at the Peace Conference.
But, and that what this thread is now again about, that peace conference would have been in 1916 or so if Britain would have stayed neutral. And it would have been an amicable peace conference, with all those royal cousins Willy, Nicky and Georgie. And France becoming a monarchy again with some count of Paris as a king again. Louis number a lot.
 
The British were pursuing much the same policy they had practiced since the Napoleonic Era - Namely, preventing a single dominant power from establishing hegemony on the continent. I honestly can't imagine England allied with Germany under any circumstances given the overall geo-political situation at the beginning of the century, naval arms race or not.
 
One result of Britain staying neutral would be that Russia would be far better armed. One of the causes of the dissafection in Russia was the inefficiency and poor supply of its army. Britain took numerous armament contracts from Russian, but couldn't fulfill them. Without her own continental army needing those resources, the Russian contracts could have been filled. Russia would have been more effective - and indeed, maybe the Revolution wouldn't have happened.
 
Originally posted by sean9898
One of the fundementals of attacking entrenched positions is that you have a 3:1 advantage in numbers. Of course the allies did not have those numbers across the front, but when moving on an offensive, men were concentrated.
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Yet I cannot find a single battle on the western front (after the initial advances) in which the attacker did, in fact, have a 3-1 superiority in numbers. It was simply not possible to assemble those numbers of troops, given the large numbers of troops per mile of front.

The Germans did not generally inflict a greater number of casualties when attacking.
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In only 3 months, July - September 1918, did the Germans suffer more losses on the Western Front than the Allies did (see Ferguson, p. 302).

At Verdun, for instance, the Germans were attacking a heavily fortified area and inflicted 377,000 casualties at a cost of 337,000 (Ferguson, p. 285).

I think you will find that the Germans did, in fact, inflict more casualties whether attacking or defending.

It was road capacity, not the BEF which condemed the Schlieffen Plan. It could not have worked whether the BEF was there or not.
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Perhaps it would not have worked as originally planned (i.e. an overwhelming victory), but I think that it COULD have worked enough to take Paris. Vam Creveldt's Supplying War concludes that the Schliefen Plan was unsustainable logistically, but that this did not mean that German defeat was inevitable, simply that it could not succeed based on its own assumptions. The Germans did NOT assume that Plan 17 would be executed. Plan 17 made the French position much worse than the Schliefen Plan had assumed.

WFHermans,
I agree with your points. The loss of Paris did not mean the defeat of France, but the French position under those circumstances would have been desperate, indeed.


David,
How would the British have gotten those supplies to Russia? Even as late as 1917, the Russians were unable to move the supplies landed at Archengelsk or Vladivostok to the front. In 1914 the rail lines would be much less well-developed. The scale of the supplies needed dwarfed Russia's transport capability. Other than that, your point is well-taken. I just don't think it would make much of a difference. Remember also that the British could not have produced the supplies they did in WWI without considerable sacrifice, which the people may not be willing to make if their own nation is not at war.
 
Originally posted by grumbler
In only 3 months, July - September 1918, did the Germans suffer more losses on the Western Front than the Allies did (see Ferguson, p. 302).

At Verdun, for instance, the Germans were attacking a heavily fortified area and inflicted 377,000 casualties at a cost of 337,000 (Ferguson, p. 285).

I think you will find that the Germans did, in fact, inflict more casualties whether attacking or defending.
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Battle of 1st Ypres 24k British dead 50k German dead, without entrenched positions or barbed wire.

Total for 1914 offensive 366k French, Belgian and British 241k German

I don't see Verdun or 1914 as the Germans inflicting significantly more casualties than they took. Do you think that the Germans could maintain that casualty rate and continue the war? The 1918 offensive was an exception, of course if the Germans had replicated that several times earlier in the war they would have won.

Perhaps it would not have worked as originally planned (i.e. an overwhelming victory), but I think that it COULD have worked enough to take Paris. Vam Creveldt's Supplying War concludes that the Schliefen Plan was unsustainable logistically, but that this did not mean that German defeat was inevitable, simply that it could not succeed based on its own assumptions. The Germans did NOT assume that Plan 17 would be executed. Plan 17 made the French position much worse than the Schliefen Plan had assumed.
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Without the BEF the French defense might be different. I don't mean to underplay the role that the BEF had in saving France, but would it not be possible for France to find enough units to replace the 160,000 of the British army?

As for 3:1, perhaps that would explain why none of these bloody attacks achieved anything. I thought the British achieved this superiority at the Somme, but I will have to get back to you when I find the figures for the German defenders.

After 1914, with the exception of Verdun and the final offensive the burden of attacking was carried out by the British and French. While it's possible that the Germans in the same position may have been more effective, their performance in the three major historic offensives would suggest that they were as inept as the allies. 1914 and Verdun were failures, perhaps not on the scale of Somme or Paschendale but failures nonetheless.
 
Originally posted by sean9898
Battle of 1st Ypres 24k British dead 50k German dead, without entrenched positions or barbed wire.
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I haven't seen those figures for the Battle of Ypse alone, but overall in the period of Ypres the French and British had 42,000 more killed, missing, or POW than the Germans (Ferguson, p. 302)

Total for 1914 offensive 366k French, Belgian and British 241k German
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Ferguson's figures (p. 302) show a delta of about 320,000 more allied (French and British only) than German losses in August-December, 1914.


I don't see Verdun or 1914 as the Germans inflicting significantly more casualties than they took. Do you think that the Germans could maintain that casualty rate and continue the war? The 1918 offensive was an exception, of course if the Germans had replicated that several times earlier in the war they would have won.
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My point was that the Germans inflicted more losses than they suffered whether attacking or defending. With the possible exception of the 1st Ypres numbers you named, I think that this was true, at least according to Ferguson (though he deals with summaries and only permanent losses - KIA, missing, and POW, rather than total casualties, but I think it reasonable to assume that the numbers of wounded were proportional to KIA/POW, at least on the Western Front). The Germans certainly COULD sustain a loss rate of 1:1.1 against the French if the French are the only force they are facing in the west, since the French had a far smaller manpower pool to draw on than the Germans. Versus France + Britain, this was not the case, but this is exactly my point!

Without the BEF the French defense might be different. I don't mean to underplay the role that the BEF had in saving France, but would it not be possible for France to find enough units to replace the 160,000 of the British army?
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The French ordered the implentation of Plan 17 when they mobilized - i.e. before they knew the British were coming into the war. Thus, I conclude that, no, they would not have changed their plans if the British were not coming, and no, they wouldn't have managed to find the men to replace the 160,000 "missing" Brits. The French were convinced that they had the plan needed to win the war, and had been repeatedly told by Britain not to count on British assistance.

As for 3:1, perhaps that would explain why none of these bloody attacks achieved anything. I thought the British achieved this superiority at the Somme, but I will have to get back to you when I find the figures for the German defenders.
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The Somme was one of the better-prepared attacks in terms of concentrating force, but the lengthy preparations gave the Germans a chance to reinforce as well. I don't doubt the british high command THOUGHT they could assemble a 3-1 superiority in men, but the numbers of men available to both sides compared to the side of the battle front meant that this was nearly impossible, until the days of aerial interdiction of transport.

After 1914, with the exception of Verdun and the final offensive the burden of attacking was carried out by the British and French. While it's possible that the Germans in the same position may have been more effective, their performance in the three major historic offensives would suggest that they were as inept as the allies. 1914 and Verdun were failures, perhaps not on the scale of Somme or Paschendale but failures nonetheless.
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One can certainly argue that all of the offensives on the Western Front up until September- October 1918 wer failures, and that is true to a great degree. However, the Germans, based on actual casualty records, appear to have been not quite as inept as the British and French. Exactly why this is true is controversial. Personally, I attribute this to the professionalism of the German officer corps and their tradition of being unswayed by arguments based on emotion. They never fell for the "fads" and self-delusion that so afflicted the British and French militaries before and during the war.

The bottom line, then, is that the Germans were both more numerous and more efficient than the French. I cannot see France even hoping realistically for a stalemate against German, other than one imposed for the balance of 1914 by the lack of ammunition reserves on all sides. I see france (nearly defeated in 1916 with heavy British assistance) completely defeated in 1914 (best case for Germany) or else late 1915 or early 1916 (worst case for Germany), without this British assistance
 
Grumbler, all those figures came from Keegan, the only book I have here on the subject. The Ypres figures were for Oct and November. One thing I dislike about the book is the selective figures, what happened just prior or afterward being abscent. He gives very detailed info regarding the British and French forces at the Somme and proceeds to ignore the German disposition. But, it's fairly readable and well written.

While I agree, you are correct that the Germans sustained fewer casualties than the allies, we only have 3 major offensives to base the assumption that this would have continued. While I would not go so far as to say that German leadership was better, they were certainly less inept with their men's lives. Perhaps, and this is a stretch I know, the reason for their efficiency was the necesity of not taking disasterous casualties.

The other side of this is would the French have sacrificed so many at Verdun had they not have had the "luxury" of losing those men and continuing the war?

Again, I'm not trying to play down Britain's contribution to the war, but a France solely on the defensive would have IMHO had as good a chance of holding the Germans as losing.

Do you think that in this situation the Germans might have developed tanks and the light machine gun, and do you think that they would have used those new weapons more effectively than the allies did?
 
Germany had no plans to mass-produce tanks and the few tanks it had were mostly captured allied tanks.
Because tanks were developed and used by Britain it is very unlikely they would have played a role in the first worldwar without Britain entering the war....although a scenario where a neutral Britain is selling their tanks to the highest bidders helps to see even more advantage in Britain staying out of that war...but even that is unlikely to have happened if Britain would have stayed neutral because it would have been far less likely for Britain to have developed the tank, at least not from 1915 on as they did in our timeline.
And anyway without British intervention the war would have been over anyway in 1916, not because the whole of France or Russia would be occupied but because it would have been obvious for them that nothing could be gained from continuing the war. France ended the wars of 1814, 1815 and 1870 that it "lost" against Prussia for the same reasons.

The 3:1 rule for infantry attacks is in a very general way true and therefore the combatants tried to manoeuver to get a 3:1 rate locally, gain some square miles of mud, and then tried again. The western european front were usually to densely populated with too much defence in-depth to get the breakthroughs that were possible at the russian and middle-eastern fronts.
With their almost exclusive use of tanks and the american troops tha allied were able to push the germans back that way in the second half of 1918. This didn't lead to a breakthrough or victory though. It did lead to many more casualties.
 
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German industry was probably not in good enough shape by 1918 to field any serious numbers of tanks. the Germans had found a doctrinal solution to trench warfare and probably didn't see much need for the tank. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were working on an air-cooled MG, but I have never run across any references to such work.
 
Exactly. Tanks and their upkeep are hugely expensive. Germany wasn't even able to produce enough ammunition and food at the end of the war.

Developing and mass-producing aircooled machineguns wouldn't have helped Germany much at the end of the war either I think.
 
Naval situation 1914

This is my first post on the EU forums. A special hello to grumbler, who I've seen on the Matrix Games Pacific War forum. Also a special hello to Field Marshall, if you are the same one who maintains an Empires in Arms website that has Warren Bruhn's 1796 variant.

I'm trying to hold four pages of forum in my head as I post this. I'm not a historian, but I have read Lord Grey's memoirs and quite a bit about the naval situation.

I really don't think Britain had a better choice than to go to war with Germany in 1914. Britain had invested a great deal of diplomatic and military capital in the relationship with France in the decade preceding the Great War. Britain was relying on France to concentrate naval forces in the Mediterranean. France was relying on Britain to concentrate naval forces to defend the Atlantic, Channel, and North Sea. That is how the navies were generally placed in August 1914.

I realize that the British were trying to hold back from a DoW, and since France had declared war of Germany, did not feel entirely bound. But Britain had to do something to protect France's flank in the north and at sea. Failing to do so would have left Britain isolated in a world where "splendid isolation" was no longer a viable policy.

France could have held in 1914, and perhaps for another two years at most. But what would have happened at sea? France had a large submarine force and several cruisers. I think both France and Germany would have engaged in a commerce war against each other because Germany did not have a battlefleet capable of long range action and because of the lack of major amphibious capability. Germany would probably get the best of that war because of battlecruisers. Many problems would have been created for Britain and the USA. I find it hard to believe that Britain would not have been drawn in quickly.

What would Germany do if Britain declared some kind of restriction on German naval activity? I think the answer is obvious: DoW the UK.

I don't think hindsight matters. If Britain had hindsight and could change the decision, it could have behaved differently during the war, at the peace negotiations, and in the years up to 1939. Also, they could have quietly snuffed Hitler when he was still a nobody in Austria. Not that Hitler was the only person with his ideas of how Germany should conduct itself in 1932 to 1945...
 
What would Germany do if Britain declared some kind of restriction on German naval activity? I think the answer is obvious: DoW the UK.

I read somehere that Britain planned to restrict Germany's war-at-sea activity along the Fench coast, in case of a war between France and Britain only.
And Germany would do everything...almost...to avoid war with Britain. After the German invasion of Belgium and the British ultimatum the German emperor was discussing to stop the invasion to avoid a state of war with Britain, but he was overruled, well, convinced otherwise, by his generals. Now what kind of emperor is that:)

I don't think hindsight matters.

Agreed ,and it's "unsportsmanlike" (we are thinking here for the British in 1914) to use hindsight here.

Maybe building its big fleet was what did Germany in. It was a huge factor explaining Britain's hostility for Germany. And Germany might have been able to improve the state of the land army, and build more tanks.
And of course at the end of the war there would't have been that mutiny of the sailors because there wouldn't have been any! Ooops, i'm using hindsight again...not fair.
 
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