Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”
As a soldier, politician, and writer, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874–1965) made a deep imprint on world history for more than half a century. He is best known for rallying his countrymen during the fateful Battle of Britain when he was prime minister—thereby, many people believe, stemming the flood that was sweeping Adolf Hitler to world conquest. Small wonder that Time magazine named him its Man of the Century, a designation that many other admirers have embraced.
Churchill, however, never waited idly for the world to construct his legend. From the 1890s onward, he strove to put himself in the places, especially the wars, where he would be best situated to advance his fame and realize his ambitions, and as he made his way through a series of adventures, he promptly wrote articles and books about each of them, thus shaping in large degree how others would view his actions. Moreover, he was an excellent writer; his articles and books sold very well, and in 1953 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His sharp wit and dazzling rhetoric enhanced his reputation.
In Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War,” Patrick J. Buchanan seeks to demolish the Churchill myth, along with several related ones, which he does with surprising success. I say “surprising,” not because the myth itself was ever unassailable—excellent historians, including Ralph Raico, long ago pounded Churchill’s feet of clay into dust—but because Buchanan is known primarily as an ideological polemicist. Yet in this book he presents respectably balanced and well-documented arguments for his theses. If he is not himself a professional historian, he has absorbed the works of scores of well-reputed historians, and he carefully assesses a number of counterarguments against his position. Although Buchanan presents no previously unreported facts, he offers abundant evidence expressed in clear, forceful prose. All in all, he makes a persuasive case.
Buchanan correctly views the two world wars as “two phases of a Thirty Years’ War.” He argues that both phases were unnecessary and that Great Britain “turned both European wars into world wars.”
For World War I, he maintains: “Had Britain not declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and India would not have followed the Mother Country in. Nor would Britain’s ally Japan. Nor would Italy, which London lured in with secret bribes of territory from the Habsburg and Ottoman empires. Nor would America have gone to war had Britain stayed out. Germany would have been victorious, perhaps in months. There would have been no Lenin, no Stalin, no Versailles, no Hitler, no Holocaust.”
For World War II, he maintains: “Had Britain not given a war guarantee to Poland in March 1939, then declared war on September 3, bringing in South Africa, Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, and the United States, a German-Polish war might never have become a six-year war in which fifty million would perish.”
He argues that the decisive event in the run-up to World War II was not the infamous 1938 appeasement at Munich—because the Germans had good reason to reabsorb the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia—but the 1939 guarantee, which was foolish of the British to make and foolish of the Poles to rely on. It was foolish because Britain had no means of defending Poland. When Hitler attacked in 1939, after Polish leaders refused to return Danzig to Germany, the British could only watch helplessly.
Buchanan begins his narrative at the end of the nineteenth century and ends it at the conclusion of World War II. Churchill occupies center stage in this extended drama because he “was the most bellicose champion of British entry into the European war of 1914 and the German-Polish war of 1939.” Along the way, Buchanan adduces evidence that Kaiser Wilhelm II, a grandson of Queen Victoria and nephew of King Edward VII, did not seek war with Great Britain (in 1910, he “marched in Edward’s funeral—in the uniform of a British field marshal”). Likewise, 30 years later, Hitler wished to avoid war with Great Britain, whose people and empire he admired: “His dream was of an alliance with the British Empire, not its ruin.”
The Lebensraum he sought lay to the east of Germany, not to the west. The Germans did not seek to “conquer the world,” despite frequent claims to that effect, and in any event, they lacked the means to achieve such a conquest.
No short review can depict the breadth, the depth, and the many fascinating details of Buchanan’s book. Read it and see for yourself. It may well challenge your most cherished beliefs about Winston Churchill and the world-shattering Thirty Years’ War of 1914–45.
Comment by Tim on 21 June 2009:
Dr Higgs is correct. Buchanan’s book, while not breaking any new ground, is a necessary work of historical revisionism. His iconoclasm is refreshing and it reminds the reader that history is never as simple as most believe it to be.
Comment by Tim on 21 June 2009:
And another thing, as magnificent as Churchill was in the summer of 1940, Great Britain’s predicament was largely a consequence of the policies he championed. He was one of the strongest advocates for war in 1914. He also opposed revising the terms of Versailles Treaty thereby unwittingly helping the Nazis into power. Churchill once said he did not become Prime Minister to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire but that was precisely the result of the policies he advocated. Churchill was a brilliant orator, talented writer, and first and foremost, a politician.
Comment by Basil McDonnell on 22 June 2009:
And if Britain had not gone to war in either 1914 or 1939 we\\\’d all be speaking German now. How can anyone believe that a military success by Germany in 1914 would not have fed the worst instincts of militarism in Germany? Utterly dominant on the continent, France and Russia defeated, why would a massively successful militarist Germany have not then simply finished building it\\\’s fleet and then crushed Britain at sea?
And how can anyone ignore Hitler\\\’s openly stated plans for the population of his \\"lebensraum he sought that lay to the east?\\" Once he\\\’d killed two hundred and fifty million Poles and Slavs, how could he not then turn on the West? Let\\\’s not forget this man was a madman by any definition.
It\\\’s much more likely that Churchill was right in 1938 on Munich; there\\\’s ample evidence (Shrirer et all) that a declaration of war against Hitler then would have triggered a military coup against him in Germany.
Buchanan\\\’s alternate history is entertaining for it\\\’s departure from the norm but is less than convincing in the light of the facts.
Comment by andy on 22 June 2009:
Basil, as Higgs notes in his piece, Hitlers natural enemies were to the east, not the west, all the evidence shows that Hitler never had any intention of waging war against britain, and nothing he said or wrote indicated he ever wanted “world domination” and he never wanted to force us all to “speak german”, that is something the propagandists used to keep everyone fully behind the war effort, it was a myth, in actual fact Hitler admired the British empire, he wrote as much, and certainly didn’t want conflict with Britain, it was a war he knew he could not win.
You can’t go to war based upon what you assume might happen, maybe Germany would have built up their navy, but where is the evidence of this ? … was it really worth the deaths of 50m+ human beings lives based upon a suspicion, not evidence, that Hitler wanted “world domination”, all indications show what he wanted was to return Germany back to a regional power it was pre Versailles .
and we can hardly claim we actually gave a fig about Poland because after the war we handed it over to the butcher in Russia and thus ushering in 40 odd years of horrible communist rule for half of europe .
and of course, one must always add a disclaimer, I know Hitler was a brutal ruler, there’s no dispute there, but when you look at what happened as a result of the ww2, was it really worth it ? could there have been a better way to handle Hitler ? .
Comment by Jerry Citti on 22 June 2009:
Mr. Basil McDonnell comments that Mr. Buchannan\’s version of history is less than convincing in light of the facts, but he offers not a single fact in support of that statement. He first states that had not Britain gone to war in 1914 or 1939 we would all be speaking german today which is not a fact at all, but rather a highly challengeable opinion. He then proceeds to ask questions like how can anyone believe this or how can anyone ignore that when this and that are literally unbelieveable.
The assumption that Hitler would have been in power when he was has Britain not gone to war in 1914 is not valid. It is in fact highly unlikely that he would hav gained power at all were it not for the heavy reparations at the end of WWI. It was only in the milieu of an economically repressed Germany that a man like Hitler could even come to power.
How Hitler could have possibly killed 250 million east europeans is left unexplained. Assuming he could have committed such an outrage at all, how it would have then lead to his attack on the West is also left unexplained.
There are no facts in suport of Mr McDonnell\’s view of history or at least none that he cares to muster in his critique of Buchanan\’s view.
Comment by Robert on 22 June 2009:
World War I was another unneeded disaster. Here is a recent article that explains why President Wilson was worse than Bush.
http://www.sandersresearch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1392
Comment by Basil McDonnell on 22 June 2009:
At the end of the war Germany had stockpiled enough Zyklon B to kill 20 million people. And there were only three million jews left in Europe. Germans of the time didn’t waste resources. They had a plan.
The facts required to support my contention that Mr. Buchanan is wrong are in that, and the ten million people who were hung, shot, gassed, starved, or beaten to death on Hitler’s orders in his camps. He was a madman. That’s a fact.
Would anyone care to get into holocaust denial and claim that he was not?
Comment by Tim on 23 June 2009:
Advocates of interventionism always point to Hitler, as if history begins in 1939. But the Nazi regime was itself \"blowback\" from British and US interventionism in the Great War. Had Britain maintained her policy of \"splendid isolation\", the war that brokeout in August 1914 would have been limited, perhaps something on the scale of the Franco-Prussian War. British neutrality would have made US entry impossible. Moreover, had there not been an \"entente cordial\" between France and Great Britain, it is unlikely that France would have gone to war against Germany. Without French backing, the Russians probably would have backed down as well.
And with no Great War, the conditions that allowed the Nazis to come to power in Germany and the Bolsheviks in Russia never would have never materialized. Without Hitler and Stalin on the European chessboard, there would have been no outbreak of hostilities in September 1939.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 23 June 2009:
Don\’t you find this over simplistic?
If Britain had stayed out of WWI then everything would have been peaches is a wonderful sentence but how can it be proven? Look at the litany of \"if\’s\" that must follow this statement.
Trying to unravel history and reweave it based on a handful of events will drive you mad. It simply can’t be done no matter how familiar you are with the period, the people, and the actors. I can just as easily come up with nightmare scenarios for every positive one Mr. Higgs wants to propose. For instance:
Imagine what happens in WWII if Germany fights on for six more months and the Allies used the A-Bomb in the middle of Europe irradiating most of the bread basket for Europe and Russia.
Imagine what happens if the Allies fail to defeat Germany until after it gets “The Bomb.” The V2 could have put a nuke in London and the Sanger Antipodal Bomber could have put one just about anywhere in the US. There’s a happy thought.
So what happens to world history if Kaiser Bill wins and sets up a war machine? That seems more likely to me because I really don\’t see KB winning a \"Franco-Prussian War\" then retiring to his mansion and taking up knitting. Saying \"we\’d be speaking German\" is a stretch (I think that’s a stylistic rather than literal) but it is also ridiculous to pretend that Britain remaining neutral results in a de facto happy ending where the Germans achieve a quick victory and spend the next century content at home eating sour kraut and hasenpfeffer.
The potential negative effects of failing to fight WWI are every bit as probable as positive ones. In many ways it is an exceedingly good thing history followed the path that it did. If we didn’t have WWI in the early 1900’s what happens when Europe eventually goes to war in the mid to late 1900’s without the Geneva Convention limiting the use of chemical weapons in an age with far better delivery systems and far more deadly compounds, including biological weapons?
It could be argued Europe never goes to war but I think that’s unrealistic. Possible? Yes. Probable? No. WWI and WWII taught us valuable lessons. Death was delivered wholesale, even compared to the US Civil War. If these lessons had gone unlearned war would have been considered feasible as the technology continued to progress. For instance, it is only due to lessons learned from Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the US and Russia didn’t trade missiles and even that was a near thing. Unfortunately some cultures still haven’t learned these lessons and still seek WMD’s as if they are a panacea rather than a curse.
Comment by Jonathan Finegold Catalán on 23 June 2009:
As much as I am a fan of Robert Higgs and his literature, Buchanan’s analysis of the Second World War is grossly incorrect. Let’s not forget that it was Italy which invaded British Egypt, not vice versa. Although it had been Great Britain that declared war in September 1939, Italy’s intentions to occupy North Africa were already set in place, as were their intentions to invade Greece.
It’s a bit unrealistic to blame the war on Great Britain. A German invasion of France was always extremely likely, because Hitler was always interested in 1) reconquering historically German areas of Eastern France 2) guarding his back. Indeed, the latter reason was the entire rational behind the April 1940 invasion of Norway. There’s nothing to suggest that had France and the UK stayed neutral during Germany’s invasion of Poland that Germany would have focused only on the Soviet Union as of 1940.
Buchanan’s comment about Hitler’s “dream to ally with the United Kingdom” is another sign of his misunderstanding of the history behind the Second World War. Or, does he suggest that the UK should have supported Hitler’s genocidal invasions of neighboring countries?
I am not a historian of the First World War, and so I cannot comment on that, but there is an obvious lack of research on the Second World War.
Comment by Tim on 23 June 2009:
How can it be proven that Hitler would have conquered the world if not for US entry in 1941? Of course, we’re engaging in counterfactual history and thus speculating of what could have been.
Comment by Jonathan Finegold Catalán on 23 June 2009:
I don’t think anybody claims that Hitler would have conquered the world. Inevitably, Hitler would have lost his war with the Soviet Union (even if the Soviet Union wasn’t capable of taking that war back to Germany: let’s not forget that it was lend-lease which gave the Red Army the resources necessary to build their massive logistics network that allowed them to support their campaigns into Eastern Europe).
But, there is little doubt that Hitler was looking to occupy most of continental Europe. And what is in question is the validity that Great Britain could have stayed out of the war, in general, given that the Italians were intent on occupying much of British North Africa.
Comment by John Anello on 24 June 2009:
Hitler wished to avoid war with Great Britain, whose people and empire he admired: “His dream was of an alliance with the British Empire, not its ruin.”
Just like his alliance with Stalin, that he honored so venerably. Hitler was a maniac: any lover of liberty could not have tolerated his despotic cruelty and his severe aggression towards his neighbors. I am not an interventionist per se, but removing a man who called for the eradication of an entire ethnic group was certainly a wise decision and benefited the world. I am thankful that world had leaders like Winston Churchill, who opposed tyranny aggresively and continuously. It is a shame for Great Britain and the world that we do not have his like in power today.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 24 June 2009:
\"How can it be proven that Hitler would have conquered the world if not for US entry in 1941? Of course, we’re engaging in counterfactual history and thus speculating of what could have been.\"
True enough and I have enjoyed this intellectual exercise on various boards. As George Santayana said,
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
However, what Mr. Buchanan / Mr. Higgs need to remember, as well as the rest of us, is that no single event in history exists in a vacuum and even the short term “ripple effects” can be difficult to forecast.
It seems strange to be arguing that WWI and WWII might have been “good” but I can just as easily postulate disaster scenarios as Mr. Buchanan can postulate favorable ones.
The author laments the UK declaring war on Germany in 1914 under the assumption that had this would have prevented a whole plethora of events. Perhaps that’s true but it ignores the potential of other events that could have been just as disastrous as or even worse than what actually took place. A quick victory for Germany is far more likely to have emboldened Wilhelm and resulted in the construction of a German military juggernaut in 1915 rather than 1939.
Remember, the supposedly dismantled military establishment rebuilt the German army, navy, and air force even under the restrictions imposed by Versailles. They did this in the hope that they could get the Kaiser to return or Hindenburg. Both refused and this left the door open for Hitler to take over. So what happens if the Kaiser is never defeated and these same men can build the German armed forces entirely unhindered? Assuming that a quick victory would have resulted in a long term peace is entirely myopic.
The author also mentions Hitler’s admiration of the British Empire. Even is we could accept this as entirely ironclad rather than a scheme we’re still left with the fact that Hitler wanted an alliance with the UK so they could take over the world together not so they could engineer a lasting peace.
If the UK had remained neutral after Poland, once France fell it would have given Hitler time to digest his victories and rebuild his armies without any pressure from Allied forces. At the very least he would have had time to absorb the French navy unhindered which would have been a disaster. Pacification didn’t work under Baldwin and Chamberlin, even Chamberlin admitted it so I don’t understand why Buchanan thinks adhering to an admittedly failed policy would have been the better course.
However, if you will forgive me for playing Buchanan for a moment, I think there are three major issues that could have averted WWII and resulted in a better history.
1. If the US and France had forgiven the war debt demanded by Versailles. Britain had said on many occasions that it would collect no debt from Germany in excess of the debt demanded from Britain but the US and France refused.
2. If the US and Britain had forced Germany to adhere to the military limits imposed by Versailles. Allowing Germany to rebuild its military was a mistake.
3. If England had ignored the “Peace at any price” crowed and failed to unilaterally disarm. The BEF consisted of 4 divisions and these were the meat of the British army at the time. If the British had better trained and equipped forces on hand the threat of military intervention would have been a deterrent.
Comment by fundamentalist on 24 June 2009:
Alternative histories is a fool’s game. No one can predict how history might have turned out. However, one thing we know for certain is that wars are an matter of economics. Those nations with the most productive economies always win. As one German soldier put it, the Allies didn’t beat Germany with brilliant strategy; we simply raised a bigger pile of metal and pushed it over on the German army.
We also know that Hitler’s Germany was doomed to decline because it was a centrally planned economy. Had we been as patient with Nazi Germany’s conquests as we were with those of the USSR, we would have eventually seen Germany’s demise just as we witnessed the Soviets’. And fewer people might have died. And the USSR would not have lasted as long as it did because the wealth it stole from Germany and the East kept the Soviet economy going longer than it should have.
We chose the USSR over Nazi Germany; the results weren’t so good. Would it have been worse for the East Europeans and Ukranians to live under Nazi Germany than the USSR?
The US has always been too quick to go to war.
Comment by Jonathan Finegold Catalán on 24 June 2009:
To be fair, although this is not a history debate, that assessment on why the United States and the Western Allies defeated Germany is not accurate.
Comment by Tim on 25 June 2009:
Pat Buchanan’s point is that if prudence and good faith prevailed in the summer of 1914, all the horrors of the 20th century could have been avoided. The truth is that Great Britain was already in decline and she saw Germany’s rise as a threat to her global dominance. The British government mistakenly believed that by going to war on behalf of France and Russia, Germany’s ambitions could be thwarted. So the flower of Britain’s youth was sacrificed for sake of the Great Game.
Britain’s political leadership badly miscalculated. The war bankrupted the British Empire and only acceleraed her decline.
The Great War was cataclysm from which Western civilization has never recovered. The war consumed over 10 million lives, swept away three European dynasties (Romanov, Hapsburg, and Hohenzollern), and left a legacy of bitterness and rancour throughout the continent. The economic and social upheavals brought about by the war made Europe’s political landscape fertile ground for radicalism.
Comment by Tim on 25 June 2009:
Buchanan argues that there were alternatives to general war in 1939. It is incumbent upon his detractors to at least confront his arguments and consider the evidence he provides.
War is a leap into an abyss. Once the dogs of war are unleashed, there is no controlling events. None of the combatants fought the war they expected. And given the scale of destruction of the Second World War, the burden of proof should be on those who still insist it was “the Good War.” We do not live in the best of all possible worlds.
While the Allies defeated Nazi tyranny and Japanese militarism, the price of victory was the elevation of Soviet Russia to a military superpower. While America celebrated V-E and V-J Day, the world that emerged from the war was one that was far more hostile and threatening to both British and American security. The extinction of German and Japanese power has profound geopolitical consequences.
Comment by Tim on 25 June 2009:
Buchanan’s point is this: had it not been for Chamberlain’s presentation of a war guarantee to Poland, Hitler, who did not want war with Great Britain, would not have attacked the West; he would have acquired Danzig or conquered Poland before attacking the Soviet Union. The war would have been restricted to the East. It was Britain and France’s declaration of war that lured Hitler westward and led to Nazi conquest of Western Europe in 1940.
As horrible as that war would have been, Western Europe could have watched from the sidelines. This war would have exhausted Europe’s two principal totalitarian regimes and the European democracies would have been in a much stronger position to deal with what remained of Hitler’s and Stalin’s regimes.
Many argue that Hitler’s crimes were so horrible that the war was necessary to rid the world of his regime. But the Final Solution was a consequence of the war, not its cause. The planned annihilation of European Jewry did not begin until late 1941, and the infamous Wannsee Conference was held in January 1942, more than two years after the war began. Prior to the outbreak of war, the Nazi answer to the “Jewish Question” was emigration and resettlement. As bad as that was, it would have been far more humane than genocide. Had war been averted in the West, the Jews of France, Holland, Denmark, and Italy would have been spared. Furthermore, the Allies’ military strategy did not factor in the lives of millions Jews held hostage by the SS. Indeed, the Allied demand for “unconditional surrender” helped seal their fate by needlessly prolonging the war.
Comment by Jonathan Finegold Catalán on 25 June 2009:
Tim,
Speaking purely about the Second World War, you ignore the fact that ultimately war would have been brought to Great Britain. Buchanan explicitly suggests that Nazi Germany was not interested in war with Great Britain (although, the invasion of France was inevitable, whether or not Buchanan accepts the fact or not). What Pat Buchanan doesn’t realize is that Fascist Italy was interested in going to war with Great Britain over Egypt (from Italian Libya), so ultimately Great Britain would have been dragged into a general war.
What Pat Buchanan doesn’t realize is that had the Western Allies actually invaded Germany in September 1939 (specifically, the French) the rest of the Second World War would have probably been averted, because the Germans did not have the military capacity to fend off a French invasion, at the time.
So, arguably, had the Western Allies actually pursued war when they declared it, then the war would have been over much sooner. But, these are a lot of “what ifs”.
My point is that Pat Buchanan should research the Second World War a little more before he comments on it.
Comment by Tim on 25 June 2009:
War with the West was possible, but not inevitable. Hitler had constructed the Seigfried Line, a defensive line between France and Germany. And Hitler was genuinely surprised by Britain and France’s war declarations. Anyway, the British and French war guarantees were inexplicably stupid because there was no way they could be made good. All they did was to encourage Polish intransigence in the face Germany’s not unreasonable demand for Danzig, a German city, to be returned to the Reich. And with Germany and Russia engaged in a war of attrition in the East, it would have been unlikely that Hitler would have struck westward.
The Second World War was a descent into barbarism. All sides engaged in acts that a generation before would have considered barbaric and criminal. While Nazis massacred millions in the name of racial purity and “living space”, the Allies firebombed cities killing over a million civilians.
The war in the Pacific was largely the doing of FDR who saw war with Japan as the backdoor to war with Germany. In 1945, the United States ignored Japane’s overtures for peace and tested two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the hopes of cowing the Russians.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 25 June 2009:
Tim,
You state that Mr. Buchanan’s point is:
“… if prudence and good faith prevailed in the summer of 1914, all the horrors of the 20th century could have been avoided.”
If we could only apply this axiom to human interaction dating all the way back to prehistory and into the farthest future we could avoid all of humanities horrors and that would certainly be a joy.
Unfortunately, quite often it is not in Man’s nature to act with “prudence and good faith” and relying on these excellent traits to exert themselves will lead to disappointment. What’s worse is it is far too common for people that act with these noble intentions to be deceived and mistreated by people that do not value these better angels as highly, if at all.
As I’ve pointed out twice now, at least one flaw in Mr. Buchanan’s theory is the assumption that this “prudence and good faith” would be reciprocated by Wilhelm rather than encouraging him and his militaristic government to push further. As such even if the UK acted as prescribed by Mr. Buchanan there is nothing to suggest it would not have been necessary to invest the “flower of Britain’s youth” curbing German aggression weeks, months, or years in the future in even greater numbers under more desperate and lethal conditions.
Perhaps Mr. Buchanan’s “solution” avoids WWI and WWII as we know them but they would simply be replaced by another war or wars of a similar scope. Europe needed to shed precious blood before it learned that modern warfare was not the gentleman’s game of centuries past. It is sad that the lesson needed to be so grand and that the loss of 10 million had to be followed by an addition 50 million before it was grasped but Man is a stubborn creature.
If Mr. Buchanan wants to examine history under different circumstances that’s an interesting and perhaps admirable use of a politician’s time allowing insight so as to avoid history’s pitfalls. However it would be more constructive use of his time if the scenarios he was considering more realistically accounted for the beast that is human nature.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 25 June 2009:
“Anyway, the British and French war guarantees were inexplicably stupid because there was no way they could be made good.”
True but only because Britain had yielded to the “Peace at any price” crowd and unilaterally disarmed and France had grown fat behind Maginot and didn’t have adequate training or state of the art equipment. If the Allies had real teeth Germany would not have been a threat.
Wars are like fires. A nation doesn’t need to want war to be prepared for it any more than a person needs to want a fire to purchase an extinguisher. Much like an extinguisher it is better to have an army and not need it than to need it and not have it.
If Buchanan wants to find a quick fix for the loss of 50 million lives that would be a good place to start.
Comment by Tim on 25 June 2009:
What drove Britain to war in 1914 was not a perceived threat to her home islands or her empire, but a challenge to her economic interests. This was an expansive and rather attenuated view of national security.
Imperial Germany may have entertained some imperial ambitions too but this in no way made conflict between the UK and Imperial Germany inevitable. Indeed, Britain’s primary imperial competitor had been France. Much has been made of Germany’s naval expansion between 1900 and 1914, but the German navy never came close to challenging the Royal Navy.
Industrialization and high birthrates in Germany spelled tougher competition for the British who wished to rest on their imperial laurels, Frankly, the British were not willing to work hard enough to compete economically, so they sought the “easy” route, war.
There were those at the time who saw Britain’s entry as foolish and reckless. There was no debate in Parliament and only a few in British cabinet were even aware of the “entente cordial” with France. The British people were simply dragged into the war. Propaganda (ie Bleeding Belguim)and jingoism eased the way. Conscription for the British didn’t begin until 1916, after almost two years of unimaginable human slaughter.
There was nothing inevitable about the outbreak of war in 1914. It was the deliberate choice of a few men who believed they had the wisdom and foresight to control events and shape the world.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 26 June 2009:
Tim,
You wrote:
“Much has been made of Germany’s naval expansion between 1900 and 1914, but the German navy never came close to challenging the Royal Navy.”
You and Mr. Buchanan are grossly underestimating the significance of the naval issue.
The British rely on the Channel as a giant moat and while this is a formidable obstacle but they are well aware that it is not impenetrable. The British take any threat to the relative strength of the Royal Navy very seriously and Wilhelm was well aware of this. The psychological effects of challenging this aquatic Maginot line cannot be overstated and should not be dismissed in such a cavalier manner especially under the circumstances leading up to WWI.
Britain had been in a naval arms race with Germany since Tirpitz took over in 1897 with the stated intent of increasing the German fleet to rival the Royal Navy. Two different bills doubled the size of the Kaiserliche Marine. From 1900 to 1910 Germany produced at least 15 to 20 battleships as well as dozens of cruiser class ships, subs, and other war ships equipped with fast firing guns and other technological improvements that forced Britain to implement a massive building program that eventually produced the “Dreadnought” class of Battleship. This same level of production was maintained until the beginning of the war.
When WWI broke out, the German Navy was the second largest on the planet behind the Royal Navy. It may not have achieved the same numbers as the Royal Navy but this disparity is mostly illusory because many of the RN ships were outdated. The Imperial Navy may have been numerically inferior but it was still a very formidable force as Coronel and Jutland prove.
However, what is even more important than the actual power of the Imperial Navy relative to the Royal Navy is psychological affect it had on the people of Britain and the Empire as a whole. This blatant attempt to challenge the British Navy was beating the war drum and this turned public opinion against Germany in much the same way an alleged threat from Iraq motivated the US to invade in an effort to keep them from using fictitious WMD’s.
As such I must take issue with the concept that Britain was “dragged into the war” due to ignorance, against the will of the people, and without a perceived threat.
There may have been “those at the time who saw Britain’s entry as foolish and reckless” but I have yet to read of any decision in world history that didn’t have at least some opposition.
Britain’s entry into the Triple Entente was public knowledge because the formation of this alliance was to prevent war, not provoke it. The Triple Entente was a reaction to the formation of the Triple Alliance. By becoming part of the Triple Entente Britain hoped to make it clear to the German Empire, Austro-Hungry, and Russia that Western Europe would unite against their expansionistic goals and this alliance was well known to Parliament as well as the people so I fail to see why it is being represented as some sort of covert action perpetrated on an ignorant public?
In fact, the whole of Europe had been gearing up for a massive war since the 1890’s and this culminated in an orgy of building starting in 1908 when an already massive buildup of arms was increased by at least half again.
I would also point out that if Germany was not intent on a war of conquest then Wilhelm did not have to declare war when Ferdinand was assassinated. The act of a single Serbian dissident didn’t require the overwhelming reaction it received. If Wilhelm had any desire to act with “prudence and good faith” that would have been the time to show it but he didn’t. Wilhelm is the one that “let slip the dogs of war.” Britain only released its one kennel when they saw Germany’s hounds were on the hunt.
The death of Franz Ferdinand was an excuse to start a war that everyone in the region knew was coming for 20 years. I don’t see the logic in blaming the war on Britain for honoring a treaty rather than Germany for intentionally over reacting to an assignation so they could start a war they had been looking forward to for two decades.
You also wrote:
“It was the deliberate choice of a few men who believed they had the wisdom and foresight to control events and shape the world.”
True. And this is also true for every decision both for good and for evil since Man came down from the trees.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 26 June 2009:
Correction:
I accidentally typed Russia above when the third member of the TA should be Italk. My appolgies for the typo. Unfortunatley I can’t edit the text once it has been posted.
Comment by Tim on 26 June 2009:
The Battle of Jutland settled the naval issue. While Germany was able to sink more ships, it fleet was never able to break out of the North Sea, and it stayed bottled up in harbor for the duration of the war. It was clear Germany’s surface fleet, although more modern, wasn’t anywhere close to matching the strength of the Royal Navy. Britain’s illegal hunger blockade was another demonstration of her navy’s dominance. Also the ease in which the French and British seized German colonies during the war showed just how weak Germany was an imperial power. Germany was a continental power and Britain should have stuck to her traditional policy of splendid isolation.
The threat posed by the German navy to Great Britain was largely mythical, much like “missile gap” between USSR and the United States in 1960 or those dreaded WMDs in Iraq in 2003. Sure those in charge of the Royal Navy expressed concerns but they wanted to maintain their large budgets. Anyway, since when was it considered iron law that the British had a right to maintain naval dominance. Germany’s expanding naval power may caused genuine anxiety among the British leadership who imagined they had a God-given right to dominate the world, but it posed no real threat.
British intervention is what made the Great War so “great.” If the Brits plunged into it to preempt a future war with Germany, then it is clear they made a grave miscalculation. For it was British, and later, US intervention that led to rise of the Nazis in Germany and Bolsheviks in Russia.
Some preemption, eh.
Comment by Tim on 26 June 2009:
Germany’s mistake was the issuing of the “blank check” to Austria. When the Serbs didn’t back down to the Austrian demands, Tsar Nicholas II felt obliged to intervene. He had been advised that backing down once again in the Balkans would do irreperable harm to Russia’s honor. Her army’s partial mobilization upset Germany’s war plans. So Germany demanded French neutrality. This the French were unwilling to do since such a promise would upset their own war plans. So the armys began to march. But it was British intervention that proved to be crucial in turning the war into a global conflagration.
Comment by Tim on 26 June 2009:
All the combatants in the Great War abandoned the gold standard and resorted to conscription. If only the people, for whom the State supposedly serve, could restrain government officials from debauching the currency and enslaving young men in the military \"service\", perhaps wars would be less frequent and of much shorter duration.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 26 June 2009:
Tim,
Coronel was Britains worst fears come true. It was the first major loss the RN has suffered in a century. The forces were near parity (RN 2 CA / 1 CL versus GIN 2 CA / 3 CL). Both RN Heavy Cruisers were sunk with the loss of 1500 men whereas the Germans lost 3 sailors total.
Jutland reinforced these fears. Even though the Royal Navy had 151 ships to the GIN’s 99 the Imperial Navy still sank nearly twice the tonnage (110,000 versus 60,000) and the RN lost 6 capital ships to the GIN”s 2.
Even if I were to agree that Jutland settled the naval issue in England’s favor, this was only attainable due to the British investing the exceedingly large amounts of money and man-hours required to update its navy with a nervous eye on Germany’s the entire time.
By offering that their fears were unjustified, you are looking exclusively at the result (i.e., a massive modern navy capable of taking on Germany’s massive modern navy), not the 20 years of fears that preceded the result which motivated England to invest scads of money building a massive modern navy.
The RN was almost entirely revamped in half-a-decade. Dreadnought sailed in 1906 and England had 18 finished by 1914. Contemplate for a minute what kind of investment that took and the fears that motivated such an outlay with little or no resistance from the citizens that were asked to pay for it.
If England hadn’t paid attention to Germany’s buildup and reciprocated the RN would have been crushed.
Your commentary about German colonies perplexes me when a major reasons Germany was so interested in being aggressive in Europe was due to the poor quality of its colonies. England had India, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and a host of other profitable colonies while Germany had a few in Africa and a few in the Pacific so there wasn’t much to defend much less a reason to defend it. Germany wanted victory in Europe, the rest would come later.
I didn’t say Britain had the legal right to maintain naval dominance but there definitely was a “perceived threat” of military action from Germany rather than being based solely on financial motivators as you offered.
And we’re still left with the unanswered question of at what point is the declaration of war justified? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appear that Buchanan is offering that if Britain doesn’t declare war there is a much smaller war that Germany wins. This victory somehow appeases Germany and they mothball their navy, send their soldiers home, and have a big party. That doesn’t seem even remotely realistic. If Wilhelm wins the small war a larger war is inevitable because he has no reason to stop until he gets spanked.
So what keeps Kaiser Bill and his allies in check after they stomp on Serbia? France and Russia? What are the odds they win without British and US support? Even with the English it was a near thing until the US showed up and broke the stale mate.
So what happens when they fall? Is that when Wilhelm mothballs his fleet in Buchanan’s alternate reality because it seems far more likely to me that he uses the new resources he just absorbed to launch his own verson of Operation Sea Lion.
Until Buchanan can logically check Alliance aggression the path he is offering is wishful thinking.
Comment by Tim on 26 June 2009:
The Great War was so destructive it is obvious that Britain should have remained neutral. Wilhelmine Germany was no more imperialistic or acquisitive than the Entente Powers (Britain, France, and Russia. While Kaiser Wilhelm entertained ideas of imperial glory, to suggest that Germany was on the march and British intervention was necessary to check Teutonic aggression is to rewrite history. Germany had no ambitions in Russia and she was still digesting Alsace-Lorraine. Her interests in the Balkans were related to her alliance with Austria-Hungary. Now the construction of the Berlin to Baghdad railway bothered Britain and France, but this no more a genuine casus belli than the expansion of German industrial capacity. Relations between European powers were remarkably cordial. No country, save for Russia, required passports for entry and free trade reigned. An international gold standard maintained an international balance-of-payments and the European economies had become interdependent. No government in Europe consumed more than than percent of GDP.
There was nothing in the relations between nations that signalled a general war in the summer of 1914. The fact that general war did breakout and became so destructive is an indictment of the combatant nation’s political leadership and perhaps the very idea of the nation-state.
If Germany’s surface fleet was so imposing, how come it couldn’t break Britain’s hunger blockade?
Germany was probably more democratic than Great Britain and the British Empire did not control a quarter of the globe through consent. It was Sir Winston Churchill, “the man of the century”, who cheered the machine gunning of Sudanese and the use of the RAF to bomb the restless natives of Iraq. Germany was the up and coming power and Britain wished to knock her down in a vain effort to remain the imperial Top Dog. She gambled with war and lost her empire. Now that’s strategery!
H L Mencken wrote in 1939 “Wars are not made by common folk, scratching for livings in the heat of the day. They are made by demagogues infesting palaces.” That is a fair description of the men who chose war in the summer of 1914.
Comment by stevieb on 27 June 2009:
Captain Feingold – you ignorantly boast your lack of knowledge of WW2 by suggesting that Hitler did not seek to ally with the British and/or did not have a huge respect for the British empire.
Clearly you are on of a number of war-lovers who can\’t let go of the glory-filled propaganda that you so personally identify with, \’Captain\’…
Comment by Dave on 27 June 2009:
The ignorance displayed by some of the posters here is astonishing.Germany was not the aggressor in 1914,as it had not been in 1870.Austria sought a limited war with Serbia (after terroristic provocation-especially as she saw it) to ensure her own future security,France and Russia with British backing instead instigated a world war to rid themselves of a rival and grab more territory.There were no German plans for war until her enemies mobilized against her,the Schlieffen plan was a defensive plan of last resort,against numerically etc superior opponents,to be invoked only if considered absolutely necessary.Some generals (who did not have the final authority) argued for a preventive war,on account of the massive and increasing superiority of the Allied powers,in light of their territorial and other ambitions against Germany,but the Kaiser did not support war until Russia and France were already on the march,and tried till the last minute to keep the peace.As for the case of Germany winning,it would have been almost certainly better.As in 1871,German victory could lead to decades of peace and stability,which were in Germany\’s interest too-her power depended on trade and industry-not war and chaos.And her \"war machine\",which had not fought in over 45 years,and was outnumbered 2 or 3 to one in Europe alone,could not be expanded on and on,the cost in 1914 was already becoming unsupportable (hence the preventive arguments-the fault of the other powers\’ buildups),and German politics did not allow enough even to win WW1,and there was no German interest in waging war after war,at cost of vital manpower and money.Germany in fact waged the least of all the powers till then.And without the actual result of WW1,no WW2,or if so,then far less savage and costly,and almost certainly not begun by Germany.
As for her fleet,she was perfectly entitled to it,Britain did not own the seas,or have an inalienable right to be able to blockade and strangle anyone she pleased.If Britain did not want to feel threatened by it,then she had to adjust her policy accordingly,and ally with rather than against Germany,the Kaiser\’s actual wish.
But of course some will continue to defend the stale old myths demonising Germany regardless of facts,from one interest or another,when not just mere ignorance.
Comment by Tim on 27 June 2009:
Between 1870 and 1914, Great Britain had been far more imperialistic and bellicose than Germany.
Comment by karlof1 on 27 June 2009:
Historical \"What Ifs?\" are always very debatable. It appears by the arguments above that none have read Fritz Fischer\’s \"Germany\’s Aims in the First World War,\" nor has Buchanan. In that work, the Kaiser\’s papers and other artifacts from his government make it clear that he envisioned the coming war as a race war to determine who would rule Eurasia: Teutons or Slavs–thinking shared by many of his advisors and later by Hitler. And there is so much more info in Fischer\’s book to enlighten the reader. I find it highly probable that France would have stopped Germany without British help at the First Battle of the Marne because the von Schlieffen Plan was decisively delayed by the Russians at Tannenberg. This disarms to my satisfaction the \"We\’d all be speaking German now\" argument. The Trench/Siege Warfare that ensued would then be greatly shortened, with some form of ceasefire and armistence arrived at before the end of 1915. What would have then occured constitutes another historical What If? But with no Weimar Republic to become destabilized by a non-existent Versallies Treaty, there would have been no Nazi Party and thus no Hitler or Holocaust.
I view Churchill as the first Neocon, which might have been a more appropriate thesis for Buchanan to pursue.
Comment by Tim on 27 June 2009:
The Kaiser was no Fuhrer. Germany had a democraticaly elected parliament, universal male sufferage, and she was fully integrated into the world economoy. The Kaiser’s ambitions or dreams hardly distinguished him from the other Great Power leaders. If anything, the Kaiser was trying emulate the British.
Comment by Marian on 28 June 2009:
Basil McDonnel,that Zyklon B was used in W.W.I to kill lice.
My Belgian grandmother, who was the wife of a customer-officer, spend most of the first world war at the front near Ypres.
She used to do some neadlework for soldiers (mending uniforms, sewing buttons etc).She often saw that it was infested with lice wich was impossible to destroy.The only way to kill lice was chemical (Zyklon B).The germans already knew that.
Comment by Marian on 28 June 2009:
And there ‘s another thing my grandmother had observed at the front.For the first time in her life she saw black soldiers.It was the black african troops used by the French (Senegalese and so).
She saw that before sending (or rather pushing) them into battle the french officers gave them bottles of “water” to drink.
Actually it was alcohol or gin!
Comment by Dave on 28 June 2009:
Fischer has no credibility,he was pushing a one sided argument for personal reasons.The Kaiser was no more racist etc than most in those times,including Churchill,and the evidence of his diaries etc shows he did not seek war,but neither would he back down from a fight if it came despite his efforts.Fischer ignores that France Russia and Britain were MORE imperialistic and aggressive than Germany,by all measures.Teutons or Slavs-Grey spoke in the same terms-as did the Tsar.Pre 1914 Germany was stable and progressive,by the standards of the time.But its industrial might was feared and resented by the other powers,so they took the chance to break it.Read the statement of Asquith in Buchanan on the real motivations for fighting,or those of Churchill.Trade,power,and good old jingoism.But what worked against the natives was a different matter against a first rate power.Buchanan is right-Britain and the West bankrupted and half destroyed itself to gang up on one of its own caught in the middle that wanted only peaceful prosperity and its rightful position amongst the powers.
Comment by Gus Fischer on 28 June 2009:
Look at the \\"world-conquering\\" ambitions in the context of a \\"1930s world and its available armaments\\" How long would the conquerers have lasted if the few million soldiers had to be disbursed around the \\"conquered world\\"?
Likewise, look at the 700 plus US bases around the world today, not even with the modern weaponry (not incl the cuicidal use of atomic bombs)is \\"world dominance possible.
The reality is that wars are for the enrichment of few and misery for the rest!
Comment by aware on 30 June 2009:
While I’m in general agreement with karlof1, it was not Tannenburg that ruined German war plans at the Marne. Rather it was Von Kluck’s decision to pursue the French 5th army southward in front of Paris. Kluck’s 1st army was to encircle Paris to the north and west as per the infamous Schlieffen Plan. Lanzerac’s French 5th army after defeat retreated south instead of west and should have become the business of the German 2nd and 3rd armies since it was across their front that Lanzerac moved.
Because of Kluck’s turn south the giant right wheel took place in front of Paris instead of to the rear or west of it as was clearly the aim of Schlieffen. Had Kluck moved west instead of south the newly formed 6th French army would not have had an open flank to assail and the war would have ended as 1870 had, with a siege of Paris. When Kluck turned south he kicked over Pandora’s box and the world has never recovered to this very day. The modern economic system we have is a direct result of the fact that there was, and is, no way to really pay for modern war with real wealth. There just isn’t that much wealth! But thanks to the central banks we can have the illusion that we can. War on this scale wouldn’t be possible without the central bankers casting their mirages.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 30 June 2009:
Tim wrote:
“The Great War was so destructive it is obvious that Britain should have remained neutral.”
If it was obvious then why did Austro-Hungry pull the pin on that particular grenade? If it had been obvious that it was going to kill 10 to 20 million people they probably wouldn’t have but I don’t think anyone had a clue.
Mr. Buchanan is blaming the last domino to fall for the actions of the first. If Austro-Hungry hadn’t declared war when Ferdinand was killed then war would have been averted. By the time it was England’s turn Austo-Hungry, Russia, Germany, and France had already declared war so England was following a trend due to treaty obligations, not leading one. I fail to see why Mr. Buchanan thinks they should have shown some exceptional level of discretion that their contemporary’s lacked?
If the Alliance hadn’t spent 20 years gearing up for a war they supposedly didn’t want thus forcing the Entente to reciprocate then it probably wouldn’t have happened.
“…to suggest that Germany was on the march and British intervention was necessary to check Teutonic aggression is to rewrite history.”
The entire region had been gearing up for war for two decades. Austro-Hungary wasn’t caught unaware and neither was Germany. If they didn’t want war they shouldn’t have started an arms race and followed this up by declaring war over a relatively minor incident.
“If anything, the Kaiser was trying emulate the British”
I’ll agree with that. The problem is that by the time Germany entered the colonialism game it was already won and there wasn’t any place for them to colonize so their only option was to seize colonies owned by other nations which is why they needed a fleet large enough to rival the Royal Navy.
“Between 1870 and 1914, Great Britain had been far more imperialistic and bellicose than Germany.”
I agree, but British imperialism started in a different period and they didn’t do it at Germany’s expense. I’m not saying colonialism was right only that Germany was late to the table. The only way Germany could realize imperial dreams coming into the 1900’s was by taking over someone else’s colonies
The Limeys and Frogs hated each other even coming into World War II there were tensions so the English didn’t ally with France because they were mates, they did it because the Triple Alliance were building up forces.
“The Kaiser was no Fuhrer.”
He didn’t need to be, the nobility that created the Kaiser’s army is the same one that rebuilt it. They were the real power behind the Kaiser as well as Hitler. The only kink in their plan coming into WWII was their dictators of choice said no and the painter stepped in uninvited. Same game. Same players. Different leader.
Dave wrote:
“France and Russia with British backing instead instigated a world war to rid themselves of a rival and grab more territory.”
What territory? Germany got the leftovers. By the time they became a territorial power Britain owned half the world. If Britain wanted South-West Africa they could have owned it long before Germany became an issue.
Make a list of ex-German colonies and take a look at how much money they generated. Then take a look at what Britain made from India alone. Germany wanted their own colonies to exploit and there wasn’t anywhere for them to go without first defeating Britain and France.
“There were no German plans for war until her enemies mobilized against her,…”
Then it is strange that it started building a fleet in 1897 that resulted in the second largest navy on the planet as well as one of the largest armies. I find it even more curious that Europe had spent 1900 years conquering each other but Germany supposedly lost all interest in empire building while investing unprecedented sums of money creating a military they had no interest in using.
“…German victory could lead to decades of peace and stability…”
The same could be said for Germany in World War II, the question is what kind of peace and what sort of stability under what kind of world order.
“German politics did not allow enough even to win WW1.”
Hold on. Isn’t Buchanan’s point that without Britain they would have won and it was a near thing until the US showed up and tipped the balance? Even with the Brits help the Germans made a pretty good run before the stalemate.
Something Pat should also have touched on is the US was none too fond of England at the time so if Germany had courted the US rather than ticking us off there was a pretty good chance we would have remained neutral. We might have even joined the Alliance under the right circumstances. These alternate timelines are also interesting to explore.
“But of course some will continue to defend the stale old myths demonising Germany regardless of facts,from one interest or another,when not just mere ignorance.”
Just because people disagree with you doesn’t make them “ignorant.” In debate we call this a “poisoning the well” fallacy.
Comment by Dave on 1 July 2009:
JMF,
Germany and Austria-Hungary did not start the arms race.They made a late effort to catch up,but it wasn\’t enough as it turned out.France maintained an army as big as Germany\’s,and Russia was increasing hers considerably,plus the means of deploying it quickly.The Austro Hungarian army was a hodge podge that could barely fight Serbia successfully.Germany invested in a navy,but all the powers did that,and it was to be able to defend or deter other navies that threatened to blockade Germany and cut her vital trade.The colonial enterprise was undertaken reluctantly by Bismarck,who viewed it as a waste,but the increased tempo of land grabs by the other empires threatened to leave Germany with nothing,and certain domestic interests exerted pressure too.But it did not involve seizing colonies of other powers,there was still enough to \’go around\’,and German traders etc had already staked claims.The navy was only secondarily to protect colonies,home trade and prevention of blockade were the main priorities,plus a certain imperial prestige.You just don\’t seem well informed on some of this.
And please don\’t try to make out the Kaiser and Imperial Germany were somehow the same as Hitler and the Nazis,even potentially,it\’s rubbish.Why not then go back further-if not the Kaiser,then Frederick and his Prussians,or even Arminius and his tribesmen.Of course they all had to be stopped,it\’s those Germans you see…
Regarding the territorial grabs partly motivating WW1,there were French claims on Alsace-Lorraine,Russian ambitions on East Prussia and Constantinople/the Dardanelles,and the considerable German colonies scooped up mostly by Britain-that were useful to round out the British possessions and offered potential for exploitation,given time.But in Britain\’s case that was not the key thing,elimination of a major trade and influence rival was.Both Asquith and Churchill admitted it,amongst others.
Having an army and navy adequate for defence (which the German ones turned out not quite to be) do not amount to plans for war.If you want to go by that measure,then France Russia and Britain were the real war-planners,or America today! Open your other eye please before it glues shut.
German victory in 1870 was quite acceptable,in WW1 it would only have been in Europe,and would have meant increased freedom for most of Eastern Europe(eg Germany restored independance to Poland and the Baltics-under German hegemony-but preferable for them to virtual slavery under the Tsar),no Soviet threat,and no Hitler or Nazis,a France unable to issue further frivolous challenges,etc,and therefore peace,so long as Britain did not drag the US into another war.Preferable I think most would agree to what actually transpired.And that by the way was all Germany sought,not mad plans of world conquest,which even Hitler never fully contemplated,in fact regarded as ridiculous.Even he recognised there were practical limits.
The fact was German arms as constituted were not sufficient to win in 1914,nor later,though the endurance skill and efficiency of the troops almost brought victory on the continent once or twice.But the available forces were not sufficient,even without Mons,at best Paris would have fallen in 1914,not enough necessarily to knock France out,but without Britain,at least a peace could have been arranged,then or next year,a stronger version of 1871,which would have rendered Germany safer,and thus less interested in further war,given the cost.
What makes people ignorant is ignorance,and a few posters here have displayed it.The problem is most have either not read much about the topic,or if so,have read only biased accounts which proliferate in the English speaking world.Some fewer have,but don\’t care,as they main interest is pushing the same old myths long since debunked in serious and objective scholarship.The facts are Germany did not start WW1,and had no interest in doing so,but was backed into a corner and forced to fight,partly in self defence,and partly to protect her vital ally.The rest followed on from that,including the punitive peace imposed by force and under false pretences,that gave Hitler his in to power and WW2.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 1 July 2009:
Dave,
Dave,
If you’re going to call other posters “ignorant” they’re going to reply with “apologist” or some other nonsense and that doesn’t forward the debate. I appreciate your stance and you have some good points but we can’t know exactly how history would have unwound, we can only guess.
I’m going to backtrack on blaming the Alliance for starting the arms race as this puts the majority share of the blame of a mutual decision on one side of the issue. The buildup was reciprocal and it doesn’t matter who started it only that it happened.
Germany would offer that they needed a large navy for defense. Britain would counter that Germany didn’t need one large enough to threaten the Royal Navy if their goals were exclusively defensive. Perception is everything and we have the luxury of looking back at what happened rather than looking forward into the unknown. If you will forgive me for leaning on cliché, hindsight is 20/20.
When the US invaded Iraq we were certain they had WMD’s. We were pissed as hornets after 9/11 and our President told us that we could expect worse because Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda. Once we got in we didn’t find the alleged WMD’s and the meetings between Iraq and Al Qaeda in Sudan consisted of Iraq telling Osama they weren’t interested. My point being what the people of the US knew after the fact did not resemble what we believed going into it and the same is true for what happened in Europe coming into WWI.
If Austro-Hungry had known how many would die would they have started the war over the death of Ferdinand? Hopefully not.
If Russia had known would they have still come to Serbia’s aid? Knowing Russia stoicism I’m tempted to say yes, but I would hope not.
If Germany, France, Britain, and Italy had known what was coming would they have followed suit? Once again, I would hope not.
Europe had been fighting wars for centuries. One of the main reasons the US didn’t want to get involved is the perception that WWI was “yet another European war.” No one expected it to become what it did, until it did, and then it was too late.
In the end all of the “what if’s” are less important than the question why Mr. Buchanan expected Britain and Churchill to have some special foresight that Austro-Hungry lacked? How does the UK get credit for this war when they were the last to declare after all of the other members of the Alliance and the Entente had already committed?
If Britain didn’t enter the war it wouldn’t have involved the rest of the world is an interesting idea but if it hadn’t been for Austro-Hungry starting the war Britain wouldn’t have been faced with that unfortunate decision in the first place. Can we at least agree on that?
Comment by James Eaves-Johnson on 28 July 2009:
Put simply, as a Jew I am thankful that the world ultimately perceived Hitler as a threat and treated him as such. I do not pretend that the world was motivated by concern for Jewish (or Gypsy, or homosexual, or people with disabilities, or …) welfare. If people do good and protect oppressed minorities, I do not demand that they be motivated by noble ideals.
Comment by Vaemar on 2 August 2009:
This review is a farrago of contemptable ignorance and irresponsibility. You are apparently completely unsware of how Buchana makes his case against Churchill by FALSIFYING QUOTATIONS. Next time read the original documents before you display your stupidity.
Comment by JPB on 12 August 2009:
First, Hitler’s strongarm assumption of dictatorial powers in Germany. The takeover of Austria. The buildup of troops in the Rhineland. The Sudetenland, and then the rest of Czechoslovakia. Then Poland. What was clear as day, by that time, was Hitler’s intent to capitalize on what he viewed as weakness on the part of the Western leaders. Knowing what we now know, how can it be doubted that Hitler had designs on at least portions of France? If he was not after world domination, why did he invade Russia?
In view of this and the unspeakable Nazi atrocities that were later exposed, Buchanan points the finger at England for an “unnecessary war”. Hitler was in the war business before England joined in to stop him. If you are going to sacrifice Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in the cause of “peace in our time”, do you let Holland, Denmark, and Belgium go as well? When do you wake up and smell the coffee?
This is why Buchanan has ceased to be relevant.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 13 August 2009:
JPB,
You are correct but that is not the way I took Buchanan’s point.
It appears to me that Buchanan is offering that WWII was a direct result of WWI and Versailles. In this he is correct.
However his reasoning beyond that is flawed because he offers that if England has stayed out of the war then WWI would have been another Franco-Prussianesque war with limited scope. I think this is wishful thinking.
Dave and Tim argue that the Entente would have been satisfied with a victory rather than pressing a post war victory. Perhaps they are right? Maybe WWI and thus WWII could have been avoided if England had simply stayed out of the war. Then again, maybe it could have been avoided if they allowed Austro-Hungry to spank Serbia for killing Ferdinand? There are plenty of scenarios that theoretically avoid WWI and thus WWII as they occurred.
My problem is that none of these scenarios resolves the rabid militarism and massive buildup of arms that started in the late 1800’s. If the RN and GIN had not fought in 1914 then both sides would have continued to increase the size and technology of their fleets and that’s true for ground troops as well. Without the lessons of World Wars I and II it seems unlikely to me that these massive juggernauts remain unused simply staring at each other across the boarders, fingers nervously on their triggers of their weapons, for decades.
It could be argued that this is what happened between the US and USSR but I would counter that the cold war would not have remained cold if it were not for the death and devastation inflicted on the planet by both World Wars as well as the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) that was inherent in the use of Atomic weapons. If we had not lost millions of men and seen the devastation wrought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would we have been anywhere as reticent to enter into a Nuclear War without truly understanding the apocalyptic consequences?
It is one thing to say the word “Armageddon” it is another thing to experience it. WWII was the closest anyone sane would ever want to come to it. I think that lesson alone was worth learning prior to entering the nuclear age even if at the cost of 10’s of millions of lives. These wars taught us that war on such a scale is impractical and forced the US and USSR to mature politically rather than resorting to armed conflict in the same way European powers had done for more than two millennia.
Comment by Bro Montana on 16 August 2009:
andy writes: “You can’t go to war based upon what you assume might happen, maybe Germany would have built up their navy, but where is the evidence of this ?”
There’s plenty of evidence. The Bismarck, commissioned 24 August 1940.
Is anyone going to excuse Kristallnacht? Great to see all the Hitler sympathizers!
Comment by DMS on 21 August 2009:
Common typo:-
It’s receive, not ‘recieve’, ‘scuse me.
All supporters of the Foundation for Economic Education recieve a complimentary subscription to The Freeman.
Comment by William Clarke on 9 September 2009:
Patrick J. Buchanan is a political hack, a second rate writer and a Jew hater. He would rather see Israel driven into the sea. Why doesn’t he just have the balls to come out once and scream it? The answer is that in doing so he wouldn’t be able to cloak his innane thesis in pseudo intellectual camoflage. The fact is that Britain avoided war with Germany until it was almost too late. Theirs was a policy of non confrontation that almost proved disastrous. Unless you equate capitulation with peace? which apparently Buchanan does? In his defense, perhaps capitulation would have avoided a world war. But in place of it would have been a world wide holocaust instead and along with it a dark age. I guess to Mr. Buchanan, this would have been preferable. However, I thank God that Churchill, Britain and eventually America understood that there are some things worth fighting and dying for, like freedom.
Comment by Kimmon D. Johnson on 11 September 2009:
RE: William Clarke
Agreed. Completely.
Comment by Common Sense on 16 September 2009:
We can all pick out a leader during the era and say \\"if he……then…..\\" For example, If Wilhelm (and other leaders in pre WWI Germany) had follwed the advice of Bismark and \\"avoid[ed] entangling alliances\\"(with Austria), then Germany would never have been involved in what became WWI and what Churchill did or said would not have been relevant.
Comment by paul varner on 24 September 2009:
Wouldn’t give any heed to Buchanon’s thoughts or his take on this matter. Not sure that Mr B is in touch with reality on this one, gang .
Comment by Scott Williams on 28 September 2009:
Buchanan once again proves who he is and what he is all about, an isolationist thru and thru; Create any epic piece of re-engineered history to try and persuade the uninformed of the “rightness” of his view, sorry Pat, very shallow and disingenuous… bordering on downright dangerous, maybe 300 years ago one could live in this world with your head buried the sand… today?,, Not so much
Comment by James Madison Fan on 28 September 2009:
Scott,
I agree, but sometimes I wonder. It seems to me the US bumbles about like a blind surgeon wishing to do good deeds but quite often making things worse as a consequence.
We go into Somalia in an effort to feed the hungry but did not understand or care that the government used hunger to control the people. In our ignorance and arrogance we went into a situation where we did not fully grasp the situation and paid the price.
We go into Saudi Arabia in an effort to protect if from Iraq but send women to protect two of the holiest cities in Islam in a culture where they do not allow women to drive much less go to school or fight side by side with men. This would be roughly equivalent to sending an army of gay, atheist prostitutes with multiple abortions to protect the Vatican and can be directly linked to the September 11 attack. In our ignorance and arrogance we went into a situation where we did not fully grasp the situation and paid the price.
We go into Iraq looking for “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” do not find any, and end up in a police action that will have lasted more than a decade by the time we are done while unbalancing the region in such a way that if we leave and it falls apart there is a pretty good chance there will be civil war and a religious pogrom that could involve dozens of nations not to mention making an area that was already hostile towards us even more angry. In our ignorance and arrogance we went into a situation where we did not fully grasp the situation and paid the price.
I have to wonder why we have presidential advisors when they are so oblivious to local customs, culture, and political structure that they have allowed blunders of such epic proportions.
I have to wonder what would happen if we returned to a more passive foreign policy where we allowed Europe, in the supposedly infinite wisdom, to run the world like they did until we got sick of picking up the pieces after they screwed up. After WWII we were heroes but here we are less than a century later being cast in the role of the villain. Maybe if the Islamic fringe kept plotting to blow up Paris, Berlin, or some other major European city rather than New York they might get a little more aggressive in helping us find real solutions to the situation rather than enabling it.
It would be interesting to peer through a window into an alternate reality and see where we would be if we had gone back to an isolationist doctrine rather than taking on the mantle of planetary policeman.
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