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what if : Can Germany avoid getting into a war with Russia in 1914


nastle

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In june 1914 after archduke assasination can the germans avoid getting into a fight with russia ? Perhaps let A-H bully serbia a little bit short of a full invasion but avoid direct confrontation with russia ?

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Sorry if I offend , but  its just a what if and thus like all otherwhat ifs totally irrelevant to history and reality.

Regards

David  

Edited by David Filsell
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6 hours ago, nastle said:

In june 1914 … can the germans avoid getting into a fight with russia ?

 

Not if they attacked France or Britain and triggered the Triple Alliance which evolved from the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale of 1904, and the Anglo-Russian Alliance of 1907.

 

Maybe an easier question to answer might be what would have happened if the Germans weren't such an aggressive bunch and hadn't been so determined to start a war ?

Tom

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7 hours ago, nastle said:

In june 1914 after archduke assasination can the germans avoid getting into a fight with russia ? Perhaps let A-H bully serbia a little bit short of a full invasion but avoid direct confrontation with russia ?

 

Are the long winter evenings here already or are you looking for the basis of an alternative history novel :)

 

If you want to know how it might have been avoided you can look to the multiple Balkans crisises from 1908 onwards which the European powers managed to constrain into small scale proxy wars. However the loser in each case - not just the fighting countries but the major nations who perceived they had "lost" in that particular round of diplomatic chess, were determined to raise the ante in the next round. It could only be ratcheted up so far before a mistake was made and the whole continent plunged into conflict.

 

If a diplomatic way round it could have been found after that shot in Sarajevo, there would have been something else within a year and so on until the catastrophe was triggered - and then a web of treaties and alliances that were intended to deter aggression would have dragged Germany in on one side and Russia on the other.

 

You need to immerse yourself in the literature of the run up to the Great War - with the benefit of hindsight there are many points at which quite minor policy changes & actions in any of the nations involved early enough might have avoided the road to War. Whether the individuals involved - Emperors, Kings, Politicians, Generals, Press Barons, Captains of Industry, etc, would have proved capable of seeing through such changes or would even have agreed to them we shall never truely know,

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

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This thread takes me back to O Level History circa 1980, In particular Bismarks foreign policy. To say the least I got the numerous treaties/agreements hopelessly muddled until I was introduced to 'Dale Taramart'. 

D

A.  Dual Alliance

L

E. League of the 3 Emperors

T

A. Triple Alliance

R

A. Romainian  ????????

M

A. Mediterranean  Agreement

R

T. ??????? Treaty

 

 

Sorry about the blanks but its 40yrs since I last had to write this down.

 

Simon

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

 

Not if they attacked France or Britain and triggered the Triple Alliance which evolved from the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale of 1904, and the Anglo-Russian Alliance of 1907.

 

Maybe an easier question to answer might be what would have happened if the Germans weren't such an aggressive bunch and hadn't been so determined to start a war ?

Tom

 

Come on, it would be good to look things from a different angle once in a while. It was the Russian general mobilisation that triggered the German war plans.

In 1914, all countries wanted war, the most of all France, which had been creating alliances to isolate Germany and wanted war to get Alsace-Lorraine back, no matter what the cost.

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18 hours ago, AOK4 said:

 

Come on, it would be good to look things from a different angle once in a while. It was the Russian general mobilisation that triggered the German war plans.

In 1914, all countries wanted war, the most of all France, which had been creating alliances to isolate Germany and wanted war to get Alsace-Lorraine back, no matter what the cost.

 

All sides share a degree of responsibility and many historians have written on the subject, with it's own academic arms race of trying to see how far back the antecedents go - I tend to favour the Seven Years War, (1756-63) as opposed to the War of Austrian Succession (1740 - 1748) - although the latter could be seen as a role model for the successful deployment of a small professional British Expeditionary Force in Flanders while also having to deal with a rebellion at home armed, financed and encouraged by it's principal enemy  - but while I can see the case for going back to the Roman Empire that's a matter of personal taste.

 

Which is an indicator of the crux issue - it comes down to personal opinion. I had a trip to Vienna in the late 70's and was lucky enough to spend some time with an elderly Austrian who served in the first world war as an officer. His opinion was that the Germans were still then too much in awe of the Austrians as the real proper "High Germans" and so weren't prepared to step in quietly and persuade them to water down their demands - it also didn't help that a re-run of the successful Franco-Prussian War on an epic scale was what a sizable portion of both the German political elite and Germany military command imagined they were going to get and so gave them little incentive to explore other options.

 

As he said, it also didn't help that the father & son generations that made up the bulk of the German fighting age strength had known nothing but successful Prussian expanison that forged a powerful German state. I repeat this here as his opinion. And his bias if it can be called that, was that he was Jewish and took the chance to get out in the mid-thirties to come to Britain to teach, returning to Austria only after the Russians left. Most of his family hadn't survived the Camps - a young nephew made it out on some kind of kinder transport and would go on to be my headmaster. Both had had a long time and cause to think about the nature of being German.

 

Before I get accused of any anti-German bias, I could think of similar cultural, political, historical, dynastic and economic arguments for every one of the major combatants.

 

As to the Russian mobilisation, even a partial mobilisation to swell it's standing Army in support of Serbia would have seen the Austro-Hungarian empire trigger it's support pact with Germany and even just a heightened level of readiness in the standing Army. I'm not aware of any plan to mobilise in stages by any of the key nations - you would have disrupted your domestic economy without putting it fully on a war footing while expecting the civil population to make sacrifices- witness the current issues and debates with the coronavirus lockdown in many countries. Also giving the relative paucity of railway infrastructure even in European Russia, it probably wasn't possible to fine tune mobilisation to any degree.

 

Cheers,

Peter

Edited by PRC
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I think that I am right in saying that even by the terms of the Triple Alliance concluded in 1882 and subsequently ratified at intervals up to 1915 Germany was not under obligation to assist Austria Hungary in the circumstances created by the events of June 1914. The declaration of war against Serbia fell outside the terms of the alliance and as Austria Hungary was not under attack from a Great Power then Article three, 'assisting another signatory',  could not be applied. Russian mobilisation would have posed a threat under Article 4 but again this did not obligate immediate assistance only a position of 'benevolent neutrality' on the part of the other signatories. Russian mobilisation should in fact have triggered Article 5 which required Alliance partners to take counsel with a view to cooperation. So the answer to the question

On 20/05/2020 at 15:00, nastle said:

In june 1914 after archduke assasination can the germans avoid getting into a fight with russia ?

 is yes it could because it was under no treaty obligation to act as it did.

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17 hours ago, AOK4 said:

 

... It was the Russian general mobilisation that triggered the German war plans.

 

"Triggered" the long standing Schlieffen Plan. Maybe the OP question should have been "What would have happened if the Germans hadn't pre-emptively set the Schlieffen Plan in motion ?"

(nb - Henning Wehn is the exception, not the rule :lol:)

Tom

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Mr P R C 

Even in this pointless debate your comment, "In 1914 all countries wanted war," is a statement in great need of justification.

Regards

David

Edited by David Filsell
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1 hour ago, David Filsell said:

Mr P R C 

Even in this pointless debate your comment, "In 1914 all countries wanted war," is a statement in great need of justification.

Regards

David

 

David,

 

I didn't actually say that. I was responding to a statement containing that by forum member AOK4 which I was quoting.

 

Respectfully I agree with you as to the pointlessness of the debate, (or exploration of the issues - take your pick) and just like every statement it could be picked to pieces - all countries doesn't mean every single country in the world and a country isn't a single homogenous consensus. So we could go through every single country directly impacted by the outbreak of conflict in Europe and work through the many competing interest groups to try to divine a) whether those with the power (economic \ political) could be demonstrated to be in favour of war and b) by what means can you gauge popular sentiment.

 

That's a major exercise which I don't think should be developed piecemeal in a forum - that runs the likely risk of mud-slinging \ grievance airing until, based on past experience one or more members flounces out of the forum and the moderators have to lock the thread.

 

@ilkley remembers has put forward a very cogent international jurisprudence type response which points one way forward. It's been over 35 years since I last looked at that area in detail and I have memories of my professor talking about novel arguments that were being put forward by the Austrians about intervention in another states internal affairs, (by which they meant Russia using a Serbian Proxy) - however they had to be aimed at the diplomatic arena as there was no final court of international arbitration that would have sat and decided on the merits of the case of whether Article 4 or Article 5 was appropriate and what Germanys' obligations were to Austria in the face of Russia's mobilisation - which was what indirectly the OP was asking about.

 

Cheers,

Peter

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On 20/05/2020 at 17:04, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

 

 

 

Maybe an easier question to answer might be what would have happened if the Germans weren't such an aggressive bunch and hadn't been so determined to start a war ?

Tom

 

"aggressive bunch" ? I would not single out the germans for that 

 

Were the british/french /turks not ruling over dozens of nationalities fighting endless colonial wars for their imperialism ? they are in no position to be accusing the germans of aggression 

 

by no means do i intend to absolve prussians and kaiser of any blame but to lay at solely on the germans seems very unjust

 

Edited by nastle
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On ‎22‎/‎05‎/‎2020 at 23:20, nastle said:

"aggressive bunch" ? I would not single out the germans for that 

Were the british/french /turks not ruling over dozens of nationalities fighting endless colonial wars for their imperialism ? they are in no position to be accusing the germans of aggression 

by no means do i intend to absolve prussians and kaiser of any blame but to lay at solely on the germans seems very unjust

 

Maybe its an "age thing", but my dob is such that I experienced two sets of grandparents and their friends and kin who had lived through the '14-'18 bloodbath and the second lot, and then my parents and their generation who had had to endure the Germans at it again less than a generation after the end of WW1 (which for the French was third time round in well under 100 years - Prussians = Germans in my book). As a pre-teen I managed to extract copies of Edward FL Russell's (2nd Baron Russell of Liverpool, aka  Langley Russell) books The Scourge of the Swastika and The Knights of Bushido from the local library. That was nearly 60 years ago, and nothing I've learned about the Germans (or Nippon) since then has improved my views about them. Nor am I going to fall for this BBC / Guardian (and some others) / hippy attempts to convince us that we fought WW2 against a central European political party and "the Germans" had nothing to do with it.

 

As for Turkish and French colonial rule; - well the Turks don't quite meet European standards of civilisation and the French just weren't very good at it - in a word, they were simply "French". British colonial rule, - post our early disengagement from the slave trade - was generally very benevolent and improved the lot of the natives; - railway systems, administrative structures, proper buildings, etc etc etc. Obviously this benevolent atmosphere was occasionally interrupted by the authorities having to deal with criminal and terrorist elements, much as still happens today.

 

"by no means do i intend to absolve prussians and kaiser of any blame but to lay at solely on the germans seems very unjust"

They started it - twice (or three times if you are French). That's very simplistic of course - but what was the intention of Germany attacking Belgium and France in 1914 ? World domination ? You just can't get away from it - the Germans were aggressors in 1914 and their actions during the '30s and '40s ..............

Tom

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On 23/05/2020 at 20:00, Tom Tulloch-Marshall said:

 

Maybe its an "age thing", but my dob is such that I experienced two sets of grandparents and their friends and kin who had lived through the '14-'18 bloodbath and the second lot, and then my parents and their generation who had had to endure the Germans at it again less than a generation after the end of WW1 (which for the French was third time round in well under 100 years - Prussians = Germans in my book). As a pre-teen I managed to extract copies of Edward FL Russell's (2nd Baron Russell of Liverpool, aka  Langley Russell) books The Scourge of the Swastika and The Knights of Bushido from the local library. That was nearly 60 years ago, and nothing I've learned about the Germans (or Nippon) since then has improved my views about them. Nor am I going to fall for this BBC / Guardian (and some others) / hippy attempts to convince us that we fought WW2 against a central European political party and "the Germans" had nothing to do with it.

 

As for Turkish and French colonial rule; - well the Turks don't quite meet European standards of civilisation and the French just weren't very good at it - in a word, they were simply "French". British colonial rule, - post our early disengagement from the slave trade - was generally very benevolent and improved the lot of the natives; - railway systems, administrative structures, proper buildings, etc etc etc. Obviously this benevolent atmosphere was occasionally interrupted by the authorities having to deal with criminal and terrorist elements, much as still happens today.

 

"by no means do i intend to absolve prussians and kaiser of any blame but to lay at solely on the germans seems very unjust"

They started it - twice (or three times if you are French). That's very simplistic of course - but what was the intention of Germany attacking Belgium and France in 1914 ? World domination ? You just can't get away from it - the Germans were aggressors in 1914 and their actions during the '30s and '40s ..............

Tom

 

I appreciate the detailed response and I totally understand the "age thing" believe me , I think its very harsh and disrespectful when younger generations judge their ancestors by the moral standards that came after their time.

 

But similarly you cannot judge the actions of germany based solely on 1870-1945 period, firstly french were the ones who declared war on prussia and german allies in 1870 , and secondly do not forget german people who constantly under the heel of the french , italians , austrians for GENERATION s /centuries and at many times suffered immensely under their imperial rule [ 30 yrs war , napoleonic wars etc], it was the ROmans who tried to conquer the gauls/germanic tribes and treated them as barbarians for centuries so they were the original instigators "they" started it ", can this justify what germans did in italy from the sack of rome in 1527 to ww2? .Thirdly belgians were no innocent bystanders either look at what they did in congo as the imperial warlords , germans commited atrocities in belgium but nothing compared to what germans did in africa [ i dont see the BEF being sent to teach the "huns" a lession after what germans did in Namibia BEFORE 1914] which in itself pale in comparison to the immense and untold  suffering brought upon the people of asia /africa /balkans/russia  and ireland by british /french/turks /japanese colonial powers.

Regardly british rule being " very benevolent and improved the lot of the natives" this can be clearly debunked if you start digging into the details , some works i recommend are 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglorious_Empire

https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Executioner-Micheal-Siochru/dp/0571241212

 

britain [ just like every other great power in hsitory] went to war to preserve the status of their empire in ww1 and ww2 there were no "moral " reasons for it, lets not be deluded by such war time propoganda , if that was the case why did france and britain not overthrow the turks and expel them from the greek lands of western anatolia  after ww1 and hold those responsible for Armenian genocide ? realpolitik ALWAYS trumps everything else.Wars against germany in principle as far as british empire were not much different against wars against any continental power [like napoleons france].

 

turks did not meet the "european standard" and "french were simply notvery good at it" does not explain away the countless atrocities they committed  during their time. Turks for centures were more civilized than urbane than most of europe yet they still prosecuted the war against the slavs with a lot of savagery and brutality .I can make the same argument for germans , they were an immature colonial power and acted like a child who has been given a dangerous toy to play with [by industrialists like mr krupp] and caused a lot of "collateral damage" in central europe.How do you think the poles, russians , czech, jews and other eastern europeans who suffered so greatly from german imperialism would think about that simplistic explanation ?

 

 

Edited by nastle
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Germany's war against Russia (and France) was postulated by the 1906 Schlieffen Plan. It did not envisage a particular casus belli such as happened in Sarajevo in June 1914, but I believe that the war would have happened sooner or later anyway. Even Otto von Bismarck was supposed to have said that, if there were to be another major war in Europe, it would be over "some damned thing in the Balkans."

 

Ron

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What if history is lazy history. It means you can ignore the the rigours of academic research and make it up as you go along.

 

TR

 

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3 hours ago, Terry_Reeves said:

What if history is lazy history. It means you can ignore the the rigours of academic research and make it up as you go along.

 

TR

 

its not history at all its fiction 

and yes i agree but "what if " fiction is far more entertaining than hollywood and other movies 

 

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10 hours ago, nastle said:

I appreciate the detailed response and I totally understand the "age thing" believe me , I think its very harsh and disrespectful when younger generations judge their ancestors by the moral standards that came after their time.

 

That's an interesting reply, thanks. However I don't think my moral standards are too far distant from those of my fondly remembered paternal and maternal grandparents.

 

There is much that can be said "against" the British Empire - particularly the early involvement in the slave trade, - however whist that Empire did much to enrich Great Britain financially, the British also did much to improve the lives of those in the Colonies. Dominions, and Protectorates. Some of those Colonies. Dominions, and Protectorates have gone rather downhill since the level of British influence ceased.

 

That doesn't address the OP however. By the turn of the 19th to 20th Centuries the Western civilisations were reputedly just that - civilised. Disregard the huge tracts of the world which were not then "civilised" in any conventional sense (many still aren't) - the western powers were reputedly on a higher plane. Doesn't matter how you sugar the pill, the 20th Century brought forward countries which were aggressors and countries which responded to aggression. In the first group the Germans were pre-eminent, - rising, during the 30's and 40's, to a level of savagery not  seen on such a scale before, - they and their comrades the Nips industrialised savagery.

Tom

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On 20/05/2020 at 15:00, nastle said:

In june 1914 after archduke assasination can the germans avoid getting into a fight with russia ? Perhaps let A-H bully serbia a little bit short of a full invasion but avoid direct confrontation with russia ?

 

 

Of course they could have avoided it.

 

There are always choices.

 

The Germans chose not to avoid that conflict : more than that, they actually endorsed and encouraged it.

 

This is my interpretation of the story : facts are susceptible to differing interpretation, and I’ll take refuge in opining.

 

Phil

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IMO the analysis by Prof. Fritz Fischer "Germany's Aims in the First World War" based on his examination of the well-documented military papers indicates the aggressive nature of the higher powers in Germany, possibly driven by envy of the British Empire and their desire to expand their own territories.  Should be essential reading.

But then, everyone has a view based on selective analysis of the available data, I think.

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On 27/05/2020 at 04:30, Interested said:

IMO the analysis by Prof. Fritz Fischer "Germany's Aims in the First World War" based on his examination of the well-documented military papers indicates the aggressive nature of the higher powers in Germany, possibly driven by envy of the British Empire and their desire to expand their own territories.  Should be essential reading.

But then, everyone has a view based on selective analysis of the available data, I think.

Indeed and there is no doubt that germans were looking to knock out France or Russia before the alliance against them gets even more stronger,even works of Terence Zuber cannot deny this.But Germany was a young expanding power while UK was a status quo power.Example could be how britain and spain were during the time of Elizabeth I and great armada.The younger more developing power is hungry for more conquests usually more likely to "bend the rules" [afterall the british queen did a lot of that with her privateers ] and aggressive , while the more established power is more interested in trade commerce as it benefits them more.

Edited by nastle
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nastle, 

 

You might agree with Peter Hart.

 

I've just been listening to his recently released podcast.

 

If I may, I'll cite, verbatim, what he says :

 

….there's a lot of people that say that the Germans were going to go to war in 1914 anyway.....I don't want to get into the whole thing of how the First World War started...I am one of those who think the Germans are a lot to blame...however, the Russians, the French and the British are not blameless....those three countries are never ever blameless.....especially us !

 

Phil

 

 

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