SolarCross wrote:
This is nonsense. Britain had as serious potential economic rivals in the US, France, Russia and Japan. Why single out Germany? Also Germany started the war long before Britain was dragged in, you know about Serbia? Also during the July Crisis the Brits were trying mediate peaceful solutions whilst Germany and Austria were for war only.
Timeline of ww1.
Austria invades Serbia
Russians support Serbia
Germany supports Austria
Most small countries declare neutrality
Germany invades Luxembourg and then on the way to invading France invades Belgium
The UK protests the invasion of Belgium, Germans tell the UK to fuck off and the UK declares on Germany.
So yeah anglophobic revisionist @Political Interest thinks WW1 just happened because the UK was just being mean because Germany might one day sell more biscuit tins or lawnmowers.
Why single out Germany? Simple, it's very common for the #2, #3, etc. etc. player to join forces to knock off #1. This happens all the time in business and politics. Germany's rise in economics, technology, and military, along with the weakening Ottoman Empire disrupted the balance of people in the region. It freaked people out, hence the alliances were formed.
There was most certainly fear of Germany's rise as an industrial/economic/military power in Europe. This is what motivated the series of alliances across the continent.
- Germany was getting too strong economically, technologically, and militarily for the likes of France and Russia.
- France got in an alliance with Russia to try and contain Germany.
- Germany got in an alliance with Austria-Hungary to counter.
- France and Russia tried hard to get the UK to join the alliance, but the UK refused.
- The UK did have a protection agreement with Belgium though.
- Ottomans were a bit worried about Russia and were also weakening, so they joined in with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
I can think of 11780 reasons Trump shouldn't be president ever again.