Niall Ferguson's view of WWI

[Dante Von Hespburg]

I'm just saying, but Niall Ferguson is talking about a balance in the war. That is to say that Germany will probably win and dominate the continent while Britain will dominate... well everything else. But I mean who cares if Germany conquers the whole damn world, I mean what does it really matter if Kaiser Wilhelm II becomes Imperator Globis? So what? There are historians which say that Germany needed to be punished for invading Belgium and others like Ferguson that say that "no, Germany wasn't so bad". Shouldn't France be punished for backstabbing their ally King Feisal? Shouldn't Feisal be killed by a firing squad for starting a revolt against the Ottoman Empire? I say, who the cares if Germany rofflestomps every country on the globe and conquers the world. How would that necessarily be a bad thing. The Allies winning the war and establishing a League of Nations wasn't necessarily a good thing, same thing if the Central Powers won and likely established a "League of Central Powers" and ruled the world.

I think in a way you've also hit the big point.

Firstly as Condottiere has said what fleets are the Germans stealing? Again This Germany isn't Nazi Germany with designs to conquer all of Europe, this is a Germany that wants it's place in the Established order recognized. Their not going to conquer the whole of France and use the whole of Europe's Fleets to take over Great Britain.

And this then rather ties into What Lord Oba has said, that again Germany are no better or worse than any of the other contemporary Imperial Power.

[Condottiere 40K]

Wilhelm opts to build a cruiser trade protection commerce raider fleet; the British don't feel threatened on their own doorstep and add a couple of more cruisers and second class battleships to their Navy; the event of the dreadnought class is delayed, as the British don't feel the need to acquire a bleeding technological edge, and let someone else take the lead, so that they can benefit from the experience of working out the bugs.

Wilhelm decides that the Schlieffen Plan, while tactically brilliant, was strategically unsound; sacrifices more German troops in the initial assaults against France, but ensures the neutrality of Britain by taking care to not to antagonize them unnecessarily.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Well Ferguson is talking like an apologist like if his country did a really bad thing. On the other hand people want us to talk about Germany like if it did a really bad thing. But isn't the fact that Fergusson is talking like that to his own people just proof enough that the war was over interests. No one was fighting over justice or world peace here, everyone was just battling it out to secure their interests. Almost like "oh my God the storm has begun, let's get in there so we don't lose our interests" just as if the start of the war was irrevelent but the reason for continuing the war was so that x or y country doesn't lose hold of their interests. And honestly it will only matter to people who's countries had something to lose, I come from Colombia which was neutral and I have no reason to care which country won. Germany lost and got the end of the stick. Point being: someone had to hold that end and everyone was responsible for starting a war that no one wanted but were forced to continue.

I would actually compare WW1 to the Seven Years' War as a war which no one wanted but no one could actually put a stop to and ultimately didn't help anyone out much either, just that France, Austria and Spain got it worse cause they lost. This war particularly led to the American Revolution and the French Revolution and screwed things even more for the world.

[Slaytaninc]

I can never figure out if Niall Ferguson is pro-EU or anti-EU. It's hard to tell at times.

[Condottiere 40K]

From his lectures, his ideology transcends nationalism or regionalism, though he did warn that the EU needed to get it's act together or the PRC will eclipse them.

[Dante Von Hespburg]

Well Ferguson is talking like an apologist like if his country did a really bad thing. On the other hand people want us to talk about Germany like if it did a really bad thing. But isn't the fact that Fergusson is talking like that to his own people just proof enough that the war was over interests. No one was fighting over justice or world peace here, everyone was just battling it out to secure their interests. Almost like "oh my God the storm has begun, let's get in there so we don't lose our interests" just as if the start of the war was irrevelent but the reason for continuing the war was so that x or y country doesn't lose hold of their interests. And honestly it will only matter to people who's countries had something to lose, I come from Colombia which was neutral and I have no reason to care which country won. Germany lost and got the end of the stick. Point being: someone had to hold that end and everyone was responsible for starting a war that no one wanted but were forced to continue.

I would actually compare WW1 to the Seven Years' War as a war which no one wanted but no one could actually put a stop to and ultimately didn't help anyone out much either, just that France, Austria and Spain got it worse cause they lost. This war particularly led to the American Revolution and the French Revolution and screwed things even more for the world.

I think again you make some fair points here. The big issue of some contemporary 'Popular' historians is that they always try and bring morality into the actions of the past. Which as a student of history, taught in what's meant to be an impartial analysis, its horrifically bad academic practice. To try and sell the whole 'This side was good and these were bad' Especially when speaking about the First World War is a total bunch of . And i feel it has more to do with actual politics and point scoring than a real historical study (people prefer being on the good guys, over hearing about how the interests of a nation were potentially achieved by such and such a course of action). especially as this became a political issue in effect Tories vs established academia.

[Count of Montesano]

Interesting article. Isn't there something to be said for the fact that the Germans committing atrocities in Belgium helped tip England's hand? I know the rape of Belgium was small potatoes compared to say the Holocaust, but according to Wikipedia there were still thousands of civilian casualties, 1.5 million refugees, and countless sexual assaults. Considering the humanitarian crisis, IMHO the UK (and later the US) were justified in joining the war, though I full recognize there were other economic & political reasons for getting involved.

That being said, if Germany hadn't invaded Belgium and had decided to fight a defensive war against France and Russia, they could equally claim they held the moral high ground.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Germany was wrong in violating the neutrality of Belgium. Not only would it not have the desired results but it was also just plain stupid politically speaking.

[Cyclops]

Yes Great Britain had a long commitment to ensuring the Chports opposite England were not in the hands of a single power. ihe Shlieffen plan was devised to deliver enough German troops to the French flank to take Paris, IIRC it was not able to do so (given the number of roads, movement of troops etc) unless the French actually tried to invade Germany frontally (and Schilieffen assumed they would not be that stupid...). In the event failed French attacks meant the Schlieffen plan went from a certain failure to a slim possibility of success.

Germany was a well run state thanks to Frederick Wilhelm III and Wilhelm I, but Kaiser Bill was a fool and his country blundered into a diplomatic death march (lets piss off Russia and ally with the decaying Hapsburgs because, oh, we speak the same language), and leapt into a war it had little chance of winning. Niall Ferguson thinks this guy should've been put in charge of Europe? Not a recipe for a stable continent. How about Germany stays out of WW1? How does that sound?

Germany made crazy demands, the sort France made aginst them IRL, about colonies and reparations. Whose fleets would Germany take? Start with Frances, add the Dutch and Belgian ports, and resources from "liberated" Ukraine and Poland. The UK had a hard time holding down Germany with Russia and Frnace on board, and he thinks it'd be better to face them alone, after they've digested half of Europe.

The UK would be mad to let that happen.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

^hence why Belgium is a country and not part of France during the 1800s

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I was reading about Tsar Nicholas taking command of the army and the year 1916 and the Brusliov offensive. Not only does it appear to me like Nicholas was doing a nice job as head of the military and that he understood the strategy of that theatre but that he seemingly could work well with his generals. I also noticed that Alexei Brusilov may not have launched his offensive with all of the preparation in the world and as coordinated as some might think.

After the initial operations he seemed to have bogged down even though he had more equipment and supplies than any of the other Russian armies. He might have only been successfully at the start out of necessity rather than him planning it to be that way, otherwise when he got more artillery and equipment why did he revert to the old tactics that were as ineffective as before? I think the fact that Brusilov's reinforcements did not arrive when they should have proved a few things: that the offensive was not as well planned by Brusilov as was claimed, that Russian officers had rivalries and wouldn't budge even when Nikolai himself pulled their ears and that the Brusilov Offensive fails to be decisive simply because it only succeeded at the outset but failed to get momentum.

Indeed when Ludendorff noticed that the Russians were stalling he ordered in the reserves and put Brulov's offensive on the halt. On a personal triumph for Nikolai at least with hindsight he showed that this failure was not his fault and that his army is akin to the Soviet army of the 1920s (in terms of horrible lack of discipline among the generals) or the KMT of Chiang.

[hellheaven1987]

Isn't there something to be said for the fact that the Germans committing atrocities in Belgium helped tip England's hand?

By fabricate all the facts, just like what US did during Iraqi War?

[Cyclops]

By fabricate all the facts, just like what US did during Iraqi War?

I think the matter is not disputed? The Germans went in without a formal declaration, to gain the element of surprise. Once there the locals refused to cooperate with the occupation as they felt it was illegal, the Germans treated resistance as crime and punished it under martial law.

Of course the proipaganda stuff about Huns raping nuns and nailing kittens to church doors was nonsense, Robert Graves in his memoir ("Goodbye to All That") traces a newspaper story about church bells get twisted from a patriotic puff piece in Germany to a horror story in England.

[hellheaven1987]

That does not mean UK had right to fabricate stories, especially when the actual atrocities rarely even be reported?

[Slaytaninc]

Of course the German actions in Belgium were much more mild than the actions British (and American) colonialists did around the world, but that's not really important. What mattered is the Germans were seen as doing things to Europeans that were to be reserved for those backwards and primitive Africans who needed to be taught lessons when they acted up. To the British public the German occupation scared many. The fact that the Germans were willing to carry out horrible (and vastly exaggerated) atrocities suggested that the civilized rules that militaries supposedly operated under in the past were gone.

[Condottiere 40K]

More importantly, why were they believed? Could be because the Germans had made themselves unloved in Britain in the build up to the Great War.

[Dante Von Hespburg]

That does not mean UK had right to fabricate stories, especially when the actual atrocities rarely even be reported?

You speak as if 'Right' has anything what-so-ever to do with contemporary actions or our historical study of them Hellheaven, if we look, there is literally no nation in the world that has the 'right' and indeed as i was discussing with some friends earlier. There is also no nation in the world who acts, contemporary or in the past, out of a sense of 'Morality' (Which is always, and the First World War is a fantastic example of this, merely a tool used to draw together and justify something to either the world or their own populace) there is always interests at heart of the more sensible/geo-political/self interested (whatever we may wish to call it).

It's why i have such a hard time as an academic swallowing the things currently being said in the debate about whether Britain was 'Right' to go to War. And what's more the Conservative's in the UK are actually trying to use that exact line 'It was the 'Right' thing for us to do morally'... It's total and utter rubbish, and takes away all historicity in the assessments.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

^Amen, morality is just a tool used to convince people. Legitimization only exists when someone believes it.

[Gromovnik]

Another thread defending german chauvinism and imperialism, while calling for genocide of slavonic nations. So what else is new?

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

That's right, if you look at my post above I talk about how Alexei Brusilov should be slaughtered along with his entire Slavic brethren.