What if britain had stayed neutral in ww1

And if one asks whether this was the best way for Britain to deal with the challenge posed by imperial Germany , my answer is no.

Given the resources that Britain had available in , a better strategy would have been to wait and deal with the German challenge later when Britain could respond on its own terms, taking advantage of its much greater naval and financial capability.

The comments are certain to fan the flames of the debate sparked by the education secretary, Michael Gove, about whether Britain's role in the war should be seen as heroic courage or monumental error. Gove, in an article in the Daily Mail , attacked "leftwing academics all too happy to feed those myths by attacking Britain's role in the conflict", and decried the Blackadder portrayal of the war as "a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite".

Ferguson is unequivocal: "We should not think of this as some great victory or dreadful crime, but more as the biggest error in modern history. He continued: "The cost, let me emphasise, of the first world war to Britain was catastrophic, and it left the British empire at the end of it all in a much weakened state … It had accumulated a vast debt, the cost of which really limited Britain's military capability throughout the interwar period. Post by Tim Smith » 06 Jan Post by Mike K.

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Quick links. What if Britain had stayed neutral? Discussions on alternate history, including events up to 20 years before today. Hosted by Terry Duncan. By the end of the war, the first miles per hour jet aircraft were operational. Without WWI, the genius of German scientists such as Wernher von Braun may not have been used to eventually create the Saturn 5 rocket that flew man to the moon in Without the two world wars, technology would be less technically advanced than today.

Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer Help using this website - Accessibility statement. Policy Foreign Affairs Defence Print article. Darren Stutchbury. Updated Apr 28, — 4. Save Log in or Subscribe to save article. Success may have been patchy, but it was a coherent idea. That leaves Russia, Germany and Britain, who largely went to war for no better reason than fear of each other.

To that extent, yes, the war was a bungle. However, I confess that I am with Max Hastings in pointing the finger of blame for the bungle overwhelmingly at one man: Kaiser Bill.

Germany under his leadership made two fateful decisions that ensured that the war, when it came, would take the form it did. First, the Schlieffen plan.

He would exploit the slow pace of Russian mobilisation, and the excellent German railway system, to defeat his enemies one by one. A swift knockout blow against France was to be followed by the redeployment of the German armies to the east to face Russia.

To march the bulk of the German army into France meant violating Belgian neutrality, which had been guaranteed by the great powers of Europe back in Schlieffen accepted that that would inevitably bring Britain into the war but he thought Germany would win before Britain could make any difference. It was a modified version of the Schlieffen plan that Germany put into operation in Note in passing that Schlieffen, a well-informed observer at the time, did not believe that Britain could keep out of the war.

Crazy, if you like. Some decry the idea that the First World War was caused by German railway timetables, but it looks convincing enough to me. In the midst of the crisis, when Russia was mobilising in response to Austrian sabre-rattling, Wilhelm asked the Chief of his General Staff, Count Helmuth von Moltke nephew of another Helmuth von Moltke, the victor over France in whether it might be possible to mobilise the German army against Russia alone, leaving France out of it.

Moltke had to explain that to try to do that would throw his minutely planned railway schedules into chaos. The Kaiser belittles his chief of staff with the suggestion that he is not the man his uncle was, because he cannot meet a demand Wilhelm should have known was impossible.

The swift rail movement across Europe of millions of men and horses, thousands of artillery pieces and all their ammunition and supplies could not be improvised in a few days. Was Wilhelm really ignorant of the details of the Schlieffen plan, and the limits it would place on his freedom of action in the event of war? The incident casts a lurid light on the chaotic way Germany was governed only a century ago.

Second, the High Seas Fleet. It never made any sense. There is more. The final thing to remember is that millions of people all across Europe positively desired a war. It would be a lark, a cleansing fire, an escape from the fashionable mood of ennui. A blood sacrifice was needed to redeem the nations.

Here is how another poet, the Cambridge Apostle Rupert Brooke, greeted the outbreak of war in