Gallipoli is complicated, but I think the strategic conception wasn't as bad as it's frequently made out to be. The problem was that it was the first time someone had tried a serious amphibious operation under anything like the conditions prevailing in WWI, and there was a lot to learn about how to do that. And it came pretty close to working, too. (I can't believe I'm saying nice things about a Churchill plan.) And if it had been successful, then it's a lot easier to get support to Russia, which does change things in the West.
And then there was Fisher's Baltic Plan, which wasn't entirely crazy, but came pretty close...
I read this book too last month, and appreciated it!
The other point that Sheffield belabored, and I appreciated, was the limited information available to the British commanders at the time. So many of their actions look stupid from our vantage point, but Sheffield explains how they made sense given their own limited knowledge.
What Sheffield doesn't say, but I came away even more convinced of, was how World War 1 wasn't worth it. Surely, staying out and letting France be overrun would've been far better for Britain and its Empire than what happened. And indeed, while the British Empire outlasted every other European regime involved in the war, it still started it toward its fall.
That's an interesting alt-history scenario. I do feel like you would avoid Hitler that way. But I have a hard time modeling what a victorious Germany led by the Kaiser would have done.
I agree, because Germany didn't *have* war goals at the start of WWI except for "keep France and Russia down"! The goals they did make up midwar fluctuated with the fortunes of war.
Without Britain in the war, it's very possible France will be overrun in fall 1914 before trench warfare even starts. In that case, Germany won't have oceans of blood to push its leadership toward demanding enough to make it all worth it. Might it be possible we get something like the peace after the Franco-Prussian War, where Germany annexes a few provinces and saddles France with a huge indemnity? That's bad for France, and probably for Europe, but less bad than the oceans of blood.
And then after that speculation, there's the question of what happens when the Social Democrats win a majority in the Reichstag sometime soon. Plus, Austria-Hungary is still a powderkeg.
>Surely, staying out and letting France be overrun would've been far better for Britain and its Empire than what happened.
I feel compelled to point out that this is definitely not how the British would have seen it in 1914. Their policies had always been built around making sure nobody was able to dominate Europe, because if that happened, they might have been able to build a fleet that could challenge the RN, which is obviously a problem for the British. More than that, Germany had spent the last decade being extremely irritating to the British in a way that probably made sitting it out impossible.
Absolutely. Though, if Asquith and the other British leaders of 1914 had somehow seen the actual horrible consequences of the war, I expect they would've made other choices.
Here's another what-if: the Fashoda incident in 1898 almost led to war between Britain and France. What if Germany had supported France then, and the two of them formed an alliance and between them built a navy to match the Royal Navy?
Bismarck was in power for 20 years after the Franco-Prussian War. If he wasn't able to do it, then I don't know why a successor could. More broadly, I suspect that the Austro-German rapprochement was downstream of common interests (not a diplomatic historian, particularly on that side of the continent) and that doesn't really exist for France.
Britain's strategy at the start of WW1 and WW2 was to fight the Germans to the last drop of French blood. It is easy to see how this benefitted Britain, and less easy to see how it benefitted Germany and France; had Germany or France had different leaders in the run-up to those wars, things might have gone differently.
IMO, offensives on the western front were a folly before Britain had the tank. But with tanks, Britain was able to get ever stronger and essentially did break the German army in 1918.
Before 1916, if I had been the British commander, I would have attacked the Ottomans in Palestine and Iraq -- something the British actually did.
Gallipoli is complicated, but I think the strategic conception wasn't as bad as it's frequently made out to be. The problem was that it was the first time someone had tried a serious amphibious operation under anything like the conditions prevailing in WWI, and there was a lot to learn about how to do that. And it came pretty close to working, too. (I can't believe I'm saying nice things about a Churchill plan.) And if it had been successful, then it's a lot easier to get support to Russia, which does change things in the West.
And then there was Fisher's Baltic Plan, which wasn't entirely crazy, but came pretty close...
I read this book too last month, and appreciated it!
The other point that Sheffield belabored, and I appreciated, was the limited information available to the British commanders at the time. So many of their actions look stupid from our vantage point, but Sheffield explains how they made sense given their own limited knowledge.
What Sheffield doesn't say, but I came away even more convinced of, was how World War 1 wasn't worth it. Surely, staying out and letting France be overrun would've been far better for Britain and its Empire than what happened. And indeed, while the British Empire outlasted every other European regime involved in the war, it still started it toward its fall.
That's an interesting alt-history scenario. I do feel like you would avoid Hitler that way. But I have a hard time modeling what a victorious Germany led by the Kaiser would have done.
I agree, because Germany didn't *have* war goals at the start of WWI except for "keep France and Russia down"! The goals they did make up midwar fluctuated with the fortunes of war.
Without Britain in the war, it's very possible France will be overrun in fall 1914 before trench warfare even starts. In that case, Germany won't have oceans of blood to push its leadership toward demanding enough to make it all worth it. Might it be possible we get something like the peace after the Franco-Prussian War, where Germany annexes a few provinces and saddles France with a huge indemnity? That's bad for France, and probably for Europe, but less bad than the oceans of blood.
And then after that speculation, there's the question of what happens when the Social Democrats win a majority in the Reichstag sometime soon. Plus, Austria-Hungary is still a powderkeg.
>Surely, staying out and letting France be overrun would've been far better for Britain and its Empire than what happened.
I feel compelled to point out that this is definitely not how the British would have seen it in 1914. Their policies had always been built around making sure nobody was able to dominate Europe, because if that happened, they might have been able to build a fleet that could challenge the RN, which is obviously a problem for the British. More than that, Germany had spent the last decade being extremely irritating to the British in a way that probably made sitting it out impossible.
Absolutely. Though, if Asquith and the other British leaders of 1914 had somehow seen the actual horrible consequences of the war, I expect they would've made other choices.
Here's another what-if: the Fashoda incident in 1898 almost led to war between Britain and France. What if Germany had supported France then, and the two of them formed an alliance and between them built a navy to match the Royal Navy?
That'd be really difficult, given the enmity between Germany and France. But Bismarck managed it with Austria, so if his successors were like him...
Bismarck was in power for 20 years after the Franco-Prussian War. If he wasn't able to do it, then I don't know why a successor could. More broadly, I suspect that the Austro-German rapprochement was downstream of common interests (not a diplomatic historian, particularly on that side of the continent) and that doesn't really exist for France.
Bismarck also avoided it with Denmark.
Britain's strategy at the start of WW1 and WW2 was to fight the Germans to the last drop of French blood. It is easy to see how this benefitted Britain, and less easy to see how it benefitted Germany and France; had Germany or France had different leaders in the run-up to those wars, things might have gone differently.
IMO, offensives on the western front were a folly before Britain had the tank. But with tanks, Britain was able to get ever stronger and essentially did break the German army in 1918.
Before 1916, if I had been the British commander, I would have attacked the Ottomans in Palestine and Iraq -- something the British actually did.