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ArchangeI posted:I'm not sure I'd say Germany was sucked in when they told A-H that they should deal aggressively with Serbia and that they had their backs. The war they ended up getting wasn't the war they wanted, especially concerning the British involvement, but i think it is a bit too much to say that Germany sort of ended up with a war it had no hand in creating. But then again I am a German historian and I know I am in Fischer's camp on that issue. The evidence he presents is pretty damning. I would say sucked in to some degree insofar as A-H deliberately obfuscated and delayed sharing details of their diplomatic negotiations with Serbia from Germany until the declaration of war was a fait acompli
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Aug 22, 2014 17:26
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There's also a distinct difference between the immediate and long-term causes of the various declarations of war. It's a pretty interesting topic to me, so here comes an effort post. Going in reverse order (and leaving out the US and minor powers): Italy (arguably a minor power, but we'll let it slide): The immediate cause was that the Allies promised them the South Tyrol and various parts of Dalmatia and Istria while the Central Powers only offered them the South Tyrol. The Italians didn't really have any important long-term issues at stake other than their desire to own every piece of territory an Italian speaker had ever set foot on, but they did have a long-standing hatred of Austria-Hungary and friendship towards Great Britain due to the events of the 1800s that also inclined them to the Allied side. Ottoman Empire/Turkey (see the Italy note): The immediate cause was that the British had seized some ships they were building for the Turks as well as the arrival of some German cruisers in Constantinople which were "turned over" to the Turks (basically a polite fiction). On the long-term front, the Turks feared that if the Allies were victorious their empire would be partitioned even if they stayed neutral, whereas the Central Powers had very little interest in claiming Turkish territory. There was also a long-standing feud with Russia (the two had fought many, many wars) and a great deal of German investment in the country, including the in-progress Baghdad-Berlin railroad, that shaped their outlook on the two sides. Britain: The immediate cause was the violation of Belgian neutrality - the British presented an ultimatum to the Germans to leave Belgium or face war which the Germans refused. Whether Britain would have joined the Allies regardless is a long-standing debate; it certainly wouldn't have been as soon given the cabinet at the time, but it seems unlikely the British would have stood for a German-dominated continent any more than they tolerated a French-dominated one a century earlier. Germany: The justification for the declaration on France was because France refused an ultimatum to surrender their border forts and stay neutral (in no way an actual possibility, so the ultimatum was essentially a declaration of war) and for the one on Russia was due to their mobilization of their army to threaten Austria-Hungary. Why did Germany need to make those declarations though? France is the easy one: The Franco-Russian alliance was public knowledge and an Austro-German war against Russia would inevitably involve the French, who were unlikely to stand by and watch their only continental ally be defeated. The German war plan mandated that they declare on France, but even if it hadn't, France would have shortly declared on them to honor their alliance. From the 1890s, every German planner knew that war with Russia meant war with France and vice-versa, so the interesting point to examine is the declaration on Russia. Unfortunately, there's no one clear reason for why Germany escalated the crisis so quickly. The argument I'm inclined to is that the Schlieffen plan involved defeating the French before the Russians mobilized, so a Russian mobilization essentially started the clock ticking regardless of whether war had actually broken out. In this sense, the German plan meant that mobilization equaled war instead of being a diplomatic tool (which of course no one else knew). It is true that if Russia had declared war on Austria-Hungary, Germany would have had to defend it, but this was by no means certain. In addition, the Germans felt that they could win a war that happened immediately, whereas Russia's growing industrialization would make victory in the future less certain. They didn't necessarily desire war, but they didn't fear it either. Finally, they felt they needed to support Austria-Hungary as their only great power ally - they (rightly) did not place much faith in Italy's adherence to the Triple Alliance. The "blank check" to Austria-Hungary was likely a result of the latter factors in addition to a belief that Russia would not go to war for Serbia; the actual declaration was probably due to the Russian mobilization which the Russians believed to be another diplomatic move but the Germans saw as starting the war. Russia: Russia had war declared on it by Germany, but why did they even mobilize their troops? Serbia wasn't a key strategic issue for them, as most of their effort was occurring in Asia - they feared the Bosporus being closed or a hostile great power on the Black Sea, but Austro-Hungarian preeminence in the Western Balkans wasn't a major threat to them. Pan-Slav sentiment is one of the reasons offered, but in the past the Tsar and his ministers had manipulated the sentiment more than being manipulated by it. I actually don't know as much about the Russian internal decision-making process as some of the other countries here, so I would welcome any other input, but my feeling is that the Russians didn't expect war - they viewed it as another Balkan diplomatic crisis, which hadn't escalated to a Great Power war since the 1850s. In that sense, mobilization was meant to put pressure on Austria-Hungary to work out a compromise, but in an unexpected outcome, resulted in a declaration of war from Germany. A-H (tempted to write them off as a minor power because I'm starting to get tired of typing): Immediate cause is easy: Serbia refused one point on their ridiculous ultimatum, so they declared war. Why the ultimatum? Why the quick declaration of war rather than negotiations? They feared a diplomatic defeat, but with German backing they expected success in war; they didn't foresee Russia defending the Serbs as aggressively as they did; they thought the empire was dissolving and needed a cause to rally all the various ethnicities; they wanted to go out in a blaze of glory: take your pick. I've seen all the theories advanced, and I'm not sure you can pin it down to one reason. Maybe the lesson is that having Great Powers involved in the Balkans always leads to trouble.
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Aug 22, 2014 19:21
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blackmongoose posted:Britain: The immediate cause was the violation of Belgian neutrality - the British presented an ultimatum to the Germans to leave Belgium or face war which the Germans refused. Whether Britain would have joined the Allies regardless is a long-standing debate; it certainly wouldn't have been as soon given the cabinet at the time, but it seems unlikely the British would have stood for a German-dominated continent any more than they tolerated a French-dominated one a century earlier. I think Britain was certain to jump in unless they absolutely could not have done so for some external reason. The whole idea of a BEF on the continent was laid out as part of the Entente Cordiale, and there's no reason to include that if Britain doesn't plan to fight a war with France against Germany. quote:Russia: Russia had war declared on it by Germany, but why did they even mobilize their troops? Serbia wasn't a key strategic issue for them, as most of their effort was occurring in Asia - they feared the Bosporus being closed or a hostile great power on the Black Sea, but Austro-Hungarian preeminence in the Western Balkans wasn't a major threat to them. Pan-Slav sentiment is one of the reasons offered, but in the past the Tsar and his ministers had manipulated the sentiment more than being manipulated by it. I actually don't know as much about the Russian internal decision-making process as some of the other countries here, so I would welcome any other input, but my feeling is that the Russians didn't expect war - they viewed it as another Balkan diplomatic crisis, which hadn't escalated to a Great Power war since the 1850s. In that sense, mobilization was meant to put pressure on Austria-Hungary to work out a compromise, but in an unexpected outcome, resulted in a declaration of war from Germany. I think Pan-Slavism is a bigger deal in Russian eyes than you might give it credit for, just because of how useful a foreign policy tool it was. There was also some pretty bad blood between the Tsar and the Austrian emperors; during the revolutions of '48 Russian help had been instrumental in suppressing Hungarian unrest, and the Russians were pretty livid when Austria refused to back them in the Crimean war just a few years later. Add in competition in the Balkans and you've got a lot of hostility there. I think you're right that the Russian command didn't expect their mobilization to be as explosive as it proved to be.
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Aug 22, 2014 21:10
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:I think Britain was certain to jump in unless they absolutely could not have done so for some external reason. The whole idea of a BEF on the continent was laid out as part of the Entente Cordiale, and there's no reason to include that if Britain doesn't plan to fight a war with France against Germany. I remember reading that the first military discussions were actually kept secret from the British cabinet and various government officials basically straight-up lied about them, does anyone have more detail on that? (The later discussions were conducted with full approval I believe) PittTheElder posted:I think Pan-Slavism is a bigger deal in Russian eyes than you might give it credit for, just because of how useful a foreign policy tool it was. There was also some pretty bad blood between the Tsar and the Austrian emperors; during the revolutions of '48 Russian help had been instrumental in suppressing Hungarian unrest, and the Russians were pretty livid when Austria refused to back them in the Crimean war just a few years later. Add in competition in the Balkans and you've got a lot of hostility there. I think you're right that the Russian command didn't expect their mobilization to be as explosive as it proved to be. I tend to think the new Tsar and the Austro-Russian agreements over the Balkans in the '90s killed off a lot of the Crimean hostility, but you're right that the relationship tended more towards bad feelings than good.
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Aug 22, 2014 22:10
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blackmongoose posted:I remember reading that the first military discussions were actually kept secret from the British cabinet and various government officials basically straight-up lied about them, does anyone have more detail on that? (The later discussions were conducted with full approval I believe) In typical British fashion, while the decision to go to war was probably pretty much inevitable, the actual act of making that decision was left right up to the very last minute.
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Aug 22, 2014 22:17
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Alchenar posted:In typical British fashion, while the decision to go to war was probably pretty much inevitable, the actual act of making that decision was left right up to the very last minute. IIRC the prime minister was on vacation or had just been called back from it when the British ultimatum was issued. Raskolnikov38 fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 22:25
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Raskolnikov38 posted:IIRC the prime minister was on vacation or had just been called back from it when the ultimatum was issued. No it was Wilhelm who went on holiday in the middle of the crisis and let things go to poo poo without him.
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Aug 22, 2014 22:27
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Didn't they wait until after the bank holiday was over to actually declare war?
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Aug 22, 2014 22:34
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blackmongoose posted:I remember reading that the first military discussions were actually kept secret from the British cabinet and various government officials basically straight-up lied about them, does anyone have more detail on that? (The later discussions were conducted with full approval I believe)
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Aug 22, 2014 22:37
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Alchenar posted:No it was Wilhelm who went on holiday in the middle of the crisis and let things go to poo poo without him. Koramei posted:Didn't they wait until after the bank holiday was over to actually declare war? The bank holiday thing was what I was thinking of.
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Aug 22, 2014 22:43
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Alchenar posted:No it was Wilhelm who went on holiday in the middle of the crisis and let things go to poo poo without him. The French leadership was visting Russia and Germany timed an ultimatum to catch them at sea on the voyage home. I've seen that described as a vacation, but in my view high-level consultation with an ally during a continental crisis is a working trip no matter how lavish the parties are.
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Aug 22, 2014 23:10
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Arquinsiel posted:According to The Guns of August it seems like basically one Major in the British Army agreed to everything with the French, and neglected to mention it except to a few select people who decided it'd be better if the government at large and the people just plain didn't know about it. There's a lot of stressing how it's not actually an alliance, it's just a confirmation that if Germany violate Belgium's neutrality then England will fight alongside France from the English point of view, six divisions and the entire fleet under French control from the French, and the Germans really really hope that neither will happen. The Anglo-French Naval Agreement was pretty crucial as well. The British found themselves stuck in a situation where they either had to intervene or see Germany take control of the channel effectively unopposed.
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Aug 22, 2014 23:17
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What was the deal with secret treaties in that era, anyway? I mean, I understand the British being hush-hush because of Parliament kicking up a fuss, but France was the only other major democracy involved in WWI, and I remember it being mentioned in The Guns of August that the terms of their treaty with Russia were actually secret too. I can't imagine French public opinion being too upset since it was clearly targeted at the Germans, and they can't have been the only practitioners of this, so what's the reason for this? It makes me think of the whole Dr. Strangelove thing where your deterrent isn't really a deterrent if the enemy doesn't know you have it. Was it basically just that everybody was intentionally courting war with the expectation that they would win?
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Aug 23, 2014 00:05
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Pornographic Memory posted:What was the deal with secret treaties in that era, anyway? I mean, I understand the British being hush-hush because of Parliament kicking up a fuss, but France was the only other major democracy involved in WWI, and I remember it being mentioned in The Guns of August that the terms of their treaty with Russia were actually secret too. I can't imagine French public opinion being too upset since it was clearly targeted at the Germans, and they can't have been the only practitioners of this, so what's the reason for this? It makes me think of the whole Dr. Strangelove thing where your deterrent isn't really a deterrent if the enemy doesn't know you have it. Was it basically just that everybody was intentionally courting war with the expectation that they would win? Because those treaties often included warplans. Things like 'how many days after a declaration of war will it take us to mobilise' or in the case of the Anglo-French Naval Treaty I mentioned earlier 'where all our battleships will be deployed'.
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Aug 23, 2014 00:17
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The pacts were secret in that everyone knew that they existed but not the exact stipulations which were military secrets.
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Aug 23, 2014 00:21
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Pornographic Memory posted:What was the deal with secret treaties in that era, anyway? I mean, I understand the British being hush-hush because of Parliament kicking up a fuss, but France was the only other major democracy involved in WWI, and I remember it being mentioned in The Guns of August that the terms of their treaty with Russia were actually secret too. I can't imagine French public opinion being too upset since it was clearly targeted at the Germans, and they can't have been the only practitioners of this, so what's the reason for this? It makes me think of the whole Dr. Strangelove thing where your deterrent isn't really a deterrent if the enemy doesn't know you have it. Was it basically just that everybody was intentionally courting war with the expectation that they would win? Germany in 1914 was about as democratic as Britain was, for the record.
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Aug 23, 2014 00:53
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PittTheElder posted:Germany in 1914 was about as democratic as Britain was, for the record. I don't know if I'd go quite that far, but people do over-estimate how democratic Britain was and underestimate the power wielded by the Reichstag.
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Aug 23, 2014 00:59
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The Triple Alliance and Franco-Russian alliance were both public, just with secret clauses. A lot of the "secret treaties" were actually agreements made after the war started regarding post-war aims (The agreement with Russia to give them Constantinople for example, which caused some major upset when the Soviets published it).
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Aug 23, 2014 02:27
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After watching the last couple documentaries "Life in the Trench" and "Line of Fire; The Somme" I can't believe how unprepared and clueless the British were. I mean I knew there was some rather brain breaking issues, but christ. After chewing up the BEF and shredding the next army they raised they still refused to even let the trenches be improved to something better as the generals continued to believe that "any day now they'll break through". Hell, the Germans building concrete shelters below ground blew my mind, I knew things were lopsided, but drat. Even Haig ignoring reports that the Somme bombardment was a complete flop.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:14
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SocketWrench posted:After watching the last couple documentaries "Life in the Trench" and "Line of Fire; The Somme" I can't believe how unprepared and clueless the British were. I mean I knew there was some rather brain breaking issues, but christ. After chewing up the BEF and shredding the next army they raised they still refused to even let the trenches be improved to something better as the generals continued to believe that "any day now they'll break through". Hell, the Germans building concrete shelters below ground blew my mind, I knew things were lopsided, but drat. Even Haig ignoring reports that the Somme bombardment was a complete flop. The Germans were building on conquered territory. How do you think the French would have responded to the British starting a massive engineering project to form a defensive line with most of the French industrial zones under foreign occupation? e: Or for that matter the British population with most of Belgium under occupation.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:16
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I saw a documentary somewhat recently, about WWI trench archeological excavation, and one of the things that I took away from it was that in many cases, on at least a smallish, tactical scale, the Germans dictated the positions of their trenches, and so picked slightly higher ground, that consequently drained better, and allowed more effective fortifications. The Allies were forced to build near this line to avoid giving up any ground, which in many cases meant that they were literally building trenches that served as drains for the hills the German trenches were dug into, with predictable results in regards to quality of life. Can anyone confirm this on a more than Discovery channel level?
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Aug 23, 2014 04:58
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^Pretty much that. The Germans were there first and built defensive trenches to resist being pushed out while the allies built where ever they got stalled down at. Usually this was on poorer land. Sometimes the trenches weren't more than a few feet deep and flooded near to the shoulders. Of course there are other types of designs they could have done besides dig down, one being pile up. That's kinda the reason for the mine craters, to blow a hole in the German lines and raise the landscape so they could fire down on the Germans from the crater rims.uPen posted:The Germans were building on conquered territory. How do you think the French would have responded to the British starting a massive engineering project to form a defensive line with most of the French industrial zones under foreign occupation? Well obviously we should send in a few waves of troops, at the walk, into reinforced positions because we pretty much telegraphed where the push was coming from...while the French reel from their near mutinies and slaughter. You don't need some massive engineering project, just something more decent than "wade through this mud for a few years between sending you to your deaths". Eventually the British leaders relented, but not till a few years passed of filth and misery SocketWrench fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 05:04
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What is the best way to recover from a war?I mean, other than the good ol' American way of not getting bombed to hell. I was looking at the Weimar Republic the other day, and I couldn't think of anything else they could've done. Sure it's bad to devalue your currency, but what else can you do when you have to pay all this money you don't have and can't get?
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Aug 23, 2014 05:12
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So why was Germany so fixated on the schlieffen plan? They seemed very single minded about only using that plan, no deviations, no matter what. If they hadn't invaded Belgium, maybe they could have defeated France before Britain decided to join in.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:18
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Jewcoon posted:So why was Germany so fixated on the schlieffen plan? They seemed very single minded about only using that plan, no deviations, no matter what. If they hadn't invaded Belgium, maybe they could have defeated France before Britain decided to join in. Only half of the Schlieffen plan wouldn't have worked. The military mobilization plans included very specific plans for certain times and places to deploy various units. Because of the lack of wireless communication, it wouldn't be possible to coordinate a partial deployment once the war got going. The Schlieffen Plan assumed that the British wouldn't make a full commitment in response to a German incursion into Belgium, but the specific circumstances behind World War I led to that and you know the rest.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:26
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Jewcoon posted:So why was Germany so fixated on the schlieffen plan? They seemed very single minded about only using that plan, no deviations, no matter what. If they hadn't invaded Belgium, maybe they could have defeated France before Britain decided to join in. They thought they could defeat France quickly so that Britain wouldn't matter. They also seemed to think that Belgium would just roll over and let them march through so the British would either not join, or join too late. At least that is the impression I get after reading The Guns of August.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:30
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Jewcoon posted:So why was Germany so fixated on the schlieffen plan? They seemed very single minded about only using that plan, no deviations, no matter what. If they hadn't invaded Belgium, maybe they could have defeated France before Britain decided to join in. Agreed, or they could have held out against France and defeated Russia. But heading into the war they had a much different idea of Russia, seeing it as a slow-to-react but ultimately unstoppable juggernaut. In the end it was more of a paper tiger, while France ended up being a much tougher nut to crack than Germany thought it would be. And to be fair, there was historical support for planning to whip France before dealing with the "greater threat" of Russia. But in retrospect, I think that the Schlieffen Plan was ultimately the critical mistake that doomed Germany - since its political costs far outweighed the military benefits. If Germany hadn't invaded Belgium, or even France, then I think it's pretty unlikely that France and Britain would have truly been willing to throw army after army at German trenches for the sake of Russia and Serbia. Certainly the United States would never have gotten involved. The French offensives at the beginning of the war were thoroughly stymied by German defenses - without the motivation of regaining French and Belgian territory, it's unlikely that the western Allies would have continued such costly assaults.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:35
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Germany already held French territory before the war even started, in their minds - Alsace and Lorraine. If France left Russia out to dry then they'd be pretty much writing off getting it back forever, because who else could they ally with to defeat Germany? Also if Germany had just gone right across the border without going into Belgium they'd be throwing themselves head on into the bulk of the French army and their fortified zone on the border.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:47
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Pornographic Memory posted:Germany already held French territory before the war even started, in their minds - Alsace and Lorraine. If France left Russia out to dry then they'd be pretty much writing off getting it back forever, because who else could they ally with to defeat Germany? Also if Germany had just gone right across the border without going into Belgium they'd be throwing themselves head on into the bulk of the French army and their fortified zone on the border. Right, which is why in retrospect Germany should have simply defended its border with France and let them bleed out their enthusiasm to die for the Tsar. While France saw Elsass-Lothringen as being key territories to recover, Britain and the United States wouldn't have been particularly driven to recover French territory that had been lost decades prior in a failed French invasion. Basically they should have better leveraged the political divisions between the Allies, rather than aligning them all by assuming the mantle of Invader of the West. edit: The Schlieffen Plan was a great Hail-Mary for defeating a unified British-American-French-Russian-Serbian-Greek alliance. But it would have been wiser to have done everything possible to prevent such an alliance from forming in the first place. Kaal fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 06:15
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Jewcoon posted:So why was Germany so fixated on the schlieffen plan? They seemed very single minded about only using that plan, no deviations, no matter what. If they hadn't invaded Belgium, maybe they could have defeated France before Britain decided to join in. >90% chance Britain joins the war anyway. And the basic reason is that they were far more afraid of the Russian army than they needed to be.
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Aug 23, 2014 07:50
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The Germans couldn't have known that something like the Russian Revolution would have happened, or if they did, they had no idea how far they might need to push into Russia before it would, so it makes sense to go after France first when Paris is theoretically within a month's marching distance to get a peace there rather than committing to a theater where you might need to go all the way to St Petersburg/Moscow before your opponent surrenders. I guess they could have just taken a defensive posture in the West and taken all the time they needed to work over Russia, but the military planners at the time had no idea that the war would take on the character that it did, not to mention the political need to take aggressive action in the West. As for mobilization, Germany just never bothered to update the "one front only" plan that they had and according to some sources it would have been more debilitating to their army to try to make one up on the fly (see: Austrian mobilization with regards to Serbia+Russia) so they were more or less committed to the one plan that they did have. I do wonder though what might have happened if von Moltke had kept his nerve and didn't send the additional Korps to Hindenburg in the East and the additional Korps to Prince Rupprecht in Elsass-Lothringen.
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Aug 23, 2014 09:52
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Those of you who have had their interest piqued by all this right-before-WWI talk should probably check out The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark. It is excellent and very much in-depth, covering a lot of the points which have been raised over the last few posts.
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Aug 23, 2014 09:59
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Something else to consider; when you've been thinking about the war as a whole, it's pretty easy to forget that the Germans came incredibly close to taking Paris in September 1914 (if the Marne had been bungled, they'd have been completely stuffed), and even after they were forced to retire to the Aisne, they came even closer to at least pushing the BEF and the Belgian army into the sea and taking control of the Channel coast from Wilhelmshaven to Bolougne. A war where the line stabilises on a front that (say) continues running along the line of the Somme all the way to the Channel is a completely different proposition, and one that's impossible to consider without wanking over counterfactuals. (But here's one; imagine if the little German gas test that accidentally caused Second Ypres had been conducted with a little more foresight, and had been done with the aim of marching on Rouen and Beauvais from the Somme to encircle Paris...)
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Aug 23, 2014 10:30
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Gough Suppressant posted:I have a question about the first world war. What was the objective of Germany in starting a war? Were they seeking to take particular lands or something? Or was it more a vague notion of the Germans seeing the current status quo in europe as untenable, being sandwiched between great powers and all, and sought to shake things up a bit and hope they finished up with something more conducive to their interests at the end of it? Did they want to become a colonial player? Something else entirely? Germany wanted to kick more teeth in, that's why they got "the blame" for the whole thing in the end. Don't forget, Germany was only unified as a nation state in 1871, so a young nation wanting to put themselves on the map more. Saying that Germany got involved due to alliance with Austro-Hungary is a cop out. Austro-Hungary was weak, and deserved to get the poo poo kicked out of them by the serbs and Russia, maybe the the Ottoman empire could have come in on the A-H side (E: as they did, I'm just saying keep the conflict local, maybe with some logistical and material support from Germany, but not boots in Belgium). It should have been a local war with those few parties really, not involving Germany, France, GB or it's colonies or the USA... But Germany thought they could weigh in and gain more power and territory in Europe and overseas because timetables means an easy walk over to France and then grab more of Poland or whatever. That being said, if things were going on in the balkans, the Brits would probably end up involved anyway, but we would be saved the slaughter and trench warfare that happened on the western front, the whole thing being a 'world war' and a whole lot of other things. Fo3 fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 12:23
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My knowledge of history is Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. I don't know if this is an impossible to answer what-if question, BUT... Why did The West allow the walling up of West Berlin? It seems like a very important event, not just one that seems important in retrospect like a lot of these things. It broke treaties, and whilst it wasn't physical invasion of western soil - it was a distinctly agressive act. I know it happened very quickly, and I know that it ended up being much more about isolating East Berlin from the West rather than the other way around, but it seems like a sort of event horizon in The Cold War that nobody stopped. Was it a case of things getting too far before they intervened, and thus they missed their chance? Was it because The West were actually glad it happened as it took things off the burner slightly and kept things from breaking out in full? Would it have happened differently if the east were not in possession of nuclear weapons? I don't know if these are really basic History 101 questions with simple answers or "we'll never really know", but any answers would be great appreciated.
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Aug 23, 2014 13:27
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Captain_Indigo posted:My knowledge of history is Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. I don't know if this is an impossible to answer what-if question, BUT... The western allies had actually expected the East Germans, either by themselves or on Soviet orders (as was the case), to have blocked off West Berlin much earlier. They also saw the wall as a great embarrassment to East Germany, which would score cheap propaganda points for the West and which would be seen negatively by most East Germans. The wall stopped the flow of people from the East to the West as well, which was a huge problem for East Germany, but also a problem for West Germany in terms of accommodating the refugees, so even that was a small plus for the west.
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Aug 23, 2014 13:46
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There's also the issue of them not wanting to go to war over Berlin unless it was super-necessary. Despite the overheated rhetoric and maybe with a few completely loony tunes generals aside, no one really wanted the Cold War to go hot. Just look at how exceedingly careful we were to color within the lines during the air lift to make sure that we never gave Stalin that excuse.
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Aug 23, 2014 14:17
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Wasn't there that thing that Thatcher didn't want the wall to come down so many years later? Really my opinion is that at the time having a cold war happen was really in the political interest of all sides of the conflict. Also my headcanon now is that the Schlieffen plan was due to time traveling gay black hitler coming back from world war 2 to warn the Germans about how scary Russia is and how much of a pushover France is.
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Aug 23, 2014 15:13
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I've finally watched the PBS documentary Bush's War. I felt increasingly disheartened as the documentary unfolded; I was about 18 when the war began and like many Americans I always had this vague sense, born of a sense of American Exceptionalism, that we could win the war in Iraq if only we'd do things the right way. The documentary implies that it was a logistically impossible task and I hoped someone could talk a little more about that. Before the war two different generals gave their expert opinion that you'd need "hundreds of thousands" of soldiers to occupy Iraq after an invasion. The impression I got from the documentary was that there were only ever about 150,000 american troops in Iraq. According to Wikipedia Coalition Forces were roughly 250,000 (of which 140,000 were U.S.) during the invasion but never more than 170,00 during the occupation. It seems there were just never enough soldiers in Iraq to do the job and the documentary suggests that the career military officials knew that before the war: they could just look at Iraq's 30 million population and guess that the 150,000 or so Americans would never be sufficient. I suppose the challenge to that assertion is that the American/Coalition forces were never meant to hold Iraq by themselves. Inasmuch as they considered it at all, Rumsfeld thought the UN would take over and senior military officials thought it'd be a rebranded Iraqi military. Regardless of who, both groups seemed to know that someone other than the American troops were going to be needed to hold down a vast and increasingly fractured and violent population. It didn't work out that way; de-baathification and the disbanding of Saddam's army alienated the only people in Iraq who could perform the bureaucratic and security functions for the country and the resulting chaos kept the UN away. That brings me to my questions: how likely were either of those plans to work? The documentary shows me what happened and even touches on the plans/hopes of the Bush administration and the U.S. military but I didn't see any estimation of how likely it was that either the UN would help secure Iraq or that Saddam army assist. Secondly, I'd like to know more about the competing strategies of 'Light Touch' (involving large bases and vehicle patrols) and "Clear, Hold, Build" (involving smaller bases integrated into the city and foot patrols). Roughly how much time did we spend doing one and then the other? I believe the documentary says we weren't trying the second strategy on a large scale until 2005, excepting the originator of the plan, General McMaster. Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 15:24
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| # ? May 17, 2024 00:37 |
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Considering that at the time I remember the US's actions with regard to the UN, in the lead up to the Iraq War, basically consisted of the two-pronged approach of lying its rear end off to try and get the UN to lend legitimacy to the invasion, and flipping them the bird when they didn't buy it, a strategy revolving around having a UN mission coming in to clean up our mess could politely be described as wishful thinking. Probably the only chance of it happening would depend on the UN weapons inspectors finding weapons of mass destruction but that didn't happen and I think you'd have a hard time convincing many countries to contribute troops to such a mission even if it did.
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Aug 23, 2014 17:11
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