WWI — Allied Imperial Expansion into Central Europe

First World War 1914-1918 from the German perspective.

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Iron_Bismarck
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WWI — Allied Imperial Expansion into Central Europe

Post by Iron_Bismarck »

At the outset of WWI, Russia was the world's largest land empire, spanning 12 time zones. Likewise, Britain was the world's largest ocean empire, spanning all 24 time zones. Taken together, Britain, Russia and France were the largest Empires on Earth at the time.

Germany, by contrast, was but an emerging power trying to "elbow out" room in between them. And given that (essentially) all the world, and all the colonial markets, were already controlled by these "Big Three", any expansion of Germany would necessarily come at their expense.

Thus, from an economic perspective, WWI amounted to the "Big Three" agreeing to tear Germany apart and divide up the spoils in Central Europe. Britain would gain control of the seas, while France and Russia would expand into Germany, meeting up in Berlin. It's almost as if they were saying, "You think you'll expand into our empires? Nay, but we'll carve up yours."

Indeed, it is well-accepted that WWII is, fundamentally, merely a continuation of WWI. And, at the end of WWII, the allies did indeed meet in the middle in Berlin, and divide up German lands among themselves. (In fact, General Pershing had advocated doing that in WWI.) Thus, we may infer that the true war-aims of the "Big Three" in WWI were what they finally got to do in WWII. That is, the "Great War" began with the (Russian backed) terrorist assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and ended with Russian soldiers meeting their western allies on the Elbe River in 1945.

That "cannibaalism" of Germany was the plan the whole time. Thus, the Dual Alliance of Germany and Austria in WWI, and the Axis Alliance of WWII, embody essentially the same defense pact trying to thwart the Colonial Imperialization of Central Europe by Britain, Russia, and France. Similarly, in both wars, the out-gunned and out-manned Central European defense pact nations were forced to resort to pre-emptive strikes against their looming Imperial rivals to improve the odds so heavily stacked against them.


(To make a crude analogy, Gemany was like an adolescent gorilla trying to grow up in a jungle surrounded by 3 proverbial "400 lb gorillas". And, just as you've seen numerous times on the National Geographic channel, the 400 lb silver-back gorillas don't take too kindly to the uppity youngster encroaching on their mating grounds and banana trees.)
greenhorn
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Re: WWI — Allied Imperial Expansion into Central Europe

Post by greenhorn »

Interesting view point, but Britain would like to think she ruled the seas before and after WWI, not sure your agrument follows.

However Britain did manage to "benefit"; I use the term loosely as these territorities may have cost more to administer than what they were worth, apart from depriving our rivals (French,Dutch, Belgium) obtaining these colonies;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fo ... n_colonies
Tanganyika, Namabia, Botswana looked after by Britain.
German West Africa, split into Cameroon & Ghana (GB), Togo & Cameroun (Fr).
German New Guinea (fell to the Australians)
Rwanda and Burundi fell to the Belgians sphere of influence
Banzai!
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