British-German Alliance Pre WW1?

Ceteris paribus never works in history anyway. ;)
 
It doesn't work in economics either. :p
 
I realize I am playing a what-if game, but if Mexico started conducting guerrila raids along our border, would we have entered the western front in time to demoralize the Germans? I remember reading that with the Eastern Front troops freed up, Germany had the resources to break the trench stalemate, but not enough to deal with American re-inforcements.

Mexico was fighting a massive civil war which didn't end until 1920. I don't think any of the factions would have wasted resources in a prolonged war with the US especially considering American backing was a huge advantage.
 
Right, so: to satisfy the counterfactual interests of some of the people here on this WH forum, I would like to highlight what has sometimes been called "Germany's best opportunity for an Anglo-German agreement", which came in 1894.

First, backstory. The Anglo-German colonial agreement of 1890, also called the Helgoland (or Zanzibar) Treaty, traded the British-controlled island of Helgoland, off the German coast, for German concessions in Zanzibar. Germany also gave up all outstanding unsettled colonial claims in Africa, in what was widely regarded as a bribe to the British to get them to accede to the Triple Alliance (correctly). Despite this colossal concession on the Germans' part, the British cunningly elected to not return the favor; the following year, when the Italians tried to get the Germans to help them out in London over their own African claims, Salisbury's British government basically delayed the question until the Conservatives were voted out of office and the question became irrelevant. Even so, the new Liberal Foreign Minister, Lord Rosebery, was more or less sympathetic to the Germans - more so the Italians - but considered himself unable to make any firm commitments without the support of the rest of the cabinet.

During the Siam Crisis of 1893, the British and French were at the brink of war and Rosebery made a panic call to the German ambassador, Paul von Hatzfeldt. The German foreign ministry was pretty much overjoyed at this turn of events. Then it turned out that the whole thing was basically a false alarm and the British didn't actually need the Germans to resolve the crisis. In the wake of the crisis, Rosebery became PM and Parliament voted for an expanded navy. (Yeah, it was totally the Germans who started the naval race. Totally.)

Anyway, that brings us to 1894 and the theoretical opportunity. Rosebery was getting antsy about the Russians around the Straits, while the Austrians were pissed about the Mediterranean Agreements lapsing and grasping desperately at any connection they could find to keep the UK and Italy bound to them in the Balkans. In February 1894, the Austrian foreign ministry managed to extract a note from Rosebery saying that the UK would oppose any Russian move to get free passage through the Straits in wartime. All Rosebery wanted from the Germans was an assurance that they would keep the French out of any Anglo-Russian quarrel.

Chancellor von Caprivi and his foreign minister, Marschall von Bieberstein, were concerned that this whole thing meant that the Germans would have to get involved in something they didn't care about - Straits policy - and possibly be forced into military action against France and Russia in exchange for...approximately nothing. Well, nothing except the fact that they now had a firm agreement with Britain about something, which could theoretically be evolved into a stronger tie. Despite the fact that this was what his foreign policy had been aiming at since 1890 - any and all bribes for any kind of agreement with the British - Caprivi ended up rejecting the deal out of hand.

In light of German policy during the entire rest of the Caprivi ministry, the rejection of the spring 1894 proposal has been described as incomprehensible. That's probably going a little too far; the Germans' fears about being dragged into a two-front war over British policy in the Straits (something over which they had exactly zero control) weren't totally groundless. It was almost certainly the wrong move, though, in light of subsequent events. Caprivi overestimated Germany's ability to secure a desirable deal with the British without first having to go through policy evolutions.

Anyway, probably the best bet for a basis for Anglo-German alliance. Not a very good one, but it's out there.
 
In light of the way things actually worked out in reality, that could have been an excellent deal for the Germans. Being allied with Great Britain, would mean no worries about their overseas trade and as long as the Germans could continue to import goods, they would have had no problem dealing with France/Russia. Plus, the RN would be blockading France, not Germany, and the resources invested in U boats could have gone to the army.
 
Yeah, but Caprivi sitting in his office in 1894 didn't have a crystal ball that could tell him that, in light of the state of the German military after reforms by OTL 1914, Germany could defeat Russia and possibly France.
 
True, But he certainly was aware that the French were not real happy about what happened in the 1870-71 war and that they were going to try to recover their lost provinces.
 
That wasn't a given either. During Bismarck's tenure, the French were more than happy to cooperate with the Germans against the British, and in China, under the Ferry ministry in the eighties. In the nineties, the French and Germans again cooperated, this time with the Russians as a third, in the famous "Eastern Triple" that broke up the Treaty of Shimonoseki. By Poincaré's tenure as President, it was abundantly clear that the younger generation of Frenchmen really didn't give as much of a damn about Alsace-Lorraine as the older guys, some of whom (like Poincaré) had actually grown up there. French military action to recover Alsace-Lorraine was about as foreordained as German military action in the modern day to recover Silesia, Pomerelia, and Prussia - that is to say, not at all.
 
In other words, the Major Powers were only interested in their own "interests" and worked with or against others as it suited that "interest". They all worked together during the Boxer Rebellion in China, too.

Caprivi could have forseen that an alliance with the British would have been a good "fit" with Germany, ie, the RN ruled the seas and the Imperial Army handled the land. That would be basically the same deal the French and British worked out later with their alliance.
 
In other words, the Major Powers were only interested in their own "interests" and worked with or against others as it suited that "interest". They all worked together during the Boxer Rebellion in China, too.
...well...yes...? At least, the way they perceived their interests.
Ace said:
Caprivi could have forseen that an alliance with the British would have been a good "fit" with Germany, ie, the RN ruled the seas and the Imperial Army handled the land.
Perhaps. But there are serious (and obvious) objections to the proposal. Remember how well it worked in the Seven Years' War? Very well for Britain, disastrously for Prussia. Caprivi and other German foreign ministers wanted to make sure that it was a two-way street; Britain would have to back up Germany if Germany were to back up Britain. The British didn't want to negotiate on any basis except Germany backing up Britain. Now, that left room for the Germans to extract some kind of commitment from the British later, but Caprivi and others didn't trust "later". And they thought their hand was better than it actually was.

So yes, the Germans might have decided that the benefits of having any tie at all to Britain outweighed the costs of it being an outrageously terrible tie for the time being. But there were a whole lot of reasons to reject that tie, too.
Ace said:
That would be basically the same deal the French and British worked out later with their alliance.
No, it manifestly wasn't; the French made sure to entangle the British Army on the Continent during their illegal staff talks leading up to 1914 (and the CIGS, noted traitor Henry Wilson, was more than willing to oblige), while the British effectively ceded naval responsibility for the Mediterranean to the French while concentrating themselves on the North Sea - albeit there again with French support.
 
...

No, it manifestly wasn't; the French made sure to entangle the British Army on the Continent during their illegal staff talks leading up to 1914 (and the CIGS, noted traitor Henry Wilson, was more than willing to oblige), while the British effectively ceded naval responsibility for the Mediterranean to the French while concentrating themselves on the North Sea - albeit there again with French support.

Agreed, but the handfull of divisions the RA had was not nearly as valuable to the French as the RN was. It freed the French from worrying about/defending the channel, and provided them with help in the Med vs. AH and the Italian fleets. But. on the plus side for Germany, with Britain on their side, German trade with the rest of the world would not have been eliminated as it was in the 1914-18 war. And there would have been no U boat war to drag the United States into the war. In fact, there might not have been a WWI if Germany and Britain were allies and AH was on its own....
 
So yes, the Germans might have decided that the benefits of having any tie at all to Britain outweighed the costs of it being an outrageously terrible tie for the time being. But there were a whole lot of reasons to reject that tie, too.
Just out of curiosity — since you seem to be on a roll here — how feasible would it have been for Germany not to let its alliance with Russia lapse in the first place d'ye think?:)
 
Agreed, but the handfull of divisions the RA had was not nearly as valuable to the French as the RN was. It freed the French from worrying about/defending the channel, and provided them with help in the Med vs. AH and the Italian fleets. But. on the plus side for Germany, with Britain on their side, German trade with the rest of the world would not have been eliminated as it was in the 1914-18 war. And there would have been no U boat war to drag the United States into the war.
All quite true. But much of that presumes foreknowledge of the future, and Caprivi, Bülow, and the others didn't have a crystal ball. They didn't know that there wasn't going to be a grand Continental war in the 1890s, or that the Great Game between Britain and Russia never would heat up again after the Afghan Wars. They didn't feel as though all of the potential benefits were outweighed by the risks they would be assuming in a British alliance the way the British were presenting it at the time. And honestly, it's hard to say they were wrong.
Ace said:
In fact, there might not have been a WWI if Germany and Britain were allies and AH was on its own....
Perhaps. :dunno: The intent never really was to dump Austria-Hungary, though. In fact, like I mentioned earlier with the Rosebery proposal of 1894, the Austrians were possibly Germany's best link to the British, because they offered the possibility of cooperating with the British over policy in the Ottoman Empire, especially over the Straits.
Just out of curiosity — since you seem to be on a roll here — how feasible would it have been for Germany not to let its alliance with Russia lapse in the first place d'ye think?:)
Which do you mean? The Dreikaiserbund, which lapsed in 1887, or the Reinsurance Treaty, which Wilhelm's government elected not to renew in 1890?

I doubt there could have been much done to resuscitate the Dreikaiserbund by 1887. Tsar Aleksandr III refused to have any kind of treaty relationship with the Habsburgs after the Eastern Rumelian fiasco. Giers, the Russian FM, made it pretty clear that Russia was pretty cool with having agreements with Germany though. Hence the Reinsurance Treaty; while not a formal alliance (although the Dreikaiserbund never was, either), it theoretically helped put Russian and German policy on a more friendly footing, and it ensured German freedom of action in a Russo-Austrian War if Austria started it - meaning that German policy in the Balkans was less tied to how adventurous Franz Josef and his generals were feeling at any given moment.

By the time Bismarck had fallen, though, it's not clear that the Reinsurance Treaty was even still working. Even Bismarck had launched some anti-Russian initiatives in his foreign policy in the interim. German Junkers and other members of the Agrarbund were concerned about Russian grain swamping the market, and had been encouraging tariffs on grain since 1879. At the same time, despite the Reinsurance Treaty agreement, Russia also pursued initiatives detrimental to German interests, by placing heavy restrictions on German trade in Poland. In November 1887, mere months after the Reinsurance Treaty was concluded, Bismarck had the Reichsbank stop accepting Russian state bonds as collateral. This "Lombardverbot" didn't totally cut off Russian financial trading in Germany by any stretch, but it made it much more profitable for the Russians to borrow in France. Now, this by itself didn't really mean much. After all, if financial ties automatically led to diplomatic ones, the Russians and the Germans never would have had disagreements in the 1880s. But it still provided grist for the anti-German propaganda mill in Russia. And of course, one can't discount rising anti-Russian sentiment in Germany, manifested by organizations like the aforementioned Agrarbund.

The ultimate decision to dump the Reinsurance Treaty was fraught with contingency, of course. On the one side, you have Giers desperately sending messages to Berlin asking for a renewal of the treaty, an exchange of notes, anything, because his political position back in Russia was precarious against the Slavophiles and Francophiles that wanted to dump the agreement and, ideally, Giers as well. Contingency intervened because Giers' initial petitions for a renewal came when Bismarck was in the midst of his final political crisis back home, fighting to remain in power. He claimed to the Kaiser that only he had the ability to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with the Russians (not true), and the Kaiser, who was pretty much set on kicking him out anyway for various reasons (good and bad), decided that losing the treaty was worth getting rid of Bismarck.

Opponents of the tie in Germany had good points to make, too. They could point to how the Reinsurance Treaty had not stemmed anti-German sentiment in Russia itself. They could talk about how the treaty arguably conflicted with other treaty arrangements Germany had made with Romania, Austria, and Italy, and that if it were ever exposed by the Russians, those countries might break their ties with Germany. They could talk about how the treaty did not even prevent Russia from allying with France, much less force Russia to assist Germany in a French war. These arguments were pretty powerful, and they're what convinced the Kaiser to deny Giers a renewal of the treaty.

I feel like, despite the cultural differences Germans and Russians had, and all of their financial issues with one another, that it wouldn't have been impossible to keep treaty relationships going. Any treaty relationship is better than no relationship. I imagine it might have been able to work in spite of Russo-German differences, largely for the same reasons the entente cordiale worked between the French and British. Now, I don't know how long such an arrangement could persist; after all, Anglo-French cooperation wasn't exactly an eternal constant, and might have faded away if not for the Great War. But for seven years - maybe eleven, depending on how you count it - the French were able to keep the British and Russians moving mostly in the same direction. Why oughtn't the Germans have been able to keep Austria and Russia from tearing each other to shreds, as well? Hell, the two countries even put the Balkans on ice for ten years starting in 1897, and in 1908 were prepared to jointly resolve the Bosnian situation before whatever the hell happened between Aehrenthal and Izvolsky...happened.

tl;dr: possibly, but it's impossible to say how long it might have worked.
 
Thats more of what I meant. Germany could have forced france into a surrender, but not with fresh American troops arriving by the boatload.

Not forced France to surrender, but made the possibility of a multilateral peace more likely. It would have driven the point home that the Germans could not be gotten out of France by arms. After March 1918 the Germans needed peace just as badly as the French/British would have after a successful Spring offensive.
 
Top Bottom