And Britain certainly hadn't acquired everything they wanted; they'd merely acquired everything that was worth the effort of going after by that point.
yes, and that's what I said too - much to lose, little to win. Obviously it was
something to win, but not that much.
It's impossible to completely dominate Europe logistically (not even sure what you mean by that; you mean using military force to dominate distant possessions? Because logistics is how you get supplies to those troops and transport them, not how you dominate a country) now. Napoleon simply forced the governments of his satellite-states to obey his decrees. That's basically all any nation can do even to this day. Given the choice between being a puppet-state with a degree of independence or coming under a brutal occupation, almost all nations choose to become puppets. And they're correct to do so.
I mean feeding the occupation troops. This day you can perfectly occupy Europe.
Hitler occupied Europe perfectly fine and without that many troops(really, what he payed in terms of manpower/eq. for occupation was.... 10x times offseted by what he managed to pillage - occupation is a good business at least short/medium term).
And he occupied Benelux, more than half France, Scandinavia, Poland, Czechosolvakia(damn, this thing is weirdly spelled in English), Greece, Yugoslavia. With tanks and that... Easily - if he wasn't commited in Russia, noone would've moved in those countries - the English would've kept playing partisans with the maquis for any forseeable future.
Even if Germany defeated France and Russia in a swift, pre-emptive war, you understand that those two nations aren't just going to become willing partners, right? Even Petain, cowardly traitor that he was, attempted to preserve independent French interests against Hitler. Russia was far too large and powerful to occupy, so the best Germany could hope for would be a swift, decisive and unexpected victory, followed by the creation of independent states to be used as satellites and buffer zones - this is what actually happened in the Treaty of Brest-Livotsk - and the exploitation of internal Russian power-struggles to keep it from focusing its attention back on Germany. Russia could not be pacified.
actually I think that if they weren't pressed to attack on the western front, the germans could thoroughly disembowel Russia in '18. Really, they kinda beat the russians fair and square in WW1, not by some quick lucky shot.
And without commiting that much on that front anyway. Sure, that thing is a mess to occupy, contrary to the rest of the continent(and probably poor business too, like any occupation of a poor zone). But you can produce enough mess in it to make sure it won't be a threat for a long time(they already had poor industry - screw that some more and they'll stay put for a long time).
And France, while an easier target, posed vast difficulties in the form of guerilla warfare and the potential for troops to refuse to hand over colonies coerced out of the French government by Germany, or even to ally themselves with Britain against their own government rather than relinquish their possessions to Germany or a German-allied France.
all that is nice, yet if there's no opposition on the continent... yes, you'll get the colonies, but that's kinda all(contrary to 1800, when it was plenty of opposition so you could finance stuff if you had money)
Germany's best bet in the early years of the twentieth century would be to take control of the railroads, but that would be a far cry from occupying the Continent.
my assumption was exactly this - that contrary to one century before - Germany(in this case) could
occupy the continent if they trashed France/Russia. As in... occupation a la WW2 - troops over there, not as in Nappy
domination(the others accept your precedence). Precisely due to railroads(and in general good progress in transportation overall).
Which doesn't seem like a good business for the Brits, ergo... they should ally the way they did. The whole discussion was not about what would happen if Germany wins, was about having different camps(and I keep my argument that the Brits couldn't rationally switch camps - the only ones that could were Russia, and, to a lesser extent France, though franco-german alliance really looks funky). Prevent anyone from threatening your #1 for as long as you can... that's about the only thing you can do as #1; you don't have that many choices.
You don't think beating France in a few weeks might earn Germany some respect?
I think precisely that, and I think that was the time when they starting being perceived as a major power. I think that exactly after that war they started being perceived as something that could totally dominate Europe.
Before that war they... kicked AH. Now, really... everyone and their mothers kicked AH; was not a philosophy to kick AH. Ok, A, since H was added after that.
Oh, and Denmark... really...
p.s. - regarding Nappy(I admit I don't know that much of the period) - according to new oxford history of England by Boyd Hilton(on which I've slept well, but didn't quite read it
):
1. bonds at 50% of par in 1797;
2. suspension of bills convertibility(really, that's default in anything but name)
3. mild famine start of 1800s.
4. 200% debt/GDP after the wars, in 1819
5. 36% debase of sterling to gold; commodities up 50%(1797 - 1813)
ok, not a total disaster given the situation, but quite far from drinking tea and doubt it was sustainable in the long run(i.e - if nappy stayed home instead of going in Russia and kept threatening England my money would be on England crumbling).
