Why did Britain go to war in 1914?

Discussion in 'Strategy' started by Popsical, Sep 30, 2015.

  1. Here's a rather more tragic thought

    The British army at the start of WW2 was in a worse condition than the start of WW1. Had been starved of money until the last years lacked equipment much of what it did have was WW1 vintage. The professional core of the old army had been shattered by the war and the peace.
    Having invented the tank they had ignored its development and even more tragically after the leaps made at coordinating the armies battlefield tactics in WW1 they never sought the most effective ways to deploy the new equipment that they had.

    Start of WW2 German armies and equipment wasn't massively superior to the French and British equivalents in quantity or quality.

    It's use and deployment however was unparalleled in its expertise and coordination on the battlefield and the strategic theatre.
     
  2. Yeah but Russia where able to do ww2 without having a personality change half way through, buts that's another story all together
     
  3. Brave Russian personality change ?
     
  4. It was a reference to their revolution/revolution(s)
     
  5. Ah ok that makes more sense.

    Then revolutions in Russia had a massive impact on the wars. The treaty they signed to get peace was harsher then anything the western allies have to Germany
     
  6. Read Guns of August by Tuchman
     
  7. Britain joined the war because Germany invaded neutral Belgium.
     
  8. That was how Britain justified joining the war
     
  9. Was it true isis was helping Hitler in ww2
     
  10. ISIS denotes the Islamic state in Syria, and as they didn't control Syria during WW2, no
     
  11. A good topic for next thread would be USA's involvement in WW2. When I think about the war's major events, I can't see an allied victory without the USA being drawn into the war by Japan.

    The Russian army didn't have any major breakthroughs in the war against the Germans until the Americans started to send supplies to the starved Russian army. The Americans supplied fuel, food, and ammunition to Russia, where 70% of the economy was destroyed by Germany.

    It would've been easy for Russia to lose both Stalingrad and Moscow to the Germans if they hadn't had as much fuel or ammunition. They no longer had the same war manufacturing capacity they once had.

    Then again, Hitler's mind was also shaking at this time as well. He had disastrous medication treatments that caused him to become addicted to terrible drugs such as opium. This was evidenced even before the turn of the war, when Hitler went against the advice of his generals and opted for a very wide, thin front in Russia as opposed to a rush towards strategic locations. Maybe he would've made even worse decisions regardless of whether Japan dragged America into the war.
     
  12. I think it's widely accepted that the USSR would have beaten Germany regardless of lend-lease.
     
  13. One fun point the Germans declared war on the USA not the other way around.

    If adolf hadn't done that then who knows what would have happened.

    As for the USSR they needs allied support to rebuild to buy time to rearm following the disasters of Barbarossa and the first German offensive. It's likely they could have held out for a long time trading land for men with out allied support but it would have been even more costly and in all likelihood Russia would have made a separate peace with Germany.
     
  14. Yes, because making peace with someone who already betrayed you is a good idea
     
  15. Rio that was a repeatedly used political threat from Stalin during the war. He spied on his allies didn't trust them and was always interested in his own power over other concerns.

    He would've sought a separate peace from Germany leaving the western allies to fight on alone.

    Considering the vast majority of the Wehrmacht was deployed in the eastern front that would have been a disaster for the western allies.
     
  16. This gained a lot more support than I anticipated, well as "who was Jack the Ripper" was the first suggestion, That will be my next topic
     
  17. Nice thread.

    Support! We need more historical discussion. It explains the world as it is today.
     
  18. This thread is interesting and something forums doesn't see enough of good job
     
  19. Where are your sources?
     
  20. Soup who's sources ? The op or the various counterarguments ?