If you’re interested in a somewhat historically accurate look at the British side’s decision to join the war there is the 100th anniversary BBC drama 37 Days. It’s loaded choc full of British propaganda but even they show how Britain’s own government wasn’t united on going to war.
This isn’t really news. Some wars are fought over politics. Some are fought over religion. Others are fought over a variety of other things. They are all fought over money.
It’s hard to envision a scenario where Britain would have been OK with German expansion. It doesn’t really matter though because it didn’t happen.
What I find interesting in the book I have been reading is how there seemed to be little interest to really fight this war and that they all figured it would be quick. Germany, while the most interested in the fight, was dealing with a lot of internal issues that weren’t necessarily conducive to a war. While better prepared than the French of British, Germany wasn’t necessarily in top form to fight.
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I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one a bit. The Germans never were in a place to build enough warships to compete with the British and both sides knew this. Naval shipyards are pretty quantifiable things and the Germans just never had the same capacity. Again to the economic point, the Germans (no matter how “battleship crazy” the Kaiser was supposed to be) were never going to give up the merchant ship capacity to try to reach British warship capacity levels. One could argue that the seaborne threat Britain really feared was the ever increasing share of trade being done on German merchant ships, not guns on warships. Ship building was a much larger percentage of GDP for Britain than for Germany and the added capacity to build warships in British yards was because merchant ship demand was slowing down in the face of German competition.
“We want 8 and we won’t wait” was a media/shipbuilding campaign that stirred German xenophobia up to garner public support for a shipbuilding program to keep yards open and workers working. The Haldane Mission never bore fruit in producing a naval limitation treat with the Germans because it was concluded to be unnecessary. The Germans were never going to destroy their economy to win a naval arms race with a nation that could build 2 or even 3 warships per every German warship made.
I think you may be underestimating the Germany Navy’s delusions of grandeur. They had big, big plans. A stronger Germany could have come closer to seeing those plans through (not the whole thing, it was ridiculous). Britain was not going to allow that. I’d say their fears were well-founded. The u-boats were not ineffective and at Jutland the German Navy gave as good as they got.
As for the merchant ships, a victorious Germany was not going to help Britain in the department either.
I think it’s safe to say that none of the combatants were prepared for what was about to happen. Hell, they weren’t really prepared after they had been at it awhile either. It’s amazing how long it took for the lessons of industrial warfare to sink in.
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Was Alvin York a better shot than Davey Crockett? That’s the WWI topic that brought the most debate in Tennessee when I was growing up. That Sergeant York movie was required viewing when I was a kid.
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If Alvin York had been at the Alamo he would have single handedly captured the whole Mexican army and he would have shot Santa Ana from 2 miles away. So yes he was a better shot than Crockett. After all Crockett didn’t survive his battle.
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That’s a good point haha.
The real question is “what might Napoleon have accomplished with a squadron of fighter jets”?
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He probably still wouldn’t have conquered Russia. 
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Probably not , but there wouldn’t have been a Congress of Vienna, Franco-Prussian War, and probably no WWI.
Have seen “Sargeant York” and that got me to thinking about WWI films. Saw the recent “1917” twice but favorite about the war is the 1981 Australian film “Gallipoli” about the ANZAC role in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915.
I like Sergeant York for Gary Cooper. 1917 is absolutely fantastic. Gallipoli is good, too. I think that is Mel Gibson pre-Mad Max, right?
All Quiet on the Western Front, due to my age most familiar with the 1979 version but the old 1930 version stuck with me too.
Oh and Lawrence of Arabia. Classic.
Actually post “Mad Max” (1979) and pre “Mad” Mel (1991 onward). 
I too found “1917” to be fantastic but the fact the two main characters in “Gallipoli” are runners gives it a special place for me.
And yes, “Lawrence of Arabia” is a classic!
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Revisiting some of this exchange now that I’m not typing on a phone, @49RFootballNow.
I would agree that Britain joined for economic reasons, but I would argue that most conflicts have a significant financial component to them. But I tend to look at things from an economic, political and military point of view. In hind sight, the global competition for empire and industrial resources had been pointing to this for some time.
The Entente, however informal, made complete sense for Britain. Germany was clearly their competitor for empire and riches. While it’s true that Britain was not keen on ally keen on alliance with Russia, their stance on that nation changed after Russia’s defeat at the hands of Japan. Plus there’s the old adage “the enemy of my enemy is my fiend.”
As far as Belgium goes, no treaty is worth the paper it’s written on unless it benefits the dominant party. In this case, the 1839 agreement fit perfectly with what Britain was doing at the time (preventing German expansion).
I disagree that Britain’s entry into the war made it a world war. France, Russia, Germany, Italy, A-H and their collective holdings were enough to accomplish that. Not to mention the United States’s economic participation from the outset. In fact, with no British blockade the US might have gone on selling war materials to both sides for an extended period.
It’s fun to speculate what might have happened if this or that had been done differently, but it’s a losing proposition. Based on what we have to go on, I think it’s reasonable to expect Britain to do what they did… They weren’t going to watch Germany get even more powerful. Yes, for the money, for the empire, for the flag, for king and country…but mostly for the money. Now if you want to talk about how they prosecuted the war…geez, what a mess.
Did the strain of the war ultimately weaken Britain’s position? Yes. Could they have known that? I don’t think so. I’d say they felt pretty good about their position at Versailles.
Fun stuff. As Nugget said, it beats the hell out of discussing masks. 
Would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we have a basketball player named for WWI participants:
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Gotta say gang…seeing this discussion here about the First World War warms this old historians heart…class always fills whenever it’s offered, but it’s also a misunderstood conflict, especially here in the US. Lots of interesting points being made here too…warming this old historian’s heart further.
I do find it interesting that the discussion evolved more around Germany and England, but little mention of French reaction, Russia’s reaction, or even Austria’s response to the assassination and the July Crisis.
Lots of great films too and 37 Days is a interesting interpretation of British political decision-making, and generally accurate though still based on Brit POV.
A final point about WWI related films, Blackadder Goes Forth will leave you on the floor laughing and Paths of Glory will make you stop and think.
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The following piece about Rutgers football during the 1918 flu pandemic is also a pretty good study of higher education during war time. Learned some new things:
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Modern day ROTC can trace it roots, in part, to the Student Army Training Corps during WWI;
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Singer, actor, and political activist Paul Robeson was an All-American football player at Rutgers - then known as the Queensmen;
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Rutgers has actually been successful on the gridiron
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and the winner of the 1919 Rose Bowl was Great Lakes Navy (present day Naval Station Great Lakes near Chicago - a nephew of mine was stationed there).
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