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Speaking from a purely selfish perspective, Britain's entry into the war was part of an important series of events without which I would not exist. So, huzzah for the war!

Octavious wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 17, 2019 5:21 pm

Speaking from a purely selfish perspective, Britain's entry into the war was part of an important series of events without which I would not exist. So, huzzah for the war!

Yea I just thought of it from another perspective...
If we take my point as fact, that if Britain didn't enter the war, their empire would have still been preserved. Is that really good...?
If WWI really did set in motion the events that would destroy the empire, isn't that what we wanted, decolonization...?
Or is that what by proxy led to the cold war...
So many questions!

I don't think that the war had much of an impact on the Empire. It was evident from South Africa and the Boer War that it was on its last legs. A relatively minor colonial skirmish and Great Britain struggled to find enough troops to fight it. Empires were no longer a profitable enterprise.

You kidding me...? Britain had just resecured naval dominance over everyone, Germany was breaking at the seams, the war is what stopped that.

World War I:

If it didn't happen, 2019 history meme world would be poor and boring

Naval dominance? The Royal Navy hadn't fought a significant engagement since Trafalgar. We had a lot of shiny boats crewed by a lot of shiny sailors skilled in the art of keeping everything shiny at all times. We couldn't fight for toffee. When the Germans, with all the seafaring pedigree of Swiss mountain goat, sent their fleet to test us they gave us a kicking that stunned the nation.

Naval dominance was a myth that persevered purely because no one had the guts to challenge it. The apparently invincible Royal Navy was in fact almost as vulnerable as the apparently invincible US aircraft carriers are today. Fine for sailing by the Middle East and frightening a few Arabs, but woefully ill suited to a serious conflict.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 17, 2019 7:34 pm

Naval dominance? The Royal Navy hadn't fought a significant engagement since Trafalgar. We had a lot of shiny boats crewed by a lot of shiny sailors skilled in the art of keeping everything shiny at all times. We couldn't fight for toffee. When the Germans, with all the seafaring pedigree of Swiss mountain goat, sent their fleet to test us they gave us a kicking that stunned the nation.

Naval dominance was a myth that persevered purely because no one had the guts to challenge it. The apparently invincible Royal Navy was in fact almost as vulnerable as the apparently invincible US aircraft carriers are today. Fine for sailing by the Middle East and frightening a few Arabs, but woefully ill suited to a serious conflict.

And who would have been able to stop their shiny navy...? Germany who had given up? You saw in WWI how much Germany did in the terms of navy, you really think they had the resources to continue that losing battle...? Bismarck cobbled a country to together, one which could have easily exploded in his face had anything lit it on fire.

The Battle of Jutland could have been considered a North Sea “bounce” in Diplomacy terms, but strategically the German High Seas Fleet ran like hell, back into the protection of the Heligoland Bight mined area as soon they realised they were facing the entire British Grand Fleet (not just a bit of it) & before they made it around Denmark into the Baltic, let alone the North Atlantic.
The Royal Navy knew the Germans were heading out because we had broken their radio codes (typically sneaky Brits) but the German Navy didn’t expect to be confronted so quickly whilst heading north.
True Royal Navy losses were quite high, but strategically the German fleet disappeared from the high seas & never tried again. We all know what happened to the German High Seas Fleet after Germany had lost in 1918, escorted by the Royal Navy to their watery burial ground.
Think it counts as Naval dominance, if the opponents are too scared to come out of harbour during the fight & end up without a Navy at all at the end of the fight:-)

FlaviusAetius wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 17, 2019 4:41 pm

There must be easier ways of deciding a way to avoid a civil war. Like giving concessions, so the less radical ones would cave in, and the more radical ones could be stamped out.

Also yes, it was a great discussion, I'm about to have this same debate with my friend when we come back from Spring Break, in our physics class(we abandoned physics in that class xD) and this was a good warm-up

Yes, there were options but those run up against Irish and English politics.

@ seniac

It depends how you spin it. You could say the Grand Fleet had the Germans trapped in port, or you could say that the outnumbered German fleet kept the entire Grand fleet occupied for the duration of the war, while German u-boats decimated British shipping.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 18, 2019 12:56 pm

@ seniac

It depends how you spin it. You could say the Grand Fleet had the Germans trapped in port, or you could say that the outnumbered German fleet kept the entire Grand fleet occupied for the duration of the war, while German u-boats decimated British shipping.

It wasn’t an “occupied” Grand Fleet that allowed German u-boats to be effective. It was a reluctance to embrace the necessity of using convoys (even though there was plenty of evidence that they would reduce losses). Once the convoy system was fully in place (mid 1917) merchant shipping losses were manageable & German u-boat losses much greater.
Like many aspects of WW1, new technologies brought the need for new tactics in response. U-boats leading to convoys just one example.