Docu-comedy: 'History of Oil' by Robert Newman

[dorlomin]

I never did get to here this explained

Tirpitz' plan to expand Germany's navy did not greatly influence the start of WWI.

We are all sitting waiting now. The floors yours.

[bluekachina]

Dorlomin, you need to stop. Your answer to that was in the same paragraph which you cut out of your quote, which is just another attempt to cause disention in the thread.

The British knew they could bottle up Germany's navy with a blockade. Which they proved during the war.

The loathing comes across in your posts and just drips from it.

You got a problem with Cid personally, take it to the Halls of Flame. If you can't discuss this in a polite manner, maybe you've said enough.

All I'm hearing from you is History is so complex, no one can know. Well, I beg to differ.

Your arguments are Eurocentric, narrow-minded, and unsatisfying.

Matthew 7:1-5

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

If it's the history quoted, the links show your problem is with historian F William Engdahl, who Cid is quoting.

[ItalyRules]

"If 'Berlin-Baghdad' were achieved, a huge block of territory producing every kind of economic wealth, and unassailable by sea-power would be united under German authority," warned R.G.D. Laffan. Laffan was at that time a senior British military adviser attached to the Serbian Army.

"Russia would be cut off by this barrier from her western friends, Great Britain and France," Laffan added. "German and Turkish armies would be within easy striking distance of our Egyptian interests, and from the Persian Gulf, our Indian Empire would be threatened. The port of Alexandretta and the control of the Dardanelles would soon give Germany enormous naval power in the Mediterranean."

Laffan suggested a British strategy to sabotage the Berlin-Baghdad link. "A glance at the map of the world will show how the chain of States stretched from Berlin to Baghdad. The German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, Turkey. One little strip of territory alone blocked the way and prevented the two ends of the chain from being linked together. That little strip was Serbia. Serbia stood small but defiant between Germany and the great ports of Constantinople and Salonika, holding the Gate of the East...Serbia was really the first line of defense of our eastern possessions. If she were crushed or enticed into the 'Berlin-Baghdad' system, then our vast but slightly defended empire would soon have felt the shock of Germany's eastward thrust."

British intelligence thus instigated the assasination Of Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand by the Serbian Black Hand with the assistance of the Serbian Government. As intended, this provoked a response against Serbia by Austria-Hungary. Britain, France and Russia had previously guaranteed Serbian Sovereignty.

Finally an explanation that makes sense as to how/why the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand initiated hostilities in WWI.

I can see why the members of the Triple Entente might not want to explain the details of his importance. It places the blame directly on them for the start of WWI.

Britain was losing the race of industrial expansion to Germany and losing their place as the world's superpower of the time. So they decided to sabotage the competition and start WWI. TPTB were losing their grip to a new set of power brokers, so set the world at war.

[dorlomin]

Dorlomin, you need to stop. Your answer to that was in the same paragraph which you cut out of your quote, which is just another attempt to cause disention in the thread.

The British knew they could bottle up Germany's navy with a blockade. Which they proved during the war.

Deary me.


Deary deary me.

I see you did not read what was said. The Germans not only anticipated but planned for the blockade. It was part of their stratagy.

The change to distant blockade was a last minute innovation by Jellicoe that was far from guarenteed to work.

Whats more the legallity of this approach was debated, very hotly debated, up to and during the war. The British were often preventing nuteral flagged vessels carrying goods to nuteral ports without first being inspected. Had the political weight fallen in a different direction during the war the blockade could have brought the likes of Sweden and Holland into the war on the side of the triple alliance or at least seen America swing behind them more openly.

Its not as simple as 'they had a plan, it worked, no more thinking required'.

All I'm hearing from you is History is so complex, no one can know. Well, I beg to differ.

Which is strangely not what I am saying at all, I am saying that this particular war cannot be rendered down to one single line about a railway.

Your arguments are Eurocentric, narrow-minded

The start of WWI? Eurocentric?

If it's the history quoted, the links show your problem is with historian F William Engdahl, who Cid is quoting.

Curious view of things.

[bluekachina]

The Failure of German Naval Policy, 1896-1914

In August 1914, the German High Seas Fleet consisted of 14 "dreadnought" battleships and 3 battlecruisers (completed). From its principal base at Wilhelmshaven in the Schillig Roads at the western end of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, it faced a British Fleet of 20 dreadnoughts and 8 battlecruisers (completed), primarily based at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. The British Admiralty had adopted this base when it became obvious that Germany was the only potential enemy in any major conflict. From this position, the "Grand Fleet" exercised a command of the sea which was more complete, in strategic terms, than it had been in any previous war or was ever to be again.

In examining the question of German Naval Policy in the years before WWI, I would argue that, by 1914, it had failed. A failure which left the German Navy in no position to challenge British command of the sea, despite the vast quantity of resources which had been consumed by its creation. From 1896 until August 1914, Germany pursued a policy that, by virtue of its own rigidity and lack of appreciation of changing strategic realities, was doomed to failure. This failure was partly due to the supposedly "limited" aims of the "Tirpitz Plan" which, in the event, locked the High Seas Fleet into a position of quantitative inferiority to the British Navy, and partly to British responses to the creation and development of the German Fleet. That Britain would possess naval dominance during WWI was, therefore, virtually inevitable in view of the strategic assumptions and composition of the British and German navies at the outbreak of war in 1914.

German planning from 1909-1914 was marked by confusion over the direction of strategic (offensive or defensive) policy and by a failure to develop any agreed operations plan against Britain and/or France. In many ways 1909 can be seen as the turning point of the pre-war period. By this date the British were aware of the potential threat posed by the German Fleet and had taken steps to counter it. In Germany, first Holstein, and subsequently Bulow, had come to question the validity of the Tirpitz Plan, but both had been dismissed. It would appear that Tirpitz himself had doubts. In 1907 he had admitted that Britain would find close blockade inoperable but that she could achieve the same results from a distance. and in October 1910 he was forced to report to the Kaiser:

"If the English fleet is permanently made and maintained so strong as to make it safe to attack Germany, then German naval development, from an historical standpoint, was a mistake and Your Majesty's fleet an historical fiasco...Germany's world position in the existing political situation, would remain dependent on England's favour."

This statement represented a tacit admission of Britain's capacity to maintain its level of naval superiority. War Games in 1911 indicated that offensive strategy was inappropriate in the North Sea as in each case the "British" were able to unite their forces and defeat the Germans with various levels of damage to themselves. The result of these exercises was that in late 1912, directives to the High Seas Fleet command were changed, and, in effect assigned to it a defensive role.

With hindsight, the entire German naval policy during the period of "Weltpolitik" (1896-1914) seems illogical in the extreme. From the start its premises must have inevitably resulted in a position of inferiority to Britain as Tirpitz's strategy was not to try to outbuild the British. After 1909, his deliberate concern was to maintain a 2:3 ratio as compared to Britain and as a result the German fleet would always be numerically inferior to that of the British. In the absence of any naval ally for Germany, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Tirpitz Plan was an extended and expensive exercise in self-delusion. The threat posed by the German fleet had been clearly divined, at the earliest, by 1902 or, at the latest, by 1906. With the British agreements with Japan, France and Russia the loss of its "risk" or "alliance" value made the continuation of such an expensive policy a nonsense. Tirpitz with his "idee fixe" refused to admit that his entire policy could be invalidated by British responses to the German building programs. Despite persistent British "materiel" and strategic responses to his policies and the resultant diplomatic isolation of Germany:

"he held doggedly to his counter-productive course which thenceforward undermined the regime that the Navy was intended to preserve"

link

Tirpitz' plan failed, and this was recognized by both sides, years before the start of WWI.

[dorlomin]

link

Tirpitz' plan failed, and this was recognized by both sides, years before the start of WWI.

WTF? What is with the massive cut and past and so what are you on about now?

[bluekachina]

Just proved how totally wrong you were.

There was no threat from the German Navy, and this was recognized by both Britain and Germany by at least 1909.

Of course you will never admit it.

Again trollish complaints of Google and Cut and Paste as soon as you had lost the argument.

It's called documentation supporting your position. Try it sometime.

[dorlomin]

Just proved how totally wrong you were.

There was no threat from the German Navy, and this was recognized by both Britain and Germany by at least 1909.

Firstly yes there was a threat, secondly that was not the point, the point was that the rivalry was instrumental in the publics perception of tensions between the UK and Germany. Rivalry to the UK was constantly hyped to get aproval for more ship building in Germany and vis a versa.
The idea that both sides knew there was no threat is yet again a gross simplificaiton. If this was the case what the hell was Scheer doing on the 31st of May 1916? What about the battle cruiser raids on the English coast (Scarbourgh and Sunderland)? And moreover after von Spees victory at Coronel it took a significant battlecruiser led squadron and luck to run him down at the Falklands.

And this is not even addressing the uboot war.

And all this is discounting the Austro Hungarian pressence in the Med and the handover of the two old clunkers to the Ottomans at the start of the war by Germany.

Just because there was no numeric superiority did not mean the UK was laughing, far from it.

And finally Tirpitz plan was not to defeat the RN but to inflict sufficient casualties to make them vaulnrable elsewhere. Some will argue that it was this threat that forced Britains hand (I would not) but the near disaster at Jutland showed the argument has some merit. To dismiss the HSF as no threat is, well, I would not do it anywhere near people who know what they are talking about.

Others though clearly feel fully able to with gusto.

[ItalyRules]

Your arm's off

Maybe a good time to reassess your position.