Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
Hence 'at least in the short term,'. Of course we'd have had to fight eventually. However, we needn't have done so when we did. Indeed, Germany didn't expect us to do so. Alternatively, we could quite easily have committed on a purely naval basis, blockaded Germany and - as was shown in the course of War itself - there was nothing they could have done about it. However, we didn't. We fought on the basis of principle. Germany had violated Belgian neutrality and on that principle, we went to war.

By the way, not every historian agrees. Niall Ferguson called our decision to intervene 'the biggest error in modern history'. He also points out that the argument that we had to intervene to secure the Channel ports is rather undermined by the fact that we had lived with a similar situation during the Napoleonic Wars whereby Europe was under his sway, the Channel Ports were all in his hands, but we didn't send land forces until we were properly prepared (which we blatantly weren't in 1914). Our navy was immensely powerful and dominant in 1914 - vastly more so, in fact than it was in 1800. We could easily have sat safely behind our navy and let Europe get on with slaughtering one another. We didn't, however, because of principle.
1. "Hence 'at least in the short term,'" Don't descend to semantics, mate. It was either fight while we still had friendly channel ports and a Dreadnought advantage or after Ger had taken both of those of us.

2. Nazi Naill's logic (assuming you've read the book) is "Och aye, I love the British empire. Perhaps if we hadn't fought, my beloved empire would have lasted longer and I could have walked around it. And anyway, I hate the Frogs. Och aye the noo."

While the economic analysis in the middle chapters is respected, the stuff on whether we should have fought or not is ignored by all historians and inane ranting drivel.

Ps, Berni, old chap. You know earlier you said you thought Brexit had made the political class go mad?

Erm, you do realise your arguing with a lefty, with you saying I'm wrong for wanting us to fight in the two WWs and you wanting to be all Quislingy. A bit "mad", no?

I can't believe we are arguing about GB's reasons for acting as we did in 1914 and 1939 (and 40). Bit surreal, no?