Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "The Drydock - Episode 177" video.

  1. Pre dreadnought fight: in 1904, after the Japanese torpedo boats attack the Russian 1st Pacific squadron at Port Arthur, France honors its alliance with Russia and declares war on Japan, UK honors its alliance with Japan and declares war on France, Germany decides to ally with France (note that they did historically help the Russian 2nd Pacific squadron with coaling) to even the odds and bring down RN (and get some colonies). Austria Hungary and Italy honor the Triple Alliance with Germany and declare war on UK. Finally Teddy Roosevelt, ever the opportunist, sees a good opportunity to gang up with the allies to take down RN and expand. So: you have RN vs Russian 2nd Pacific squadron, the French fleet, the German fleet, portions of the US fleet (plausibly - US contigent sails to Brest) and Italian and Austro-Hungarian fleet. The French Brest fleet and the USN from one side, and the allied Mediterannean fleets sail to break the British Gibraltar station, while the 2nd Russian Paific squadron sails to Germany to break out to Brest if the main RN body sails to help Gibraltar. If the latter stays put and the allied Mediterannean fleets breaks out to Brest, two combined allied fleets, one from Brest the other from Wilhelmshaven sail to jointly (coordinated by wireless) challenge the RN in, a climactic pre-dreadnought battle of Jutland. RN, on the other hand, would naturally attempt to engage the allied fleets piecemeal. Japan meanwhile battles Russia's 1st Pacifific squadron and perhaps some US reinforcements based in Manila (which may, or may not decide to sail to Vladivostok). I think the historians may have missed the significance of France not intervening for Russia in 1904. (out of fear of the superior RN) on Austro-Hungarian decision to declare war on Serbia in 1914. (banking on Russia not intervening out of fear of strong Germany, or at least France not intervening for the same reason).
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  2.  @bkjeong4302  Yes but the one in which most of other powers gang up on UK and Japan and redistribute most of their colonies among themselves. I doubt they would bother invading them directly. Naval WW1.
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  3. Most of the warships the UK was building for the Confederacy were being finished towards the end of the war when the victor was obvious so leaking the info on the ships' construction to the public and actually secretly stoking the uproar about it (a few skilled paid agitators and a bit of media works fine) makes sense from the UK government's point of view as the uproar provides a convenient excuse for the UK government to seize the ships (after the shipyards already received most of the payment from the CSA) and prevent their delivery to the buyer - thereby not angering the soon-to-be victor - the Union, for no gain.
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