Comments by "Ralph Bernhard" (@ralphbernhard1757) on "Drachinifel"
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So.
I'll have to answer my own question again...
Why did Germany initially build a navy?
At this stage, supported by GB, because the Russian and British Empires were fighting in Asia ("The Great Game"), and imperialist GB and France clashed and squabbled all over the world.
Germans were fwiends lol...not really (aka London's still secret policy of Balance of Power meant that should it come to war, GB and Germany were already predetermined enemies. Make sense? No?)
Anyway...
Germany built up a navy to protect her coastal cities and shores completely unaware that they were already London's enemy after uniting, and industrializing rapidly.
The often stated "naval arms race" being a cause for WW1 is a misconception. Historians pin their flag on the date "1906", saying that here is where that "history" started.
Actually, the naval arms race started in 1871, with an unsuccessful attempted blockade of northern German ports during the Franco-Prussian War by the French navy.
The "cause" was therefore the intention of German leaders to protect German citizens from the threat of blockade. Blockading an enemy, was one of the favorite means of economic warfare at the time. Naval bombardment was a favorite tool of blackmail, extortion, and power politics.
It therefore "started" with a German-French naval arms race, and expanded to a German - French/Russian arms race after France and Russia formed an alliance (Entente Cordial).
When GB joined the Tripple Entente, this "naval arms race" was already in full swing. Obviously, German leaders then had to protect German ports from a potential blockade of THREE navies. British, Russian, and French.
In other words, the German naval re-armament was an "effect" of previous actions (causality).
Not THE "cause" for an Anglo-German Arms Race, but an "effect" of previous French-Russian-German naval arms race.
The German leaders reacted to a potential threat (blockade).
Furthermore, they did not know that London had already made them an enemy as a default setting.
A confusion of "cause and effect", by simply pinning a "starting date" randomly on a timeline.
Also, study the design parameters of the German ships built up to WW1.
Note that they were close range, coast defence vessels without any global reach.
Did you know that the Imperial German Navy wasn't a "blue water navy"?
Do you even know what that means?
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@thevillaaston7811 STAGE 1 HISTORY FOR DUMMIES
Germany: Can we be friends? I mean, look at nasty Rusky over there, trying to steal India from you. And don't even get me started with those Frenchies....Napoleon, ha, ha, ha...
London: uhm...err...well...don't mind us, we're just splendidly isolated over here. Peacefully minding our own business. [grins] Why don't you build some ships? Here's some plans, ships, and technology....
Germany: Gee, great, thanks. Shall we discuss becoming real friends? You know, like allies?
London: unm...err..well...ahm...not today, I'm not feeling well...next week?
Germany: oh ok...
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@whitewolf1298 As anybody can discover for himself, and as a general rule, navies are divided into certain categories...
Also, as a general rule, "global reach" can only be achieved by a Blue Water Navy...
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Blue-water_navy
...as advocated by Mahan, and that is as true today as it was in 1850, 1900, or 1950.
No blue water navy = no global reach
The global reach achieved by a Blue Water Navy is composed of two elements.
1) the design of the ships themselves
2) logistics / naval bases
As to point 1 and 2.
If one studies the design of the German ships themselves, and German naval bases, one can only reach one conclusion.
Before WW1 there were never any plans for "global reach", i.e. any attempt to "rule the world" as often claimed.
As design criteria, one can simply look at the drawing (flared or raked bow = Blue Water Navy) and a few statistics like size, range, and livability.
The design elements of ships (true even today) are divided into two main criteria : offensive elements (firepower, speed and seakeeping) vs. defensive elements (armor protection, nr. of watertight compartments, sturdy construction).
Nations which desire "global reach", built fast, large, high firepower, long ranged, seaworthy vessels, supported by a dense network of naval bases, and international ports (either by alliance, or by own construction) supported by large fleets of tankers, repair ships, and replenishment ships.
Less emphasis is placed on armour, and much more on speed and range.
Nations which wish to concentrate on the own doorstep, built smaller, sturdier, ships with smaller caliber guns and more/thicker armor, and with with stubby bows (seakeeping less important, since designed for coastal waters).
In short, one can gather information about the policies of a nation, by merely looking at the design of its weapons. And this is as true for tanks as it is for ships...
A nation that built the S-tank (Sweden) had no desire to "rule the world" :-)
As for the design of the the Imperial German Navy's ships....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_of_the_Imperial_German_Navy
....and you can see that from the destroyers (called "torpedo boats" right through to the big gun battleships, the design criteria fits that of the coast defense navy (today called "Green and Brown Water Navies"). You don't have to look at all of them, but maybe click on a few links and look at the specifications, and filter it with the information above.
As for the numbers of units built, that was a result of the alliance system (see my initial comment right at the top). As the Russians found out at Tsushima, there was no point sending a large fleet halfway around the world, if the ships and crews were going to arrive in bad shape...
(No recreational facilities, docks, replenishment, etc.)
Simply having a lot of ships, doesn't imply wishing to "rule the world".
Strange fact.
The first pure German capital ship that fitted the criteria for a Blue Water Navy was the Weimar Republic's Deutschland Class of 1933.
To conclude: any accusations of Germany trying to "steal something from the British Empire", or "trying to overpower the Royal Navy" or "threatening GB" are at best misconceptions, at worst straight out lies....
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@dovetonsturdee7033 Stalin, or why we shouldn't have had even the slightest inhibitions about "tweaking Lend-Lease" (to avoid the complete collapse of the SU, but not enough for communism to win)
Stalin, or why we should have "aided" the Nazis by as little strategic bombing as possible, but only as much as necessary, but to avoid the complete collapse of Germany, the backbone of the Axis?
Why it shouldn't have bothered us in the least if the Eastern Front had settled somewhere between Leningrad and the Black Sea, with the two sides fighting until utter exhaustion?
Why everything should have been done so that the war lasts as long as possible, in order that both sides become exhausted?
"Comrades! It is in the interest of the USSR, the Land of the Toilers, that war breaks out between the [German] Reich and the capitalist Anglo-French bloc. Everything must be done so that the war lasts as long as possible in order that both sides become exhausted. Namely for this reason we must agree to the pact proposed by Germany, and use it so that once this war is declared, it will last for a maximum amount of time."
Stalin 19th August 1939
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@dovetonsturdee7033 Here is the truth, because as a British PM in those days, any British PM, you had an Empire to protect.
A PM heading an Empire which refused Stalin's insidious "requests" for "an alliance", for a good reason.
Because the SU was already safe, and in no need of "an alliance." It was protected by barrier of independent states in the west, and only had Japan to worry about. As long as Stalin did nothing, the status quo would persist...indefinitely.
Because the Limitrophe States which Stalin wanted as a precondition for such "an alliance"...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limitrophe_states
....was not only a wall.
Poland was not only a barrier, but also "a gate"
Should Stalin ever try to break out of the World Island he sat on, the gate would open and Nazis would come pouring in...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History
Should Stalin ever try to attack or eclipse western interests in China, or the Middle East, he'd get a suitable response.
He knew it, and it infuriated him...
The Limitrophe protected the British Empire, and Stalin wanted to erode it away with promises of "an alliance".
Hitler was a lapdog, and he knew it, and it infuriated him...
When Chamberlain came to Munich and put him in place, Hitler had to bow down to a little man with an umbrella, which was also "a big stick".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology
Because Hitler cowered at Munich and gave in, not Chamberlain and historians have it all wrong...
Here's the thing about the deceiver.
The deceiver will always tell you "what the other side is planning" (sic.), but the deceiver will never tell what he is planning himself...
Stalin.
The great deceiver...
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@dovetonsturdee7033 Stalin's devious offer for an "alliance" was sinister.
The aim of Stalin's politics (hinting at fake promises of mutual assistance) in case of war were never honest.
Neither before 1938, nor after.
Pre-1938, what would Stalin have done in case Hitler had invaded Czechoslovakia? (under any scenario with or without the "fake alliance")
Answer: Nothing
He would simply have pointed at his N/A Pact with Poland, pointed at "nasty Japan" in the East and said: "Sorry you guys, I'd really really really like to to help you chaps out, but, but, but..."
That would have been the result of trusting a mass-murderer and psychopath who's idea of a "debate" was a bullet in the back of the head...
A war between GB, France and Germany.
Luckily Chamberlain was wise enough to stave that off as long as possible, and to prepare the industrial and financial foundation for a war.
Post March 1939, Stalin made it perfectly clear what he wanted.
He wanted GB and France to "sign away" Poland, The Baltic States and Romania.
So dissed, what would these states have done the minute they found out they would be thrown under the bus in return for a Brit/French "dirty little deal" with Stalin?
Again, an easy answer: flee into the loving tender open arms of the eagerly awaiting Axis...
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@dovetonsturdee7033 ...and even in hindsight, Appeasement was not a mistake, but the only sensible thing to do.
A "bed" the power players at Versailles had eagerly made, and now had to "sleep" in. Too bad...
Unfortunately, the way the world had been set up post-WW1, there was no alternative to appeasing Hitler.
And even those relying on "Churchill" (aka "the hardliner") for their alternative history, must admit reality.
If in power, Churchill would have done the same as Chamberlain, because (reality) the British Prime Minister doesn't have the authority to declare war out of the blue, and that would have depended on how the ministers would have debated it out...
The second "reality" was that in 1938, the Legion Condor was in Spain, next to Gibraltar (15,000 well-trained and combat ready soldiers with tanks and air support). Also, an Italian dictator keen on "Mare Nostrum" and a Spain which would have liked Gibraltar back....hmmm....a rather unfortunate combination of "reality" concentrated in one area vital to the British Empire.
Churchill of course, was a naval strategist.
1) Would Churchill (a navy guy) have risked losing Gibraltar to "protect little nations"?
2) What would the lords in London have thought about "protecting little nations"?
3) And even if they did value "little nations" enough to declare war on their behalf, what would have been the first military/strategic priority had it come to war in 1938?
Especially the last one being not a difficult question to answer...
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The narrative here is entirely beside the point. Allow me to help out, with a similar event. Not exact, because "history only rhymes", but close enough to explain how diplomacy works.
Drax went to Moscow in 1939 to "talk", not "negotiate".
According to the narrative Stalin (whose snowflake feelings got upset about not receiving an equal "Munich" treatment, with the highest level London diplomat jetting off to see Hitler) felt dissed, just like the French did when a "mere captain" arrived to discuss the future of their own empire (at least, the possessions in N.Africa).
Apparrently Stalin understood quite well what sending a lower prominence delegation meant.
Also what power of negotiation means.
Neither Drax nor Holland had these powers, which is why they were sent off with matters unaccomplished.
The French Navy was going nowhere without political assurances. Say, from the USA to step in to safeguard Algeria with own ships, and protection for the French citizens here (at the time, Algeria was a part of France proper) from the threat of invasion.
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What connects the topic of this video, as "compartmentalized history" and 99% ancillary details, with the bigger overall European "picture"?
It is "divide and rule" as THE "systems/strategies" tier of things, as the 1% of history that counts...
Exemplary of a divide and rule/conquer strategy:
Entire regions of human beings are used or set up as proxies, as "walls" or "Limitrophe States" to seperate potential areas which might unite.
Wiki: "In modern history, it was used to refer to provinces that seceded from the Russian Empire at the end of World War I, during the Russian Civil War (1917–1922), thus forming a kind of belt or cordon sanitaire separating Soviet Russia from the rest of Europe during the interwar period.[4]... The nations were then "the cards to change hands in big political games" and included the Baltic peoples, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians."
These nations were, and still are today, simply "tools" for the empires who hold the geographical advantage of power
When everybody started talking about Versailles as a "peace conference" back in the days following WW1, it allowed for narratives to take shape. These "narratives" then floated to the top of discussions and debates, books and documentaries, and became the way people started thinking at the time, and...more importantly, still think*** today.
Historians should stop talking about The Treaty of Versailles as a "peace conference" (name branding), but to start calling it out for what it was in terms of geopolitics and grand strategy: it was divide and rule/conquer of and over continental Europe, by the outside world powers, all imperialistic in nature, with a geographical advantage (Washington DC/London), using Paris as a continental foothold, or an "extension" of their own power. Such language abounds in the strategy papers of the true powers.
These powers favored Paris for this specific reason, regardless of what ideologues desired (Idealism is an '-ism' or ideology).
Favoratism is a core technique used in a divide and rule strategy.
The Fourteen Points were largely written by a "think tank", the New York based "Inquiry" group. As for Wilson, was he really that naive to think that the large and prominent forces of isolationism would not prevail, and lead to the USA/Washington DC not joining any collectivised system of security for the entire planet?
Was there really no "Plan B" in Washington DC?
Divide and rule as a strategy is elaborated in more detail in the comments thread under the Kaiser Wilhelm video of the "History Room" educational channel. Go to the other channel, select "latest comments" first (three little bars at the top of every comments section), and read as far back as desired.
The "oh so fine" British Lordships thought they could play divide and rule/conquer games with the world, and in the end British citizens and military men lost bigtime, as at the very end of the Empire, their own Lordships "...ran off with all the f%cking money..." (quote = George Carlin/ reality = tax havens).
The answer to any observed divide and rule strategy is eventually going to be brute force. On a micro level, it will be some form of uprising or revolution. On the macro level (states/empires) it will be crises and war. If words no longer achieve the desired effects to oppose the actions by the psychopaths who have infiltrated positions of power (incl. our so-called "western liberal democracies"), and become uncompromising and start using bully tactics, the answer will be brute force. No system is going to "turn the other cheek" indefinitely.
No, this is not a "yet another conspiracy theory," but elaborated and provided with sufficient evidence, and inductive/deductive reasoning on the other channel/video.
Divide and rule/conquer is a strategy, not a conspiracy theory.
**As a mixture of opinions, biases, emotions, analyses, assessments, etc. proclaimed in a multitude of books, documentaries, journals, essays, stories and...just about everything related to "compartmentalized history". In reality, how every individual "thinks" is not important: it is the *systems/strategies tier of events which is the truly indicative tier.
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yankeetrader
The narrative in this video is entirely beside the point. Allow me to show how, with a similar event. Not exact, because "history only rhymes", but close enough to explain how diplomacy works.
Drax went to Moscow in 1939 to "talk", not "negotiate".
According to the narrative Stalin (whose snowflake feelings got upset about not receiving an equal "Munich" treatment, with the highest level London diplomat jetting off to see Hitler) felt dissed, just like the French did when a "mere captain" arrived to discuss the future of their own empire (at least, the possessions in N.Africa).
Apparrently Stalin understood quite well what sending a lower prominence delegation meant.
Also what power of negotiation means.
Neither Drax nor Holland had these powers, which is why they were sent off with matters unaccomplished.
The French Navy was going nowhere without political assurances. Say, from the USA to step in to safeguard Algeria with own ships, and protection for the French citizens here (at the time, Algeria was a part of France proper) from the threat of invasion.
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Correct.
Re. "Who benefited most from Mers, and who lost most".
The general consensus is that The British Empire was the "winner", and that "France was the loser".
Wrong.
Reality? For the second time in 20 years, "the lights would go out", and others would benefit. Because, the type of rule or economy plays little role in the outcome of whether one "rules the world" or not.
Geography plays a far bigger role.
So at the turn of century London "ruled the world" because geography isolated them from the continent and their island status gave them the upper hand at a time when war was still the common way to determine "top dog" or not....
When development of weapons produced ever further reaching weapons of war, GB's island status did not offer the same measure of protection anymore...so they went down.
The weapons of 1900 couldn't harm the British Empire, but the weapons of 1945 could....
In that era around WW2, it was the USA which was (as the sole power) isolated from this "great game", and benefited as the result of its geographical isolation, and because there was that "one ring which ruled them all"...lol, but in a good way of course.
And it wasn't only the forces of evil who wanted to "rule the world", but also people who thought they had a God-given right to do so...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Century
...and who thought they were better than everybody else...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
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@AlshainFR Yes, in the "little world" of the average Joe, Jack, Fritz, Alaine, Igor, and Guisseppe, it's a small world, with many emotional aspects...
The big picture...and how the little piece of the puzzle called "Mers el Kebir" fit into it.
The worst choice of all was ignoring the reality of how Europe had been "set up" to protect the British Empire.
The British Empire was actually protected in Europe by uniquely "balancing powers" on the continent.
[Search for London's Policy of Balance of Power]
For more than 100 years, "balancing powers" on the continent, kept these powers opposing each other, unable to divert military or economic resources to affront the status of the British Empire as the nr.1 in the world...
According to the logic of this policy, completely ruining a power on the continent, would lead to an imbalance, which could then be directed at the British Empire...
Therefore, totally destroying a continental power or dissing it, was neither wise nor in GB 's interests.
Concerning WW2.
Firstly, a 100% collapse of Germany as a power...was a dream condition for communism (Moscow) and US corporatism (Washington D.C.).
After WW2, there was no strong Central Europe to "balance out" the rise of communism (Moscow).
France broken, still angered by Mers el Kebir and slipped under Washington's wings.
Germany = alles kaputt
Eastern Europe = overrun by the commies...
GB was no longer the boss.
Nothing left to "balance" with...
Sorreee. That's just how it goes if your eternal "balancing" games on the continent go south...
Washington got tired of bailing GB out, and decided to become the "balancer of powers" in Europe herself.
And down went the British Empire too...
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