Comments by "Winston Smith" (@kryts27) on "Why Did The Germans Destroy Their Own Fleet After WW1? | Sinking the German Battle Fleet | Timeline" video.

  1. By scuttling the Grand Fleet of the Kaisherlich Marine, the Germans harmed least their principal opponent; the British Royal Navy. As the ownership of the vessels of the Grand Fleet were being squabbled over in Versailles, giving several German dreadnoughts to the French, Italians or Americans was not in the interest of the Royal Navy. So by scuttling their ships, the German sailors got the Royal Navy, more or less, off the hook.
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  2. Germany was not in a good geostratigic position in WW1, after the British Empire declared war on her as a result of the invasion of neutral Belgium (this was tactically to fulfill the Schlieffen Plan; an attempt to knock France out of the war early). As we know the Schlieffen Plan failed and then trench warfare ensued on land. At sea, Germany's geostrategic position was even worse as she was bottled up in the Baltic Sea and could not freely sail the North Sea because Britain was there. At that time, Britain was the largest sea power in the world. Somehow the Kaiser's political think tanks missed this geostrategic impasse risk by firstly building up a modern dreadnought navy (clearly to challenge the British and in the "prestige" of being a growing colonial power, particularly in Africa and in East Asia) and by declaring war against Russia and France in support of the ailing Austria-Hungarian Empire. The British may have remained usefully neutral in a general European war, had the Kaiser's powerful navy had not been there.
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