Recently there has arisen a debate, primarily at the instigation of historian Niall Ferguson, that the British would have been better off staying out of the First World War. I find this contention very odd and completely unconvincing. Having thoroughly scoured the diplomatic exchanges and military dispositions before the war, I hope to shed some light on this problem lest too many are lulled by Ferguson's flawed assertions.
A subject that comes up a lot in relation to the Second World War is the fate of the French fleet. After France's defeat in 1940 the British were alarmed that the French fleet might have been seized by the Germans, for possible use against them.
Admiral François Darlan assured the British Government that he would never allow this to happen.
Even so Churchill was taking no chances and ordered the execution of Operation Catapult, the elimination of the French fleet by one way or another.
All French vessels in British or British-controlled harbours were boarded. While attacks were made on the incomplete Richelieu at Dakar, and most famously the French ships under Admiral Marcel Gensoul riding at anchor at Mers-El-Kebir were fired upon by the British under Admiral Sir James Somerville.
Though not all French ships were neutralised, this sufficed to largely remove them as a threat to the United Kingdom. The remaining major units of the French Navy were scuttled by Admiral Jean de Laborde when the Germans attempted to seize them after Operation Anton, thereby fulfilling Darlan's promise to Churchill in 1940.
De Laborde famously yelled to the Germans as they raced down the quay "you are too late, Monsieurs!" At which point the French ships slipped under the waves.
But while this receives much attention in histories relating to the Second World War, this factor is largely overlooked in regards to the First World War, and the French Navy is all important for understanding Britain's decision to enter the First World War against Germany.
Prime Minister Herbert Asquith's Ministry used the German invasion of Belgium as the pretext to declare war on Germany, but in reality it was not Belgium that the British were worried about, but France.
Prior to the launching of the HMS Dreadnought, Britain was supreme on the world's oceans with no real challenge. In 1906 Germany's navy was weaker than France or Russia's. But when the British started the race over again by making all of their own pre-dreadnought battleships obsolete, of which they possessed an abundance, the Germans saw their chance.
Now many people believe that the German Navy pushed the British into war against Germany, this is true to a large degree, but not quite in the way they think. Already the British had aligned against Germany during the Morocco Crisis in 1904, and the Entente had been signed that year. A full two years before the Dreadnought was launched and before the German naval challenge.
Since dates don't lie, and Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz himself stated the purpose of his fleet with his "risk theory," namely that his intention was to make the German fleet so strong that even if Britain defeated it, she would have been fatally weakened anyway, it is fair to conclude that Germany's fleet was intended to unravel the Franco-British association of 1904 by making it too expensive for Britain to fight Germany, and thus forcing the British into adopting neutrality in the event of a renewed Franco-German conflict. Or in other words, it was meant to prevent war between Britain and Germany rather than cause it.
But the strategy was flawed for two reasons.
Firstly, the Germans did not take into account their own reluctance to fight and lose. The Germans proved unwilling to sacrifice their fleet in order to fatally weaken the British for somebody else's gain.
Secondly, they did not factor into their calculations Britain's determination to maintain superiority in the North Sea nor in Britain's diplomatic initiatives to counteract their strategic withdrawal from elsewhere.
A caveat to Germany's challenge was that Britain had to increasingly abandon the outer oceans and make her empire vulnerable. So long as the German Navy existed the British could not leave their home waters, which, in theory, would allow rivals around the globe to strike her empire with impunity. No doubt this was another intention of Tirpitz's.
By 1912 this was putting immense pressure on the British Admiralty, who proposed a meeting with the Committee for Imperial Defence (CID) and the top ministers in the civil administration at Malta;
"The heavily attended meeting opened on July 4, 1912, in Malta. It began with Asquith asking Churchill to go over his proposals for naval dispositions. Churchill kept to his earlier proposals, for the most part. He proposed, with Admirality support, to maintain a superiority of 60 percent over the Germans in the North Sea. Because that requirement required so many of the ships and men in service with the Royal Navy, Churchill argued that it was impossible to keep any kind of battle squadron in the Mediterranean that could stand up to the Austro-Italian combination.
The North Sea's voracious appetite for ships and sailors from the Royal Navy continued to alter how the British could deploy their ships. Despite having the largest navy in the world, the British were increasingly constrained in where they could send those ships because of the very real threat posed by the increasingly powerful German navy. The threat pulled ships first from the Pacific. There, British policymakers compensated with diplomatic efforts, allying with Japan and Russia, smoothing relations with the United States, and calling on the aid of the Dominions, particularly Australia and New Zealand.
However, the pull of the North Sea continued to demand more ships, while the Austrians and Italians began their naval race. The Mediterranean was even more valuable to the British Empire than the Pacific, and thus needed to be protected. Since the ships were not available, nor could they be built any faster despite the best efforts of the Admirality, CID, and other British planners, a solution had to be found. Turning to the Dominion most likely to commit to an expanded naval presence other than those who already had, Canada, did not produce the hoped-for results of more money, men, and ships. In order to serve this severe problem, the British would have to turn to the other tool in their arsenal: diplomacy." - Jon Henderson, "Crisis in the Mediterranean: Naval Competition and Great Power Politics 1904-1914."
What Professor Henderson is saying is that Britain had to retreat from everywhere but the North Sea. The first sea to be abandoned was the Pacific, where Britain covered her position by her alliance with Japan. Soon the British had withdrawn from the eastern Atlantic, where her interests were defended by a close relationship with the United States.
But at last she had been compelled to withdraw from the Mediterranean, the second most important position in her maritime communications. Even more dangerous, there were other powerful navies in the Mediterranean, two of which, Austria and Italy, were officially allied with Germany.
This effectively meant that Britain was abandoning her lifeline through that sea to the mercy of Austria and Italy. Either of these powers could have easily struck at Britain's position in Egypt, cut the Suez Canal, and given Germany a route to India that was much shorter, and therefore faster, than Britain's alternative route around the Cape of Good Hope.
Such a development could be very serious for Britain. Therefore, in order to safeguard her interests in the region, which she could no longer do with her own ships, she made recourse to her late policy of recruiting allies whose ships could replace the now absent British.
By the end of July, 1912, Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admirality had agreed to the Anglo-French Naval Convention, and the basis of this agreement was to be one of the key reasons the British entered the war on the side of France.
By the terms of the Anglo-French Naval Convention, which the British insisted was non-binding, though in reality the situation on the ground tended to make it so, the British and French fleets decided upon a delegation of responsibility.
To counter the growing threat of the German fleet, the British felt obliged to concentrate all of their warships in the North Sea. This gave them a comfortable superiority over the Germans in the same area. The British also pledged to prevent the German fleet from striking the northern and western coasts of France, in addition to protecting their own coasts.
In return for this, the French fleet accepted responsibility in the Mediterranean, where the French Atlantic Fleet at Brest was soon transferred. France pledged to discharge both her own and Britain's interests commonly in the Med, freeing up all of Britain's battleships to return to Scapa in the North Sea.
What this means is that Britain could not realistically allow France to be defeated by Germany. For henceforth Britain's own position in the Mediterranean was dependent upon the survival of France.
If Britain denuded her forces in the North Sea in order to send a portion to the Mediterranean in the event of French defeat, her margin of superiority over Germany in the North Sea would accordingly diminish. The British would have to choose between losing the Med or potentially losing the North Sea. The only way they could retain security in both was by virtue of France's assistance as per the agreement of July, 1912.
There were other considerations in addition. The French protected the British position in Egypt, but they more widely represented the Allies' naval power in the whole region. The primary power most particularly influenced by this naval combination was Italy.
Italy was formally allied with Austria-Hungary and Germany, bound by treaty to come to Germany's aid should Germany be attacked by France. Which side Italy was going to join depended on a number of factors, for the ever-slippery Italians could weasel out of treaty obligations by providing their own interpretation of the clause specifying "attack."
The most important of these was in regards to who could harm the Italians the most. So long as France remained in the game, with her fleet docked at Toulon in great superiority over the Italians in distant Taranto, together with the commanding French position in the Maritime Alps and Corsica, this was always going to be France.
Therefore the Italians declared neutrality immediately upon the outbreak of hostilities, rather than joining their allies, as that would have exposed them to French retaliation. It seems Italy was waiting for France to be eliminated rapidly, just as Mussolini was to do in the Second World War. When this did not materialise because of France's miraculous victory on the Marne, the Italians swung the other way around and joined France against Germany in the spring of 1915.
So the picture we're presented with is that a lightning victory over France by Germany would have left the British naked in the Mediterranean, which they had all but abandoned before the war. In all likelihood the Italians would then have joined Austria and Germany, as Austria would thereupon become the greatest danger to Italy by virtue of her commanding position in the Dolomites and the Julian Alps.
If, on top of this, the French fleet were seized by the victorious Germans, the British world position would collapse like a house of cards. With nothing in the Med; the Italians, Austrians, and Germans could sail across the azure sea and seize the barely defended Egypt from the British.
The loss of Egypt would mean the loss of the Suez Canal. Communications between India and Britain would be severed, save by the long way around the Cape of Good Hope.
With the Ottoman Empire in the German camp, the Turks and Germans could enter Persia. Persia was German friendly and may have even welcomed the Germans in.
With German forces in Persia, small scale attacks could be made against either the British in India or the Russians in Central Asia.
Germany was much favoured here given the anti-imperialist appeal of the German Government. The Germans in fact attempted to raise the Muslim world against Britain and Russia. This was largely unsuccessful. But if German troops had actually showed up in India and Central Asia, this could have been another story altogether.
It was said that the British did not fear the Russians invading India during the Great Game, not in themselves. What the British feared was the sensation that a Russian army would create among the subject peoples. If they rose in revolt, the Russians could stiffen them and throw the British out on a wave of rebellion.
This is precisely what they feared Germany doing during the First World War. Germany had hoped to use the Ottoman Empire to drive the British from Egypt, cut their link with India, and strike at the Raj through Persia. This did not happen. The reason it did not was because of the French fleet.
Because of the French fleet, the Italians joined the Allies and their powerful squadrons were removed from Germany's resources.
Because of the French fleet, the Austrians were unable to escape from their Adriatic prison. Especially after the French, already stronger than the Austrians by themselves, were joined by the Italians, who were much closer in Taranto and Brindisi, effectively locking the Austrians inside the narrow sea.
Because of the French fleet none of the Allies' colonial possessions were ever seriously jeopardised during the war, while they could pick at the Ottoman Empire like vultures and also put pressure on Greece, which otherwise would have likely joined the Central Powers, being something of a weaker Italy in many respects.
Britain's position around the globe can therefore be seen to have been entirely dependent on the French Fleet at Toulon remaining on her side.
This was powerfully demonstrated in the Second World War. But fortunately for Britain things had changed by then.
The most important alteration was that the German fleet was now gone. The British could deploy their main strength to the Med whereas they could not do so in 1914. Thus they were able to make good the removal of the French, which they'd have been hard-pressed to do in 1914.
Another major change was that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was eliminated. The Austro-Hungarian Navy was solidly constructed and efficiently led. The Austrians would likely have been a better asset than the Italians were, but there were no Austrian Fleets in 1940.
Finally, the Ottoman Empire was gone and the new Turkish Republic did not join with Germany in 1940 as the Ottoman Empire had in 1914. This effectively blocked Germany's threat to the Middle-East.
Even so, the loss of France and the defection of Italy put severe strain on the British even without a German fleet menacing the Home Islands. This illuminates much in relation to the previous conflict.
The chances of Britain being able to despatch enough warships to bolster their position against the Austrian and Italian fleets in the Mediterranean AND still be able to adequately defend Great Britain against the Germans in the North Sea were about zero in 1914.
So we at last arrive to our conclusion. Britain could not tolerate the defeat of France in 1914 because her own survival depended on France. Paradoxically, the Germans appear to have made war with Britain inevitable by building their fleet. It seems they had intended to make it so dangerous to fight them that the British would back down from doing so.
This may even have worked. If not for the Anglo-French Naval Convention of 1912. By this convention the British were unwittingly trapped into coming to France's assistance because they themselves could not survive France's defeat. The British without realising it had shackled themselves to France, and when France fell into trouble she pulled Britain down with her.
None of these frightful naval combinations were created against Britain. India was not threatened, not even Egypt was seriously threatened. This was thanks to the French Navy. And that the French Navy was able to stay in the game was thanks largely to the fact that Britain rushed to France's defence in the summer of 1914. France survived because Britain would not allow her to fall. Britain could not allow her to fall.
French minister Raymond Poincaré's diplomacy in this regard was brilliant, extremely shrewd. The British imagined he was doing them a favour, and in many ways he was. But he was also forcing them to return the favour whether they wanted to or not. They naively thought that freeing their hands in the Mediterranean would allow them to maintain strict neutrality had they so desired, and allow them to avoid any European wars.
It was only later that the other implication dawned on them. That without France nobody was covering their bases in the Med. This lead Churchill and Foreign Secretary Lord Edward Grey to frantically argue for the entry of Great Britain into the war when Germany invaded Belgium, which was eventually achieved as the entire Cabinet realised what had been done.
The map shows the state of affairs on the outbreak of war. In blue are Allied bases and fleets, in red are the Central Powers. In yellow is Italy, the wild card. In purple are the straits.
From the map one can perceive that, on paper, the Russians were a powerful addition to the Allied naval strength. But because they were locked in the Baltic by Germany's command of Jutland, and locked in the Black Sea by Ottoman control of the Bosphorus, the Russian ships could not actually be added to Allied strength in the North Sea or Mediterranean, since they could not physically enter either sea.
This threw the entire burden on France and Britain. Britain's Grand Fleet was based on Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands off the northeast coast of Scotland, from which position it kept watch on the Germans at Wilhelmshaven across the water.
France's fleets were based between Bizerta in French North Africa and her main base at Toulon in southern France, from which position she was able to threaten the Italian coasts immediately opposite, and to keep watch on the Austrian fleet at Pola on the Istrian Peninsula.
The Italian fleet at Taranto in Apulia ultimately joined the Allies, likely on account of its inferiority vis-a-vis the French fleet, and its inability to adequately protect its coasts against a French attack, given that the French at Toulon were much closer to Genoa, and even to Rome, than the Italians were. And once the Italians joined, the Austrians and Germans were trapped in the North Sea and the Adriatic just as the Russians were trapped in the Baltic and Black Seas.
Had the Germans defeated France as swiftly as they had hoped, and had the Italians consequently joined the Central Powers, the entire British fleet would have been forced to watch the Germans at Wilhelmshaven indefinitely, while the Italian and Austrian fleets ran amok in the Mediterranean, and perhaps beyond.
This might easily have resulted in the end of the British Empire.
- Kaiser
