That's largely the excuse that British propaganda used to justify their increasingly hostile behavior towards Germany. See the book "Sleepwalkers". Germany was trying to be friendly to Britain it was Britain who pushed them away and targeted them since they were economically threatening. The fallout really started during the Boer Wars when the British power elite targeted the Boer Republic for annexation due to the diamond and gold mines of South Africa and desire to dominate the trade routes to Asia via the Mediterranean and South Africa. Germany made the mistake of making a play of being the protectors of the Boers and speaking up for their commercial interests in the region and were threatened with a blockade that would collapse their economy if they dared get in Britain's way. Immense amounts of money and resources were at stake and the British imperialists got very upset that the increasingly powerful Germany was getting in the way of their expansion plans.
The final straw for them was the Berlin-Baghdad RR, which incidentally started in the 1890s:
en.wikipedia.org
As you saw from my earlier post about the Great Game, the British had major designs on the Ottoman Empire and the RR and German-Ottoman relationship put the kibosh on that. Then there was the competition for control of ME oil resources that were suspected in the Ottoman Empire; Daniel Yergin's "The Prize" about the history of competition for oil in the 20th century is a fantastic resource for explaining part of the origins of conflicts throughout the century. Not only that but it would have given Germany a route around the Suez Canal and would break the British lock on trade routes to Asia, which is talked about in the article above.
Britain really hates not being able to be in control and saw Germany as slowly breaking down their dominance in the game of empire, which would only continue as the German economy developed and Britain's increasingly financialized economy started to fall further behind the main industrial power of Europe; Britain had the disadvantage of having industrialized first, so had an outdated industrial sector while Germany had industralized late, so had arguably the world's most innovative industrial sector and showing no signs of faltering in the increasing industrial gap between them. If economic development were an arms race Britain was losing rather badly, something that would go into overdrive if the Germans could develop the right non-European relationships and empire to export to.
British bankers and imperialists (one and the same really) realized their relative wealth was going to falloff in the future unless something drastic was done, which led to a rapid shift in British policy as quite a few of those guys were actually in parliament and had powerful friends like Grey, who engineered the British turn against Germany:
en.wikipedia.org
Incidentally his tenure as foreign secretary coincided with the start of the so-called naval race with Germany:
en.wikipedia.org
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Note they said match, not exceed. They were just trying to keep up with British naval developments, which incidentally Britain seemingly had no problem with when France and Russia started doing the same thing.
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The reason they were worried about a 'Copenhagen' is because Britain actually threatened such during the 2nd Boer War and were planning on using their navy to blockade Germany since 1905, before the naval race actually even started:
So British planners were the ones who decided that they needed to keep a massive lead over Germany, who they viewed as the 'only probably enemy' and the key instrument to fight them was maintaining a massive naval lead. They put the crosshairs on Germany despite acknowledging that German intent might be benign, but that was irrelevant to Britain war plans.
Meanwhile the Germans didn't even realize that they were playing into the hands of the British war faction:
So despite the German naval bill not changing the relative size of the two navies before the bill passed, Britain decided it was threatening anyway because it conflicted with their potential war plans against Germany.
Instead of reducing naval construction to free up money for social programs as planned the war faction in Britain instead used the German naval bill as a reason for even more military spending:
As things got more tense the Germans were the ones who tried to ease the tensions, not Britain:
And once again Grey shows up to push for increased tensions with Germany even as Germany was making an extremely reasonable offer.
So I'm not seeing where Germany could have avoided conflict or even allied with Britain, since every effort they made to play nice with Britain was rebuffed from at least 1900 onwards.
Nope. There was zero chance that the Germans could have allied or even remained friendly with Britain unless they completely submitted their foreign policy to British demands. They actively tried in the late 1897-1901 and Britain rebuffed them and shortly there after declared a naval arms race against Germany.
Your entire post is extremely one-sided, to the point of becoming almost satirical. I understand that there is a correction underway regarding the "Germany wanted WAR!!!" narrative that has dominated for too long. Indeed, I was never a fan of putting the blame for the war altogether on Germany (either explicitly or explicitly). To make a point, one may even credibly compile a whole thesis serving exclusively to give evidence of Anglo-French war guilt.
This does not mean, however, that blithely leaning towards the "evil Anglo" narrative is any more reasonable than uncritically believing that Germany was evil.
Unfortunately, your post is precisely an example of that lamentable over-correction. You consequently cherry-pick examples, ascribe the wort motives to every British decision, but the most noble ones to every German decision, and utterly drop the context when it comes to many events and issues. The result is an utterly warped picture. A falsehood, woven together of highly selective truths mixed with extremely dubious interpretations.
To you, what Britain claims is, by default, "largely the excuse that British propaganda used to justify their increasingly hostile behavior". But what Germany says must be the truth. So when Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg ended the naval arms race, we must uncritically accept that this was an overture of peace. The fact that the German economy was stalling and Germany simply realised it couldn't
afford to keep up the arms race is happily ignored. German claims must just be taken at face value, while British claims are always suspect. hat's a double standard, my friend.
Similarly, you happily take Wilhelm's words on the relative size of the navies as gospel truth, but ignore that on several other occasions, Wilhelm had explicitly said -- to Edward's face -- that he would one day have a navy to rival that of Britain.
In the same vein, you suggest that Britain was somehow disproportionally worrried about German naval ambitions, but the fact is: only Wilhelm explicitly made it a point that his navy was intended to rival the Royal Navy. France and Russia never gave such indications. The British worry wasn't unreasonable. Wilhelm clearly had designs, and they could well be dangerous ones. Nor was Britain somehow alone in reaching this conclusion.
You appear to absurdly blame Britain for being worried and angry about Germany making a play of being the protectors of the Boers. That's not an unreasonable response. Moreover, German interests in Southern Africa were quite recent, and were also purely a result of Wilhelm seeking his "place in the sun".
Which brings us to the centre point of this whole debate.
@Scottty argued that Britain targeted Germany because Britain didn't want to allow a contental hegemon. I have disputed this. You... actually prove my point for me, albeit unintentionally. Because
nothing you talk about is
remotely related to continental hegemony.
Germany agressively sought to expand its naval power, with the (uniquely) explicit aim of rivaling Britain in particular. Germany sought colonies, where it had previously been a power aloof of that game, and in fact a respected mediator. Germany involved itself in the foreign affairs of other powers, with no excuse.
Were there Francophile elements in Britain? Certainly. Were there British politicians who were overly eager for war against Germany? Certainly. But were they fated to be a majority? Certainly
not. Germany needlessly turned Britain into an enemy by a senseless sequence of poorly considered actions. Because did the British worry about the German army? No. Did they worry about Germany's continental ambitions? No.
Therefore, the thesis that I dispute -- that Britain was fated to be Germany's foe because Germany was looking for continental hegemony -- is simply false. Britain became Germany's foe because Germany took step after bloody step to
make it so. All Germany would have to do to gain permanent peace was to spend all the OTL naval investments on the army; seek no colonies; and don't oppose British war aims in far-flung corners of the Earth that Germany shouldn't give a damn about anyway.
You call this, I suppose, "completely submitting their foreign policy to British demands". But what does this leave Germany free to do? Well...
become continental hegemon. Which what Britain supposedly wouldn't ever allow. But clearly, that was never the reason for enmity at all.
Britain and Germany could easily be allies. One rules the waves, the other rules the land. One has the strongest army on the planet, the other has the strongest navy. They have their own spheres, and no conflicting interests at all. It makes perfect sense. The fundamental reason why it didn't happen isn't that Britain is exclusively dominated by scheming psychopaths. It's that Wilhelm II was obsessed with goals that
did directly conflict with British interests. How foolish. How pointless. What did some stupid colonies ever provide for Germany? What did those damn ships ever gain the Kaiser? And what the fuck did the Boers ever do for the Germans?
In a world where Wilhelm was born stable and competent, the Germans and the English could have shaken hands, like Blücher and Wellington, while celebrating in a conquered Paris.