Why Germany Nearly Won: A New History of the Second World War in Europe by Steven D. Mercatante

Author:Steven D. Mercatante
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781442236868
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2014-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Bismarck Unleashes Anglophobia

The Times, 19 October 1879 (Lord Salisbury, later PM, was at this time Foreign Secretary)

It was a marriage proposal born out of geopolitical logic.

Russia threatened Britain in India; it threatened Austria in the Balkans; it threatened Prussia in the Baltic. Together, the three of them could face it down anywhere on Earth.

Invincible

Intercontinental

Prussian Army &

Invincible

checkmate for

combined German/ +

=

Austro-Hungarian

Royal Navy

Russia in Balkans,

manpower

Baltic, Black Sea,

India...

Then, in the general election of April 1880, the British shocked everyone (including Queen Victoria) by throwing Disraeli out and handing power to the liberal William Gladstone, who loathed Bismarck and vice-versa.

Bismarck’s plans lay in ruins. The very day the British election results became known, he sent his envoys racing to St Petersburg in a frantic damage-limitation exercise. He now switched to a deliberate policy of anglophobic colonialism. This would placate at least some of the National Liberals, who’d long demanded colonies. Bismarck had always said no to them in the past for fear of entanglements that might upset his European chess-games.

121

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