The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [133]
Large standing armies impoverish the people.—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
At a fundamental level, Germany was a land power. She beat France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871 rather easily and obtained Alsace Loraine from France as a result. Germany’s population was outpacing the population of France, and Germany’s industry out produced France in key economic areas. France recognized these facts, which were terrifying the French government and people.
Germany needed to rethink copying Great Britain as its strategy for gaining world power. Enjoying a central position so as to benefit from trade with France, England, Russia, Central Europe, and others, Germany could grow her economy without preparing for war at sea or an aggressive war on land. Germany could position herself to gain allies rather than cause others to seek treaties to isolate her. Germany’s aggressive Prussian military heritage impaired her in the international arena since Prussia’s renown was its formidable army.[156] Had Germany chosen to spend money on industrial infrastructure rather than warships it would end Britain’s worries about German sea power. Britain would have no pressing reason to ally with France. If Germany constructed defensive lines and reduced the size of her army France could have relaxed, and alliances with Russia would be unnecessary. By befriending the nations around her Germany’s economic power could grow immeasurably, and Europe—and the world—would benefit owing to no arms race and the positive influence of a good trading partner. All this is speculation, because Germany would challenge France and Britain for world power and prestige with appalling results for Western Europe and the world.
France decided its best protection against Germany was alliances, especially with England and Russia. Once France secured the alliance with Russia, Germany was facing a two-front war. Otto von Bismarck, Germany’s leader for years, made it a point to keep his nation from encirclement by co-joined enemies; however, by early 1900 Bismarck was gone, and the new German leader, Kaiser Wilhelm, was irresponsible in foreign policy. By allowing Bismarck’s alliances to ebb away he gave France the opening it needed to gain an alliance with Russia, proving again that heredity and competence are not synonymous.
England also became an informal ally of France. This was most unusual, in that Britain and France were consistently at war with one another for over four hundred years. From before Agincourt (1415) to Waterloo (1812), England and France fought over ownership of Europe and the world. Even in the late 1800s, the antagonism remained strong, particularly over colonial issues. Nonetheless, in 1900 French policy changed, as did English policy, and the two became informal allies. The man behind this change, and probably the man who saved France from conquest in WW I, was the Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, Theophile Déclassé. For years Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister of England, had been trying to hammer out an alliance with the Germans to forward England’s policy of containing Russia. Failing at that endeavor, he managed to gain an alliance with Japan to limit Russian expansion in the far east. Déclassé saw his chance after Salisbury finally soured on his chances with Germany. The French Foreign Minister knew the major difficulty with an alliance was the colonial competition with the British, however, he saw that the real issue was the fate of only two areas, Morocco and Egypt. Déclassé negotiated a deal where Egypt went to England and Morocco went to France. The deal was cut and finalized on April 7, 1904. Germany objected because she had an interest