Why Did Britain Go to War?
Plan of Investigation
Thesis:
Why did Britain go to war? Between the late eighteen hundreds and late nineteen hundreds, England was described as being in “splendid isolation” from the rest of Europe until 1914. But why did Britain go to war? What rivalries were Britain involved and what treaties dragged her into the war? I need to look through the primary sources such as official reports, published interviews, addresses, and history textbook to gather facts; secondary sources from the internet will be needed as well in order to support British’s motivation of war.
Answer to Thesis:
The main reasons of why British go to war include navel race with Germany, alliance with France, and the “Scrap of Paper” event.
Main Body
Anglo-German Naval Race
By the end of the nineteenth century, Kaiser of Germany, Wilhelm II, embarked on worldpolitik to find “The place in the sun”. He possessed a large navy for Germany’s expansion of territories. According to the secretary of state of the German Imperial Naval Office, Alfred Von Tirpitz said, “For Germany the most dangerous naval enemy at present is England. It is also the enemy against which we most urgently require a certain measure of naval force as a political power factor.” (Steinberg) Germany, in order to reach her imperialism, has decided to build a fleet of battleships to rival the British Navy, however, when the British Dreadnaught was created in 1906; this made all previous battle ships inferior. Germany knew British was their only enemy that has better battleships ahead of them; hence started a competition of building Dreadnaughts that acts as a threat to British dominance of navy. The British were aware and decided to company the German rivalry, “That [Dreadnought] imposes upon us the necessity, of which we are now at the beginning… of rebuilding the whole of our fleet.”(Grey) As a result, by the beginning of World War One, the British constructed 29 dreadnaughts where Germans had 17. The naval race, in
Thesis:
Why did Britain go to war? Between the late eighteen hundreds and late nineteen hundreds, England was described as being in “splendid isolation” from the rest of Europe until 1914. But why did Britain go to war? What rivalries were Britain involved and what treaties dragged her into the war? I need to look through the primary sources such as official reports, published interviews, addresses, and history textbook to gather facts; secondary sources from the internet will be needed as well in order to support British’s motivation of war.
Answer to Thesis:
The main reasons of why British go to war include navel race with Germany, alliance with France, and the “Scrap of Paper” event.
Main Body
Anglo-German Naval Race
By the end of the nineteenth century, Kaiser of Germany, Wilhelm II, embarked on worldpolitik to find “The place in the sun”. He possessed a large navy for Germany’s expansion of territories. According to the secretary of state of the German Imperial Naval Office, Alfred Von Tirpitz said, “For Germany the most dangerous naval enemy at present is England. It is also the enemy against which we most urgently require a certain measure of naval force as a political power factor.” (Steinberg) Germany, in order to reach her imperialism, has decided to build a fleet of battleships to rival the British Navy, however, when the British Dreadnaught was created in 1906; this made all previous battle ships inferior. Germany knew British was their only enemy that has better battleships ahead of them; hence started a competition of building Dreadnaughts that acts as a threat to British dominance of navy. The British were aware and decided to company the German rivalry, “That [Dreadnought] imposes upon us the necessity, of which we are now at the beginning… of rebuilding the whole of our fleet.”(Grey) As a result, by the beginning of World War One, the British constructed 29 dreadnaughts where Germans had 17. The naval race, in