[Entwickler]

This aligns with what I've read in Robert K Massie's "Dreadnought". It feels odd to title the book "Bismarck's War" and then come to that lesson. It should really have been titled "Wilhelm's Lunacy".

Wilhelm's obsession with a massive fleet to compete with England lost any hopes of forming an alliance with them and resulted in Germany being seen as a threat. Having a large fleet puts you at odds against England no matter what - that is their last line of defense. It's interesting to think what might have happened had Germany abandoned any aims on a massive navy and focused all those resources on it's army instead. My hunch is no mis-alignement with England and a very different looking world today if that happened.

[jcranmer]

> It's interesting to think what might have happened had Germany abandoned any aims on a massive navy and focused all those resources on it's army instead. My hunch is no mis-alignement with England and a very different looking world today if that happened.

I don't think so. The biggest mistake Germany made was letting its alliance with Russia lapse in 1891, in favor of trying to snag an alliance with the UK, which wasn't interested in one (Britain favored a policy of neutrality on the continent). This leads France to seize the opportunity and ally with Russia in 1894. A series of colonial issues leads the UK to realize around 1900 or so that not having any allies wasn't exactly a good thing, especially when you've got lots of people you're butting heads against.

Wilhelm was an absolute wrecking ball when it came to diplomacy. His tendency to show support for anyone fighting the British in colonial ventures in the late 1890s (especially the Boer War) couldn't have helped any chance for a UK-German alliance. It's only after tentative attempts to come to an agreement break down in 1901 that the naval arms race actually becomes an issue in UK-Germany relations: indeed, it's not really until dreadnoughts make the existing fleets (lopsidedly in favor of the UK) obsolete that German navy buildup actually poses a threat to the UK. The treaties the UK does enter into are less military alliances than they are colonial tension defusing, and Wilhelm's tendency to do the opposite would have likely made any formal UK-Germany treaty rather short-lived.

The naval arms race mostly takes place after the UK-German treaty attempts ended, and redirecting that money to a larger army would probably have pushed UK even harder into the Franco-Russian camp: during its period of continental isolation, its greatest fear is that of a second Napoleon, who conquers most of Europe and shuts the British out of it. A stronger German army makes that look more plausible, and aligning against Germany helps avert that catastrophe.

[pyrale]

> I don't think so. The biggest mistake Germany made was letting its alliance with Russia lapse in 1891

The alliance lapse was forced by then, the issue is that Russia and Austria-Hungary, the two historic German allies, were competing for influence over the Balkans. Bismarck, rather than taking a side or remaining neutral, tried to become the arbiter of that dispute, and led a duplicitous diplomacy towards Russia. That was largely due to his attempt to freeze Europe in a diplomatic state that benefited Germany, rather than acknowledging the changing nature of diplomacy and trying to find new allies and a new balance.

By 1891, German diplomats were faced with a tough choice: either continuing a two-faced policy which was doomed anyway, since Russia was not stupid, or acknowledging that and letting the alliance lapse.