In reality this really was a world war and what happened ın France was not necessarily the most important thing. The war began after all as squabbling amongst the imperial powers in the Balkans as to who would get the scraps when the Ottomans were kicked out of Europe. The Ottoman Empire of course was kicked out of Europe and destroyed, wıth Britain and France expanding imperial control of the “Middle East”, and via Sykes Picot and the Balfour Declaration ensuring that the Middle East remained peaceful and democratic for centuries with results that can be seen even today if you turn on your TV sets.

After the commencement of hostilities the Allies immediately invaded German colonies world wide (e.g Togoland and Tsintao): Germany never got them back. Hence the reason the British and French Empires expanded after the War.

Incidentally below is a map that shows the geographical expanse of the Allies versus the Central Powers at the commencement of the wars. It puts the balance of power in 1914 into perspective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WWI-re.png

Actually, it could.

There were very strong anti-liberal, nationalist, and imperialist views in Wilhelmine Germany. The point has been made that a rapid German victory over France, followed by success in the east against the Russians, would have strengthened those views and the people supporting these views remarkably. Even fairly early in the First World War, some German war plans envisaged the ethnic cleansing of large parts of central Europe and their resettlement by Germans.

A conflict like the Second World War, with an imperialistic and nationalistic Germany waging war against the rest of the world, may have been inevitable. Germany’s defeat in the First World War might have been necessary in order to keep it from starting with the domination of continental Europe.

If we’re going for a counterfactual scenario, it’s definitely

“Pretty near all of them are acutely aware of an obvious truth that doesn’t seem to have surfaced here: when two states go to war, at least one of them has made a serious mistake. Why the US, recently, is so often the one to have made a mistake is not a question I can answer.”

The fundamental cause of war is a disagreement on relative power – one side thinks it has the power to make the other do something, and the other thinks it has not. But power – despite its ubiquity in human affairs – is a complex, unquantifiable, slippery shifting proposition (which is why economists spend so much time ignoring/evading it). Indeed most human social institutions can be thought of as attempts to make power more visible, more easily accounted, more legible.

War is about not just what power you have, but what you might mobilise, and often about what counts as power anyway. It’s the realm of raw power, untied. So military force counts, but so does political cohesion, financial stamina, willpower, the reliability of allies, the likely reaction of neutrals and much more. Each side will have a better idea of its own power than of the others, but even one’s own resources will often be opaque or unreckonable (will the Social Democrats support the war? How reliable are the Hungarians?). War is a reality check on relative power.

The US so often makes mistakes because it still thinks that the decisive forms of power are military and economic. Its adversaries have deliberately sought to minimise the effects of these forms, and shift the ground to where they have more strength – local political allegiance, religious mobilisation, tactics aimed at producing a steady stream of casualties and tying down US forces rather than taking resources. The US might do better to back off rather than see the ground shift further.

What?! As far as I remember Bush and Blair got reelected, and have done pretty well for themselves since.

the war will cost the US government $2-3 trillion. A fair chunk of that is going to come out of profits. So, US capitalists as a group are among the big losers from the war.

US capitalism is nothing without US hegemony, so no, the capitalists are very happy.

The British-French grand strategy at the beginning of the war — I am speaking of the politician’s view, ignoring the fanciful French military scenarios for battle — did not look for an immediate German collapse, but merely hoped that the Germans might be frustrated long enough for the Russians to mobilize and for the British to at least begin to raise an expeditionary force. The French seemed to hope that once the Russians and the British had come into the balance, that the allies would overmatch Germany materially, and Germany would negotiate a settlement.

In the event, that France did not collapse, was a very near thing indeed, and the outcome depended, crucially, on the Germans failing to understand certain details of how their own strategic and operational plan worked.

But, there was never a plausible scenario in which Germany collapsed militarily.

Once the initial German plan for a knockout blow against France failed, the incredibly bloody stalemate developed.

What ought to be curious is the inability, after 1914, of the Great Powers to arrive at a negotiated settlement, without a decisive military event.

One of the main uncertainties in war seems to turn on the inability (reluctance?) of those in possession of apparently great military power, to bring one to a timely dénouement, short of a dramatic and decisive climax in the contest of arms.

Reference an ideal, perfect liberal democracy, yes of course you are right in saying that neither France nor the UK were such in 1914. Was anywhere, then? Is anywhere, now?

Compared to even Germany, yes, they were very much more liberal and very much more democratic, weren’t they?

Reference an ideal, perfect liberal democracy, yes of course you are right in saying that neither France nor the UK were such in 1914. Was anywhere, then? Is anywhere, now?

Compared to even Germany, yes, they were very much more liberal and very much more democratic, weren’t they?

Pretty near all of them are acutely aware of an obvious truth that doesn’t seem to have surfaced here: when two states go to war, at least one of them has made a serious mistake. Why the US, recently, is so often the one to have made a mistake is not a question I can answer.

Pedantic point: not always more costly, occasional exception. Consider the Anglo-Zanzibari War, 9:02 am to 9:40 am, 24th August 1896: one British sailor wounded but recovered, associates of the ex-Sultan paid for naval ammunition expended.

Also, the wicked imperialist British abolished slavery in Zanzibar.

Incidentally neither the UK nor France were “liberal democracies” in 1914.