When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Everyone knows the story of Britain and Germany before 1914. Or at least, they think they do.Anglo-German relations following the Russo-Japanese War seemed bound to enter a period of hostility, enabled by the naval race which forced London to invest heavily in production and innovation, and produced the dreadnought as an unforeseen consequence. But this race to outbuild the other in warship construction did not lead automatically to the events of 1914. Indeed, many possibilities existed for the two rivals to patch things up.This was what the French truly feared, but as they prepared for a second showdown with Berlin in Morocco, the British appeared to stand by them. Was the British Cabinet entirely convinced that Germany was its enemy? Many thought so, but again, matters were not so clear cut. Even Kaiser Wilhelm's disastrous record in PR could not guarantee that these two nations, tied together by so many dynastic, religious, traditional and economic threads, would face each other on opposite sides of the ba