re: WW1 history buffs: Good book for the library

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He argues that Germany had no global war aims, that she would have certainly won the war without first British, then American intervention, but would have done little more than establish the same type of European trade union that modern Germany is rapidly creating. And given what Britain gave up, in terms of Empire, lives, and economic retardation, the war must therefore be seen as a complete waste in British terms.

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Here's my problem with Ferguson's argument. Say Britain stays out of the war, there is no guarantee that Britain and Germany don't ultimately clash at some point in the future. Contrary to what Ferguson argues, Germany did have global ambitions. Bismarck worked to craft an overseas empire in the late 1800s and Kaiser Wilhelm II launched Germany's ambitious naval arms build-up that the British rightfully saw as a challenge to their long-held naval supremacy. In many ways, the British-German naval arms race was one of the most important sources of tension in pre-1914 Europe and that tension would not have gone away if Britain had stayed out of the war. If anything, it would have gotten worse because Britain would have been isolated from the continent. That situation would almost make an Anglo-German war inevitable. Never mind the fact that although British democracy was still limited, Germany was essentially an autocratic state. Living in a Europe dominated by an autocratic and militaristic Germany, no matter the level of prosperity, would be unpleasant. That's the big difference between 1914 Germany and 2000 Germany, as well. In modern Europe nobody has to worry about the possibility of German armies marching down the highways of the continent.

Ferguson looks at the war largely in terms of economic costs and they are immense. But he doesn't fully understand the nature of international competition in the early 20th century, the importance of prestige, or the Kaiser's near obsession with blatantly challenging the British naval supremacy. And most importantly, he completely ignores the likelihood that a German victory would have simply produced another world war down the road; one that would probably have rivaled what we got from 1939-1945.