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Well, Prussian Imperialism went well until 1918. Quite a run, if you ask me. Not saying it was a good thing, but at the time it achieved Prussias goals. There

by hef19898 3y ago

Well, Prussian Imperialism went well until 1918. Quite a run, if you ask me. Not saying it was a good thing, but at the time it achieved Prussias goals. There is a tendency to paint one beligerent of any given war as evil and the other(s) as good. That didn't even work for WW1, it does for WW2, the evil side clearly is the axis. When looking closer so, no side in WW2 was truely good. On the allied side there was Stalins USSR, bombing of civilians and the like. On the Axis nothing to defend so, especially the Germans started a world war with a planned and intentional mass tenocide at its core fornno other reason than murdering all jews in Europe. 1870, and in 1914, things were different. War was still an accepted way of conducting state business. And those used to be way less devastating than WW1 turned out to be.

tristramb 3y ago
Prussian imperialism was failing from 1914 when they failed to reach Paris and force France to surrender. Moltke the Younger recognised this at the time, but it took 4 years for rest of the German High Command to see it, and for the Allies to get their act together. Even if the German spring offensive in 1918 had succeeded, it would have only pushed the British Army back across the Channel, it wouldn't have stopped the British naval blockade which was crippling Germany, nor would it have stopped the build-up of US troops in France.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Agree, Germany lost WW1 when they failed to capture Paris and kick France out of war. And they lost WW2 when the same happened with the USSR at Moscow. That being said, the Entente got their act together as fast as Germany and Austria did in WW1. Without means to break static defenses, the stalemate at the Western and Italian fronts was a certainty, in hindsight. Wars of movement, in the East during WW2 went rather well for Germany. Especially after the shipped Lenin there, but this isba whole bunch of different cans with different worms.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Too late to edit: The mobile war in the east in WW1 went well for the Germans. When they tried again in WW2, not so much.
pyrale 3y ago
It's a long discussion, but in my opinion, Imperial Germany suffered the same failure as the Napoleonic empire: a failure to acknowledge that their imperialism caused diplomatic tensions, and that they could not eat their lunch and keep their neighbours happy. Bismarck tried to freeze Europe in that situation, but that was unsustainable, and ultimately it failed and left Germany in a bad diplomatic situation when WW1 started. It's not about judging whether that particular was evil or not, it's about acknowledging that its diplomatic policy was doomed to fail.
- hef19898 3y ago
  It took a different Emperor, and chancellor and different treaties dor the Bismarck system to fail. And decades. For the time, it worked fine. The Bismarck had no sqy in adapting it, and there is no way to tell if would have been able to do so if he were allowed, can hardly be blamed on Bismarck. But I agree, Europe most likely was bound to blow up anyway. Bismarck at least tried to prevent that. Sure, most likely until he thought Prussia could win, but try, and succeed, he did. As much as he was a non-democrat, people got the Nobel Peace Price for less. I honestly have no idea why people paint Napoleon as a proto-Hitler (mostly Brits, which is strange since Britain defeated him) and Bismarck as some kind of either incompetent idiot or yet another stepping stone that got to WW2. I don't know, maybe those people mix up Bismarck and Hindenburg in their imagination, because the actually did put Hitler and the Nazis in power.
  - pyrale 3y ago
    > It took a different Emperor, and chancellor and different treaties dor the Bismarck system to fail. And decades. Bismarck left power in 1890, the Russian alliance officially died in 1891. That's not exactly a decade.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      But it took until 1914 for war to break out, didn't it?
- panick21_ 3y ago
JetSetWilly 3y ago
It works pretty well for WWI if you ask me. The axis powers were the aggressors invading their neighbours, that in itself is hugely significant - there's a massive difference between being a french soldier (fighting to stop an invader) and being a german one. On top of that, the axis powers committed huge atrocities in places like Belgium - murdering entire villages and so on. I genuinely don't understand this "moral relativist" outlook that has been applied since - it is pretty clear to me that the axis side were the evil ones, being both the aggressors and committing the major atrocities of the war.
- ginko 3y ago
  There were no axis powers in WWI. That's a WW2 term.
- hef19898 3y ago
  The Axis didn't exist in WW1, that was the Central Powers Germany, Austria and the Ottomans. You see how two of those didn't exist anymore during WW2? And the Entente, there were no Allies neither during WW1, included Japan and Italy. Go figure. And there is nothing morally relativist about stating the fact that the "guilt question" of WW1 is very, very different from WW2. The Versaille Treaty made that answer very simple, too simple and too one sided. Understably at the time for sure, but it doesn't hold up to proper analysis. Once the Balkan powder keg blew up, everyone declared war. Which at that time was custom, ever since people tend to just send armies right away. So whether or not you are a soldier fighting an enemy on his or your soil is an academic question, when you are officially at war. Do no, it doesn't even work remotely for WW1. Unless of course, you oversimplify things and have your judgement clouded by WW2.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    If anything Versaille was to weak and the answers not clear enough. German/Austrian alliance were clearly the aggressors and the German/Austrian were very aggressive unleash the armies into Serbia and Belgium. One can argue that Russia partially mobilized first (in the border region), but unlike in the German case, they were still willing to do diplomacy for a lot longer. Britain in fact did try to use diplomacy and Germany was the power preventing any such settlement.

tristramb 3y ago

Prussian imperialism was failing from 1914 when they failed to reach Paris and force France to surrender. Moltke the Younger recognised this at the time, but it took 4 years for rest of the German High Command to see it, and for the Allies to get their act together. Even if the German spring offensive in 1918 had succeeded, it would have only pushed the British Army back across the Channel, it wouldn't have stopped the British naval blockade which was crippling Germany, nor would it have stopped the build-up of US troops in France.

hef19898 3y ago
Agree, Germany lost WW1 when they failed to capture Paris and kick France out of war. And they lost WW2 when the same happened with the USSR at Moscow. That being said, the Entente got their act together as fast as Germany and Austria did in WW1. Without means to break static defenses, the stalemate at the Western and Italian fronts was a certainty, in hindsight. Wars of movement, in the East during WW2 went rather well for Germany. Especially after the shipped Lenin there, but this isba whole bunch of different cans with different worms.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Too late to edit: The mobile war in the east in WW1 went well for the Germans. When they tried again in WW2, not so much.

pyrale 3y ago

It's a long discussion, but in my opinion, Imperial Germany suffered the same failure as the Napoleonic empire: a failure to acknowledge that their imperialism caused diplomatic tensions, and that they could not eat their lunch and keep their neighbours happy. Bismarck tried to freeze Europe in that situation, but that was unsustainable, and ultimately it failed and left Germany in a bad diplomatic situation when WW1 started. It's not about judging whether that particular was evil or not, it's about acknowledging that its diplomatic policy was doomed to fail.

hef19898 3y ago
It took a different Emperor, and chancellor and different treaties dor the Bismarck system to fail. And decades. For the time, it worked fine. The Bismarck had no sqy in adapting it, and there is no way to tell if would have been able to do so if he were allowed, can hardly be blamed on Bismarck. But I agree, Europe most likely was bound to blow up anyway. Bismarck at least tried to prevent that. Sure, most likely until he thought Prussia could win, but try, and succeed, he did. As much as he was a non-democrat, people got the Nobel Peace Price for less. I honestly have no idea why people paint Napoleon as a proto-Hitler (mostly Brits, which is strange since Britain defeated him) and Bismarck as some kind of either incompetent idiot or yet another stepping stone that got to WW2. I don't know, maybe those people mix up Bismarck and Hindenburg in their imagination, because the actually did put Hitler and the Nazis in power.
- pyrale 3y ago
  > It took a different Emperor, and chancellor and different treaties dor the Bismarck system to fail. And decades. Bismarck left power in 1890, the Russian alliance officially died in 1891. That's not exactly a decade.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    But it took until 1914 for war to break out, didn't it?
panick21_ 3y ago

JetSetWilly 3y ago

It works pretty well for WWI if you ask me. The axis powers were the aggressors invading their neighbours, that in itself is hugely significant - there's a massive difference between being a french soldier (fighting to stop an invader) and being a german one. On top of that, the axis powers committed huge atrocities in places like Belgium - murdering entire villages and so on. I genuinely don't understand this "moral relativist" outlook that has been applied since - it is pretty clear to me that the axis side were the evil ones, being both the aggressors and committing the major atrocities of the war.

ginko 3y ago
There were no axis powers in WWI. That's a WW2 term.
hef19898 3y ago
The Axis didn't exist in WW1, that was the Central Powers Germany, Austria and the Ottomans. You see how two of those didn't exist anymore during WW2? And the Entente, there were no Allies neither during WW1, included Japan and Italy. Go figure. And there is nothing morally relativist about stating the fact that the "guilt question" of WW1 is very, very different from WW2. The Versaille Treaty made that answer very simple, too simple and too one sided. Understably at the time for sure, but it doesn't hold up to proper analysis. Once the Balkan powder keg blew up, everyone declared war. Which at that time was custom, ever since people tend to just send armies right away. So whether or not you are a soldier fighting an enemy on his or your soil is an academic question, when you are officially at war. Do no, it doesn't even work remotely for WW1. Unless of course, you oversimplify things and have your judgement clouded by WW2.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  If anything Versaille was to weak and the answers not clear enough. German/Austrian alliance were clearly the aggressors and the German/Austrian were very aggressive unleash the armies into Serbia and Belgium. One can argue that Russia partially mobilized first (in the border region), but unlike in the German case, they were still willing to do diplomacy for a lot longer. Britain in fact did try to use diplomacy and Germany was the power preventing any such settlement.