Is 2024 China Similar to 1914 Germany, Keen For a World War?

In 1914 Germany leadership thought, erroneously, that it would die if it didn’t vanquish France and Russia: it felt surrounded and doomed by those countries and its own internal opposition. Its smaller empire made the Prussian-German elite feel that it was in relative economic, thus military, decline. The war aim of Germany was to destroy all its potential rivals (except the US, which was very friendly and a provider of crucial military strategic materials). 

In 2024, China is not surrounded, and in relative economic and military ascendancy. Taiwan is a peripheral issue of secondary importance. China has no hope to destroy its enemies without enormous losses… A scenario where China wins something more than an ominous defeat has not been written.

The major powers didn’t stumble into World War One… contrarily to the legend spread by many shallow historians. The attack of August 1914 was actually a plot by the Prussian General Staff, made in 1912 on December 11, during a meeting of the Kaiser and its top six military commanders and the British ambassador, in Berlin. It was established by this areopagus of feathered worthies that Great Britain would operate according to the Entente Cordiale with France; if France were attacked by Germany, Great Britain would attack. So it was crucial that Germany should attack fast. 

The  German pre-emptive plan was then to prepare German public opinion and attack France massively, defeat France, and its massive six million men drafted army, then turn against Russia, which could only mobilize slowly. 

Britain had no system of mass mobilization and was expected to become a danger much later. 

The way the top command of Germany saw it, the rise of the French and Russian economy, plus the democratization of Russia was a mortal peril for the regime in Berlin.

It was decided to make war within 18 months (the signed document was found in the 1970s by a German historian). 

However, the crippled Kaiser, grandson of Queen Victoria, was hesitating. But then two events happened: Colonel House of the US, right arm of president Wilson, proposed a world government to the Kaiser in his office. June 1, 1914. That meant the US won’t side with the UK and France initially. And there was the Sarajevo assassination of the Kaiser’s greatest friend, and a pacifist.

The Kaiser was still hesitating. The two top admirals considered Germany was not ready. So the army leaders acted, and told the Kaiser to take a vacation incommunicado, so it would look as if he was not going to go to war. In truth the generals of the Prussian General Staff were afraid that the Kaiser would stop them at the last moment. 

The attack took France and the UK by complete surprise. 

None of this now. No surprise is possible and China has no interest in going to war… with whom? With those to whom it sells its trinkets and gets technology from? Also China has no powerful enemy capable of invading (whereas France and Russia could and did invade Germany), And China has no internal opposition (Germany had the SPD inside and in opposition…)

So the danger for the representative democracies regarding China is to look so weak helping Ukraine all too little that dictator Xi just couldn’t resist… Believing, in his naivety, that Western submarines will not dare fire torpedoes…

Don’t want World War? Arm Ukraine to the max!

Patrice Ayme

In green the Franco-British-Russian alliance prior to August 1, 1914. Italy had been created (mostly) by France military intervention in 1860… And Germany finally unified twice, first by Charlemagne in the Eight Century, and by another French leader in the early Ninetenth Century…. Britain was another French creation (1066 CE). Germany had been created under Prussian leadership at Versailles (!!!) in 1871… And the Princess of Kyiv had become ruling queen of France in the Eleventh Century…

So what happened in 1914? A ruling elite clique of militaristic plutocrats in Germany, having conquered power recently, and imbued with racist mentality, decided that their worlwide empire (Kameroon, Namibia, Tankanika, and various possessions in the Pacific) was plain not big enough to compare with the empires of France and Britain.. or maybe even Portugual.. and certainly not Russia… With its oil fields…

The deeply cruel and dirty Prussian leadership thought likely that they would destroy France, and then could handle Russia, Then the US offer could be accepted…

Tags: China 2024, Germany 1914, Prussia