Varun Sharma Quotes

The German naval command—without the permission of the Kaiser—at the eve of a losing war decided that the entire German navy would make a grand attack against the far superior English fleet. It was to be a virtual suicide attack on a grand scale. However, most German sailors heard about the plan and refused orders to attack in what was the largest mutiny in history. The German naval leaders then took the fleet out to sea and scuttled all the ships so that the English would not capture them. The result was the same but tens of thousands of lives were saved; many German officers felt that German naval honor had been lost.

His view is that none of the objectives of the counties fighting the war achieved their war aims. Even those who thought that they had solved the problem of German aggression were proven wrong by the Second World War.

The final decision regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor and war with America had to be made. The Emperor Hirohito, Prime Minister Tojo, the full cabinet and leading elder statesmen were invited. Hara attended as one of the latter class. America had instituted an embargo of critical raw material whose end was contingent of Japan withdrawing from the territory that they had invaded and stop their territorial aggression in Asia, an aggression which some Japanese leaders—notably the military—was absolutely necessary to provide for the growing Japanese population and its increasing standard of living. At the time, an embargo was a powerfully effective weapon, which left Japan only two choices: Withdrawal or War. In modern times nations have chosen to endure and evade embargoes rather than be forced into undesirable positions.

Moltke’s plan for the Marne Campaign did not work out as planned and he and the Kaiser had a difference of opinion so Moltke was replaced as military commander. This quotation is of critical importance as it shows that the Germans were actually planning the First World War and simply used the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand as an excuse. Thus, the reparations Germany was required to pay when they lost the war. See {642096} for more quotational evidence.

The War Plan that the Germans had developed--{642092}—had gone awry at the battle of the Marne in late 1914.

The Germans did not believe the British would send land troops. See {642105}.

The Times regretted that the Germans did not speak to the Austrians more vigorously when they were threatening to attack Serbia who harbored anti-Austro-Hungarian terrorists (see {642085}). What the Times editors did not realize was that the Germans had already made their war plans (see {642092}) and the Serbian issue was just the justification they needed to implement them. So there was no real reason for the Germans to discourage the Austro-Hungarian Empire from its mission to punish Serbia.

1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon. The pace of change in the world has been accelerating ever since the enlightenment. Even at the beginning of the 20th century to was making politics difficult and be the end of the century the pace of change was many times faster.

1st Earl of Oxford. Churchill was then First Lord of the Admiralty, and an enthusiastic proponent of entering the First World War.

The Boers had just a few years before lost their war with the British who were then in control of South Africa. However, the British did not treat the Boers harshly in defeat and most Boers were at the time farmers and land owners who were a major force in democratic South Africa and had much invested in the nation. Others were still resentful of the British. The Boers sided with the British and fought the Germans who had troops and colonies in Africa. Like the Irish, culturally, they were always up for a good fight.

English foreign and military policy had been so effective that English citizens had been completely sheltered from all the British military hostilities throughout the world. Keyserlingk and other German military planners, observing the effect that home public opinion had on war policies and practices, placed a high priority on bringing war to the British civilians and sinking merchant ships was the one way they had technologically open to them. Latter, in WWII, the same objective was achieved by the bombing of the Blitz—bombing of London and other cities with planes and rockets.