Reply #34: Reminds Me More Of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Pre-WW I Germany [View All]

[Strelnikov_]

WW I was about securing resources for growing industrial powers.

What we are seeing now are the opening rounds of the new Great Game to secure the last remaining fossil fuel resources for soon to be contracting industrial powers. Look at the China-Iran-India alliances currently being formed.

Seems like 1905 all over again.

. . .

Kaiser Wilhelm II, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, published on 28th October 1908.

“Germany is a young and growing empire. She has a world-wide commerce which is rapidly expanding and to which the legitimate ambition of patriotic Germans refuses to assign any bounds. Germany must have a powerful fleet to protect that commerce and her manifold interests in even the most distant seas. She expects those interests to go on growing, and she must be able to champion them manfully in any quarter of the globe. Her horizons stretch far away. She must be prepared for any eventualities in the Far East. Who can foresee what may take place in the Pacific in the days to come, days not so distant as some believe, but days at any rate, for which all European powers with Far Eastern interests ought steadily to prepare?”

“Look at the accomplished rise of Japan; think of the possible national awakening of China; and then judge of the vast problems of the Pacific. Only those powers that have great navies will be listened to with respect when the future of the Pacific comes to be solved; and if for that reason only, Germany must have a powerful fleet. It may even be that England herself will be glad that Germany has a fleet when they speak together on the same side in the great debates of the future.”

Sir Edward Grey, Britain's foreign secretary, from an article in response to the comments made by Kaiser Wilhelm II in the Daily Telegraph (November, 1908)

"The German Emperor is ageing me; he is like a battleship with steam up and screws going, but with no rudder, and he will run into something some day and cause a catastrophe. He has the strongest army in the world and the Germans don't like being laughed at and are looking for somebody on whom to vent their temper and use their strength. After a big war a nation doesn't want another for a generation or more. Now it is 38 years since Germany had her last war, and she is very strong and very restless, like a person whose boots are too small for him. I don't think there will be war at present, but it will be difficult to keep the peace of Europe for another five years."