Dreadnought
This is a book where the subtitle is accurate and sums up the book far better than the title ever could: “Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War”.
This is also Robert Massie at his best. Typically, he does a very good job following the life of one (Romanov) person, and showing the world around them. Dreadnought follows a much larger crowd through about sixty years. He handles all of this extremely well, keeping everything flowing, giving dozens of mini-biographies, and keeping the reader from getting confused.
His starting point is that in 1914 the King of England and the Emperor of Germany were closely related, and the House of Windsor was German to begin with. In the mid-1800s relations between Queen Victoria and relations were quite close to the various parts of the region of Germany. In those circumstances, Britain and Germany were unlikely to go to war. And yet that happened in 1914.
So, this is the story of how two countries went from a very close relationship to mutual suspicion and being on opposite sides of The Great War.
We start with a quick biography of Queen Victoria, her son (the future Edward VII), her daughter (“Vicky”) and her husband Frederick III of Germany. In what has to be the most spectacular mis-diagnosis of history, early detection of throat cancer is missed in Frederick, and he is already dying when he succeeds his father, and reigns for a little over three months.
This leaves us with Kaiser Wilhelm II, who would rule Germany until the end of WWI. An admirer of Britain, and especially desirous of grandmotherly approval, he has plenty of troubles he inherited, as well as many of his own making, and he falls in with von Tirpitz and both want a great German fleet which can show the world just how thoroughly Germany has arrived as a Great Power.
Of course, before that, Bismark enters the scene, and adroitly engineers a number of crises which unite Germany under Prussian control. Having gotten what he wants, his politics become much more conservative, looking to preserve peace in Europe. Knowing that any sort of agreement with France is now impossible, his priorities are propping up Austria-Hungary and making agreements with Russia, which is tough because those two are opposed on many subjects. (An interesting bit is Massie shows how the Kaiser and other hawks forced through a harsher peace in the Franco-Prussian War than Bismark wanted. He wanted to be able to deal with France afterward, like with Austria-Hungary.)
Once Wilhelm II removes Bismark as Chancellor, things slowly come apart, and that is kind of the central theme of the book, hidden under so many other elements. Russia and France come into alignment. And then Britain and France come to an agreement over their colonial problems and start drifting closer together. Germany wants a closer relationship with Britain, but is now building a nice modern navy. This is stated as being so they can protect their own commerce and colonies in a war, but is largely short-ranged heavy ships. The only thing the German navy can fight is the Royal Navy.
As the German navy expands, naval matters become more and more important. Part three (of five) is the shortest section of the book, and one chapter in there is pretty much all the attention the titular HMS Dreadnought gets. Still, he presents it all well, and the coming of Dreadnought is important to everything after, especially as the arms race between Britain and Germany takes all the attention. On the British side, wrangling over the budget as the bill for the Royal Navy goes up causes its own brand of chaos, but naval supremacy is the only position the government can take.
The last section, which covers from Agadir (1911) to the start of WWI is exceptionally good. It covers the naval discussions around trying to halt/slow down the arms race, and the London Conference during Balkan Wars, and finally the July Crisis.
Overall, Dreadnought runs to a bit over 900 pages, and is packed. There’s dozens of mini-biography, friendships, government maneuvers, notes between governments, and crises. Changing naval technology and changing attitudes. If you want Europe before WWI wrapped up and presented to you, this will do it. The main thing is Britain and Germany are the main players here, and don’t see much of what doesn’t matter to them. There is some talk of the British army and its change to a force that could properly support a land war in Europe, but not a lot of detail is gone into there.
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