SHA Small Heath Alliance

I’m saying the Tirpitz plan was the destabilising move in terms of the actual sequence of events, regardless of whether the prior order was just. If you look at responsibility for the pre-war naval arms race specifically, Germany fired the first shot. Whether Britain deserved its dominance is a different question. I’m making a descriptive argument, not a moral one, that’s a different question entirely

I'm not making a moral argument either nor particularly sharing my own opinion. I'm just offering the opposite perspective because I don't think History with a capital H is about trying to decide liability as if it's an insurance claim. Keeping the worldview of the German leadership in mind is important in understanding how powers that didn't really want a massive war ended up on a collision course.

I dont disagree that understanding the German perspective or intentions is essential. But that’s compatible with what I’m saying. You can acknowledge German grievances and still note that the Tirpitz plan was the destabilising move within the naval rivalry specifically.

the point is that the status quo was the status quo, full stop, not a British construct of it. British naval dominance was without question, being ~40% larger than the German navy (the secondmost naval power in the world in 1914), it was the baseline reality both sides were operating within, which is why German naval expansion was read as a challenge to the existing order rather than a neutral act

I understand the German perspective but think you’re arguing past the point

Phillystine

It's GCSE level stuff to understand that a contributing factor to WWI was the rivalries between imperial powers, including a naval arms race between Britain and Germany. I can remember being taught this at the age of about 14 by a teacher called Phil McCracken.

I don't really know what the serious academic landscape looks like on the causes of WWI, as it's really boring and I don't know why anyone would want to study it once they're not being forced to by the national curriculum, but I imagine the consensus is that the alliance systems had unintended consequences. I think you're probably being facetious in suggesting that anyone is saying it came down to Britain having too big a navy.

I can thouroughly recommend the Rest Is History series on this. Not boring at all.

Episodes 465 to 474.

[open.spotify.com]

Fair enough; you're making your point far more sharply now.

I was handed a fake £5 note in change a few weeks ago. It was an exceptionally good forgery. Only the hologram was defective as it was not 3D . Near impossible to spot unless you are actually looking for it. I gave it back to shop who gave it to me. I didn't tell them.

Rasputin

Nikola Zigic

Animals will be nice but this is 100% a way to just get rid of people like Churchill, regardless of how it's framed.

It was as a result of a public consultation and vote.

[www.bankofengland.co.uk]

Not everything is a woke conspiracy.

Didn't think the choice of animals was inspired though.

Britain though wasn’t interested in European domination and frankly should never have been involved in the War. Austria-Hungary thought they could squish the Serbs in a week and shut up the growing nationalist movements within, and it went all Putin in Ukraine. Hence the Germans doing something to distract the Russians. Had they gone through Maginot I doubt Britain would have cared. It was reports of atrocities in neutral Belgium which got the blood up.

Phillystine

From a perspective of the British status quo. From the German perspective, Britain's self-appointed imperial dominance was a threat to the global order by denying them what they saw as their rightful place in it.

Never mind all this high falutin', philosophising verbosity.
If one of the animals isn't a Honey Badger, I'm losing my shit.
Fair warning.

A bit of an odd one given we don’t have them in Europe, let alone the UK, no?

Maybe you haven't been around SHA long enough 😀

Ah, stuff goes over my head all the time on here 😅

And of course if it weren’t for the ochlocracy wanting a stoat on the fiver we could have had Mary Anning. Which would have meant dinosaurs.

Tbf a T-Rex tenner would be cool as.

We don’t know if tyrannosaurids roamed the land which would become Britain. However the ancestral Eotyrannus did.

But we have Megolosaurus. Even the name is sub zero cool.