The Baltic Project: Fisher's Plan to Win WW1

This video aims to be a short documentary looking at a fairly unknown/ misunderstood plan advocated by Sir John 'Jackie' Fisher, the British First Sea Lord. It involved using Britain's greatest strategic asset, the Royal Navy, to severe German trade in the Baltic, specifically with Sweden. This would have brought about a collapse of the German economy, and a victory for Britain in the First World War, without the immense cost of the Western Front.
Sources:
Andrew Lambert: The British Way of War (Where most of the information in this video is sourced from. An excellent biography of Julian Corbett dealing with the principles of British Grand Strategy, highly recommended).
Margaret MacMillan, The War that Ended Peace
Barbara Tuchmann, The Guns of August (Details on British pre-war planning for the BEF).
#History, #RoyalNavy, #WW1

[@OldBritannia]

I hope you enjoy this short documentary looking at Jackie Fisher's plans to win the First World War. I'd recommend a talk by Andrew Lambert here on YT hosted by the Western Front Association, which goes into a lot more detail, if you would like to learn more. As a side note, the incident regarding Submarine E13 I've based on Lambert's description, but have also seen sources that don't mention any Danish nationals killed in the incident. Thank you for watching, any feedback is as always appreciated.

[@JoanieAdamms]

Thank you most kindly, I shall dually give this recommendation a viewing, from here to there.

[@explodingwolfgaming8024]

Great as always!

[@martinidry6300]

I was a BA student @ KCL in 1998-2001). Dr Lambert, as he was then, I chose to be my personal tutor for my dissertation. His lectures were consistently dazzling and with a good dose of dry humour. I've seen all of Professor Lambert's lectures & talks on YT. They're all well worth watching. Thanks for doing a succinct explanation on an operation would, could and should have prevented the 20th century being the catastrophe it became for Western civilisation. PS: Can you do a companion piece on the late summer to autumn Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in 1799. Piers Mackesy describes it very well in his book "The Strategy of Overthrow 1798-1799". There are many parallels with Fisher's plan to end WW1.

[@philipebbrell2793]

If Salisbury had not swapped Heligoland for Zanzibar in the 1890s. The grand strategy might have been different.

[@michaelkovacic2608]

Can you make a video about a possible war between Britain and the USA after WW1 due to the latter's skyrocketing naval power? I've heard about such a possibility several times, but I have no idea about how concrete the actual danger of war really was.

[@ryanelliott71698]

And there goes another point in my “Churchill is a terrible military strategist” bucket

[@222toastedtoasters3]

yup

[@konstantinosnikolakakis8125]

Man’s got quotes though, God bless him.

[@robertortiz-wilson1588]

It's not like he was in the minority opinion, but fair.

[@zacharygilligan7811]

Unpopular opinion Churchill is overrated. His crazy idea that invading the Mediterranean would somehow beat Germany is ludicrous. True the British were unready to invade France in 43 but America would have just pulled more resources and men for it. Churchill also was way to antagonistic towards stalin. Say what you want about him and the Soviet’s but you can not ever take away from how much the Russian people suffered and fought in ww2. And in ww1 when it was clear the British army was given presidence over the navy, they should have just stuck with stacking up the western front instead of risking a invasion that never really had a chance of succeeding. I get that they were trying to help Russia by knocking out turkey so that they focus on the Eastern front. But anyone who knows ww1 history knows what Nicky and the gang were up to in Russia at that time. There was only so much that Russia could have done in ww1 even with the Turkish front closed down. Churchill was a very good man and still a decent leader, but I think he is overrated.

[@Blazer-vp7uk]

By the time Churchill was in power, Denmark and Norway had fallen

[@MrNTF-vi2qc]

I never used to think there was anyone at this time who learned from the past, or had pragmatic ideas, but it turns out there were, there were many, but all coincidentally couldn't save their nation from the horrors of WW1, Bismarck, Schwarzenberg, Cavour, Victor Emmanuel II, Alexander II, Salisbury, Theodore Roosevelt, and now I add Fisher to the basket.

[@robertortiz-wilson1588]

Epic group!

[@rader3935]

I know about Roosevelt and Bismark, but how could have everybody else you listed prevented or shortened ww1? It's not that i don't believe you i'm just not that well versed.

[@MrNTF-vi2qc]

@@rader3935 Schwarzenberg was brilliant in diplomacy and was very pragmatic he could of kept an Austro-Russian alliance and stop Prussian dominance. Cavour was also a brilliant diplomat and was why Italy unified, he could of industrialized the nation, unify the north and south economically instead of what happened in real life, and turn Italy into a strong power that didn't have to rely on diplomacy for everything, but he died before getting the chance. Alexander II would of caught Russia up with the west with his liberal and economic reforms and if alive during the 1880s and 1st and 2nd Balkan Wars, could of created a Russian influenced state. Salisbury was able to have Britain win the scramble for Africa through diplomacy and breaking up enemies and could of used that diplomacy and pragmatism to avoid WW1, TR was a peacemaker who won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and could of done the same in 1914.

[@tediprifti4348]

@@MrNTF-vi2qc While I personally really like all the figures you mentioned I have a problem with a few.First of all Alexander the second wasn't really a liberal he was a pragmatist. I believe it was one of his own quotes that went something like "Serfdom will be ended so better be it by the Tzar, than revolution", hinting that his problem with serfdom was that it wasn't proffitable and would cause a french-style revolution. Furthermore, you are putting a lot of faith in Russia reaching the west in a couple of decades, in our world the lifes of a lot of serfs were worsened because the abolition of serfdom,the conditions in the russian factories were horrid,there is a LOT of stuff weighing Russia down,so I think that you are expecting too much from him.If he believed a world conflict would be proffitable I don't see why he wouldn't take it. On TR,would the US even want to get involved in the first world war?The US was a great power sure,not more powerful than Brittain at the beggining of WWI though,so if even Wilson who was also a chad pacifist couldn't bring people to the negotiating table,I don't think Roosvelt would either.And on the Ruso-Japanese conflict the war ended because: A.The japanese didn't like their chances in a prolonged conflict with Russia. B.Russia wasn't ready to counterattack(thought the japanese didn't really know it). Not saying Roosvelt didn't help with the peace, however I believe it's a bit naive to assume he would have prevented all the powers that "played" in the first world war.

[@MrNTF-vi2qc]

@@tediprifti4348 Thank you for the constructive criticism, but for Alexander II the factory conditions got bad under the III and Nicholas II for the most part, and Alexander II's pragmatism could have avoided him a World War, if he stuck around, the long term plan of the former serfs paying off their debt within a generation could of worked and Russia could of been on track to catch up with the west.

[@TheGrenadier97]

Fisher was a controversial man, no doubt. His "large light cruisers" were probably the peak of his madness for speed on battleship-armed capital ships. The ships proved problematic to integrate with cruiser forces, but at least offered large, fast hulls to be converted into crucial aircraft carriers.

[@theeternalsuperstar3773]

"Large Light Cruisers"? Why not just call them "Medium Cruisers"?

[@TheGrenadier97]

@@theeternalsuperstar3773 because they were large and fast lightly armored hulls with battleship-grade weapons. Some sources also mention the term "light battlecruiser" if my memory serves me right. They possessed even less armor than the likes of Invincible and Lion. You can see how odd these ships were as originally designed, and units that briefly included them after the Baltic Project was abandoned struggled to include them in battle formations. A "medium" cruiser between a "light" cruiser and a "battle" cruiser would more likely be a Hawkins-class ship, later used as a blueprint for what the interwar naval treaties called "heavy" cruisers.

[@alecblunden8615]

The first generation of Battlecruisers were meant to outclass armoured cruisers - which they did splendidly at the Battle of the Falkland Islands . The Gean them built a different class of ships intended to engage battleships by trading range for speed and low calibre guns. The losses at Jutland had nothing to do with the concept, but with Beattie's abysmal training in gunnery which he sought to remedy by bypassing the safety mechanisms, thereby filling the turrets with shells and charges. Beattie's quote that there seems to be something wrong with our ships today was perfectly correct - it was their Admiral and his communications. The concept , however, was fine. Renown was one of the most successful ships of WW2, Repulse behaved brilliantly under attack by Japanese aircraft, but was simply overwhelmed. Hood was only lost to a million to one fluke which came on under the armoured belt due to a freak wave. Practically all the capital ship engagements involving the IJN were limited to the Kongo class and even the Alaska class were regarded as ideal carrier escorts.

[@HT-lr1rs]

I believe you are referring to Battlecruisers, of which we can conclude were an incrediblly effective tool when used correctly. They were designed to kill cruisers and in doing so they were effective. The battle of the Falkland island for example proves this, the Battlecruisers were victorius and in a dominant fashion. While its true the Jutland debarcle led to their doom, this can be largely attributed to Beatty and his terrible skills as a commander during the Battlecruiser engagement. Other BC losses can be put down to being outdated, which a few of the earlier ones were at the outbreak of war. In conclusion the ideas was not mad however its application was problematic with moments of brilliance and foolishness.

[@babelhuber3449]

@@alecblunden8615 Ah, the good old battlecruiser discussion! Good! My take: Battlecruisers only did what they were designed for at Falkland. But even there they only massacred a force that cost a fraction. 5 old armored cruisers would have done the same job. And cheaper. From then on, battlecruisers fought as fast ships of the line - and getting slaughtered when faciing battleships. You could hardly use them as independent cruisers because they were so rare and expensive that they were a strategic target: In WW2, when the British knew the Scharnhorst left harbor they sent half of the Home Fleet to try to sink it! Experience shows that battlecruisers are as expensive as battle ships, but can't fight battleships. Problem is, as soon as anybody builds battlecruisers, everybody else wants them, too! Why? To hunt down the adversary's ones! 🤦

[@JoanieAdamms]

And please, consider continuing these stratagem and grand plans, I find them most intriguing as it encompasses much, and your way of delivery is always a delight.

[@angrycabbage1988]

Arguably one of the most underrated history channels. Covering relatively unknown subjects, giving extensive information and, of course, the map is juicy af.

[@garypulliam3740]

Where is it rated?

[@leonmorris7862]

@@garypulliam3740 subscriber count

[@Wow_btw]

@@garypulliam3740 this is a relatively unknown KZbinr which is a massive shame as he is great at story telling and history so by underrated he means unknown

[@balabanasireti]

Nah

[@balabanasireti]

@@leonmorris7862 Meh

[@georgios_5342]

Whoa. Really smart planning. I guess large industrial states are much more reliant on trade than smaller powers.

[@oppionatedindividual8256]

Nah small powers are immensely reliant on trade as well, especially military tech required to maintain an adequate force. What you want to be is a massive resource rich country, like.. Russia or.. France or oh yea Britannia.

[@crocfighter.1322]

@@oppionatedindividual8256 Britain was more reliant on trade than any of those countries. That is the underlying weakness that drove the expansion of the Royal Navy. The Imperial trade routes were extensive, and without not just a strong navy, but the strongest, a vulnerable jugular.

[@oppionatedindividual8256]

@Felt Whick hence why I said Britannia you dunce

[@oppionatedindividual8256]

@Felt Whick Britannia is not Britain. Britannia is the spirit of the British nation, she is the nation, she is the nations land and she is the empire. She is the soul, heart and body of the British Empire

[@hedgehog3180]

@@oppionatedindividual8256 Just say the British Empire if that's what you mean then and stop being an obnoxious poetic.

[@michaelkovacic2608]

I am more than a little doubtful about the Courageous-class. They had so little armor that the 12inch gunned German battleships and battlecruisers would have had very little trouble in achieving penetrating hits. Yes, these ships could in theory not catch the Courageous-class. But given the confined conditions of the Baltic, it isn't hard to imagine the British ships being cornered - German battlecruisers were not that much slower. To top it of, Jutland showed that the German battleships of the Kaiser and König classes and the battlecruisers of the Derfflinger and Seydlitz classes could stand up to 15inch gunfire for at least a limited amount of time. And there is of course the fact that the 11inch guns of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were more than sufficient to put Glorious down.

[@alecblunden8615]

The answer is that the speed difference was ample to heep the Courageous and her sisters safe and out of range - and by 1940 Glorious was an aircraft carrier, a big and soft target without her air group.

[@michaelkovacic2608]

@@alecblunden8615 your argument is seriously flawed. First of all, the Courageous-class was a large, very soft target both in her CB and CV configurations. Her belt was literally 2 to 3 inches thick. That's just enough to trigger the fuse of armor piercing shells. It isn't remotely close to offering ballistic protection, it's barely sufficient to act as splinter protection. In terms of armament, everyone who has at least a bit of knowledge in terms of artillery will tell you that 4 guns simply isn't enough to effectively fight against moving targets - especially given the large distance between the turrets, which worsened matters even further. And I assume you aren't aware of the fact that the hull was constructed so lightly that firing the main battery resulted in cracked rivets. But even if we ignore the sh*tty design of the Courageous-class - probably the worst British capital ship aside from the Indefatigable-class - Fisher's Baltic plan was simply unrealistic. You argue that the Courageous-class was fast enough to stay away from German capital ships. That's correct - in theory. The Baltic is a very confined area, and the British would be severely outnumbered, especially since the Germans could rapidly deploy the High Seas Fleet through the Kiel canal. On top of that, there would be lots of German light forces, such as destroyers and torpedo boats, and minefields, especially in the landing area. And even if all these things fail to convince you, the British ships would be tied to their invasion fleet, and furthermore would require refueling and resupply. Even if the Courageous-class had been an excellent design - which they clearly weren't - operating capital ships in confined waters controlled by the enemy is a death sentence for them. There are good reasons why the British never put Fisher's Baltic Project in WW1 or Operation Catherine in WW2 into action.

[@MmmGallicus]

Yes, this Baltic plan seems very unrealistic. The Germans would crush the English B fleet. With access to Russian resources, Germany would be impervious to maritime blockade.

[@alecblunden8615]

@@MmmGallicus When, prey, were these Russian resources going to be available?

[@ArcticTemper]

@@MmmGallicus He has ommitted the section of the Baltic Plan which involved the closing of the Kiel Canal, not sure why. But with the Kiel Canal closed the High Seas Fleet would have needed to sail through the Skagerrak, exposing it both on its way out and in to the waiting Grand Fleet, not to mention the many British submarines.

[@pepenero6168]

Keep making videos, You're covering very interesting stuff that no one else is

[@williammckinley3564]

Another fantastic upload. Please keep making more I haven't been disappointed with a video yet.

[@AdamsYoutubeAccount]

A fantastic, well-researched video on a topic not often discussed. Props to you, Sir.

[@russianhorde]

Interesting topic centered on an interesting man. Thank you for taking the time to create these videos!

[@jackbharucha1475]

"the greatest admiral since Nelson or a senile old fool." I go with yes. I think a submarine campaign in the Baltic could have worked, but I don't understand how any capital ships could have survived in the region. The High Seas Fleet was slower yes, but the Baltic isn't very big so there isn't much room to maneuver. As built the Courageous class were awful ships, if Drachinifel is to be believed. They were structurally unable to handle the firing of their own guns and their armor couldn't protect them against a light cruiser. Still, here Fischer's plan seems much less insane than it seems at first glance. Did Britain ever send submarines or small boats into the Baltic to raid? It seems like a missed opportunity.

[@robertortiz-wilson1588]

There should definitely be more back and forth on this topic.

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

Fisher is sane compared to what Tirpitz's battle plan was...

[@hedgehog3180]

The answer to your last question is yes, though mainly as part of the Russian Civil War.

[@jackbharucha1475]

@@hedgehog3180 I KenWood about that. But I was thinking in the context of sinking German merchant shipping.

[@hedgehog3180]

@@jackbharucha1475 Is KenWood a typo here or is it some kind of slang I'm unaware of?

[@somehistorynerd]

Grandpa wake up, Old Britannia uploaded

[@emilianohermosilla3996]

Love your vids, bro!!!

[@isaacdonitz9506]

Bro every upload is a banger keep it up

[@williamtoner8674]

I've said it before but this is an unbelievable channel

[@milkmessiah5192]

Nice video, just wanna ask if you have a source for Admiral Fisher moving his fleet into the Baltic during the Moroccan Crisis. I can't seem to find anything on it online.

[@OldBritannia]

Lambert, both in his lecture on YT and in ‘The British Way of War’. There is also an article from JSTOR that mentioned it but I’d have to check my notes when I get back from work.

[@matheussouto3673]

​@@OldBritannia it has nothing tô do with the vídeo, but which books about The british empire do you recommed?

[@OldBritannia]

@@matheussouto3673 Really depends on what you’re looking for, it’s such a huge topic. As far as general overviews go I find John Darwin’s Empire Project extremely detailed and readable, even if I disagree with some of his interpretations on the economics side. On India you can’t go wrong with anything by Tirthanka Roy for the economic side. David Gilmour’s book is also enjoyable as a more general study. For Diplomatic History, which is obviously where my focus mainly is: John Charmley’s Splendid Isolation? Or Modern British Foreign Policy: The Nineteenth/Eighteenth Century by Paul Hayes are my favourite works. That’s a really short list of areas I’ve been reading around recently. It really depends on which area you want to look at. If it’s just a general overview I’d suggest Darwin’s Unfinished Empire, which is shorter and more accessible than Empire Project.

[@matheussouto3673]

​@@OldBritannia thank you for the recomendations. Have a Nice day .

[@darrenrenna]

Great Video! I had never heard of this plan, a very interesting "Might have been" very well rooted in Britain's historic strategy of preventing a continental hegemon from emerging.

[@iwasjustfollowingorders8068]

It is interesting how during the next war, Germany did invade not only demark but also norway to secure iron from Sweden

[@bobwoodward2185]

Another excellent documentary from one of my favourite history channels, really fascinating and a real tragedy an opportunity to half the pain and suffering of The Great War was missed. My question: does anyone know what size and composition this fleet would have needed to be?.

[@philliprandle9075]

Great video and topic

[@PhilDevere1]

Bravo on your channel, succinctly conveying complex lesser-known subjects in a scope manageable for laymen, not just for authors of encyclopedic citations of archives, memoirs, eyewitnesses, etc. Great format, and well-executed. But the video about Fisher’s Baltic project left me with a major question: What about the Imperial Russian Baltic Fleet? It wasn’t cited, but a little digging showed how that Fleet did, indeed, harass ships carrying crucial Swedish iron ore to Germany, esp. by using submarines and crews from Britain. Perhaps Fisher might have been wiser to focus on getting more British subs into the Baltic, rather than trying to get a whole new fleet of purpose-built capital ships built. Especially at a time when British industrial capacity already was strained with the war effort. Did Fisher ever consider coordinating such a strategy with the Russians? Speaking of Russian contributions, we in the West tend to focus so intensely on ‘The Trenches’ when speaking about World War 1 that we don't consider the colossal - and horrific - Eastern Front of the War, from the Adriatic to the Baltic. Unlike the Western Front, that was far more fluid, spreading havoc over much larger areas. The bloodshed and destruction there deserves to be part of our collective memory also, and Eastern Europeans might, to this day, have reason to feel their suffering - in both World Wars - is somewhat overlooked by 'The West.' Perhaps ‘Old Britannia’ could do an episode on that, focusing on British efforts to shore up their tottering Russian ally? Or to thwart the Bolsheviks who eventually replaced the Czar/Kerensky?

[@jeffreyhornblower6515]

This content Is great!

[@Smog104]

Excellent documentary thanks fir this information.

[@JoanieAdamms]

The British considering and perhaps eyeing the Danish a little bit too fondly, My, that sounds awfully familiar.

[@demondelaplace5161]

Danes whining about being raided from the sea never loses it’s humour.

[@teddythundertrash4048]

@@demondelaplace5161 Whining? Such an insulting word to use. But yeah. Let's just say we're whining. lol

[@demondelaplace5161]

@@teddythundertrash4048 Whining about people saying you’re whining? That’s like meta-whining, good job.

[@UnholyWrath3277]

@@teddythundertrash4048 his point being ironic the region known best for its people just showing up by boat and setting things on fire getting upset that somebody in a boat showed up and set things on fire

[@kingofcards9516]

@@demondelaplace5161 I don't think vikings raider your country hundreds of years ago justifies doing the same hundreds of years later. If it did then half the world would be burning London.

[@jackjones3919]

Love your Channel!

[@holgernarrog962]

The weakness of the plan is that Danmark has weak land forces. Thus Germany could have conquerred Danmark quickly. Any British navy ship in the Baltic sea would have been trapped. Germany could have shifted its complete seapower within 2 days to the Baltic via a channel to the Baltic and back. It had harbours for the logistical support while the British could only use the Russian ports. A sea battle in the Baltic would have been a nightmare for the British navy.

[@JonathanWJ]

I take issue with the calling of HMS Queen Elizabeth R08 "almost obsolete" in the present day. What do you believe it fails at in its role as an aircraft carrier?

[@christiankrarup6501]

I'd like to know this as well! Not saying it isn't possible, but it's against intuition

[@Anthony-jo7up]

I think saying it is "almost obsolete" is a massive overstatement, but it is definitely not the cutting edge of aircraft carriers. For one, it fails to account for the most important aspect of aircraft carriers- the aircraft. From everything I've seen, it lacks a full air complement as well as the capacity to accept different types of aircraft. It does not have catapults, instead using ramps. It does not have a nuclear reactor powering it, meaning it needs to dock to refuel every 19,000 km or so. This limits the size of the carrier, the duration of its deployments, as well as also limiting where in the world it can travel. I'm not an expert on this by any means, so I cannot say with certainty just how important these issues are, but when compared to American carriers from 50 years ago such as the Nimitz class, it is still far behind. It seems to me that the Queen Elizabeth is about on the same level as the new Chinese carriers, if not even slightly behind them. Not obsolete, but not what one would expect from Britain.

[@crocfighter.1322]

@@Anthony-jo7up Not what one would expect from the British Empire maybe, but the UK these days is a rump state in comparison. The carrier just needs to be able to win a similar conflict to the Falklands and hunt Russian submarines. There is no potential British enemy in the world that needs a super carrier on par with the Americans. A conflict with China would be handled in alliance with the US and Japan; and nobody else has a navy and isn't diplomatically aligned.

[@basileus2824]

The Queen Elizabeth class carriers aren’t nuclear powered no, but there was good reason behind that decision. Britain doesn’t (and could never) have the US defence budget so can’t really afford a nuclear super carrier fleet. The French tried this with Charles De Gaulle. Ultimately they could only just about afford one, and are now without a deployable force whenever the ship is in refit. And without the economies of scale of multiple nuclear carriers, and lacking the money to build up the infrastructure to support it, de gaulle is a nightmare to supply. The Royal Navy made the best compromise of building a cheaper non-nuclear carrier design, but one which they could afford at least 2 of so as to always have a ship deployable.

[@internetenjoyer1044]

@@Anthony-jo7up So, these are good points if your benchmark is the absolute best single ship acarrier could be. But you have to consider the aircraft carriers in the context of the wider navy. The cost of making it like America's best would be too much to have a navy to go with it. You have to consider the cost of maintaining cats and traps ready aircrew, meaning you need to take a significant portion of our pilots away from a limited pool and soley have them as carrier pilots rather than having strike pilotd who can operate by and or sea. Thats only a small portion of the cost of cats and traps though; the cats and traps would make the carriers twice as expensive just to build and far more to run. But in their place we got carriers for about 3 billion each; an absolute bargain for their capability (US carriers cost like 10 bill each). We asacrifice range and payload on the Jets, sure, but procurement is all about trade offs. they're still the absolute best platform for the job, they just dont go quite as far as the other version. But this type of take off and landing, STOVL, has benefits or higher sortie rates, fewer fly by's from pilots pulling out of the landing and going again, able to fly safer in more weather conditions etc. the trade offs arent all in one direction. FInally, on the face of it conventional power looks much worse than nuclear but remember that the carriers dont deploy alone; they are in a battle group so the battle group has to be resupplied with fuel on a regular basis anyway. Whatsmore many ports wont let nuclear power ships dock

[@StoicHistorian]

Great video

[@XIXCentury]

terrific channel

[@stev4479]

Good Video 👌🏻

[@sandstorm9305]

How do you make those portraits? They look quite good.

[@HeWhoLaugths]

Fantastic yet again Do you have a patreon account?

[@user-cd4bx6uq1y]

Good stuff

[@millennialwatchman6703]

Awesome video! One thing that probably should have been clarified is where the main German fleet was. I sortve assumed part of it was on Germany's North Sea coast and part of it was on the Baltic coast. I'm going to assume after watching this video that all or most of it was on the North Sea coast. (Because how could Britain lure it into a fight with the Grand Fleet which was in the North Sea?) But as I said amazing video!

[@Koshiro2k3]

The heavy units of the German Hochseeflotte were stationed in Wilhelmshaven, that is on the North Sea coast. But - and that is why this idea of Fisher's was madness - Germany had the means to transfer any or (if need be) all of her ships to or from the Baltic via the Kiel canal, which had been expanded to accomodate the newest capital ships just before the war. This could be done without ever leaving the safety of their coastal mine barriers. Germany actually did just that later in the war in order to support its operations against Russia and there was bugger all the British could do about it. So, if this specialized fleet of Fisher's had entered the Baltic without support by the Grand Fleet, the Germans would have transferred heavy units there and turned the British ships into mincemeat. And if elements of the Grand Fleet had been sent along, they would have been in a very dangerous position, far from their own bases and threatened by lighter German forces such as torpedo boats and U-Boats. You have to realize that one major impact of Fisher's Dreadnought innovation, in his own mind, was to render the Kiel canal unuseable to modern battleships since at the time (1905) it was only big enough to be used by older, soon to be obsolete pre-dreadnoughts. ISTR reading that when he heard the canal would soon be expanded to accomodate the newer German ships, he called for war right there and then, to hell with any pretext or reason. Fisher kept dreaming of bigger and bigger ships, presumably to set a new standard that would render even the newly expanded canal unuseable. But those were pipe dreams and so basically, the strategy described in this video had been killed dead on June 24th 1914, when the new, dreadnought-capable locks of the expanded Kiel canal were opened.

[@millennialwatchman6703]

@@Koshiro2k3 Interesting, thank you for your information.

[@Cheattoe]

Damn love your content you should try to get on nebula! It’s for great content creators

[@Brian-----]

🙂 I really appreciated this video. Fisher doesn't get the recognition he deserves and it's hard to find sources that cover him well. One problem with his Baltic plan is that Sweden, which fears Russia (before, then, and now), genuinely favored Germany in WW1 and might not have remained idle if Denmark were violated. Unlike WW2, when Swedish trade with and accommodation of Hitler's Germany was an uncomfortable matter of survival at gunpoint, WW1 came much closer to being a clash of big empires than a war of at least relative good versus obvious evil and the trade was a willing choice that benefited both sides. A Baltic incursion with purpose built, necessarily undergunned ships might have aggravated Sweden and made the effort tough to sustain. Though a minor sea power, Sweden had some ability to defend its coasts and home waters. It's unlikely Britain could have prepared Sweden diplomatically to accept a Fisher plan, and trying to involve any Russian sea power in the effort (for whatever its worth would have been) only would have worsened the problem. What eventually changed Sweden's trade posture was mounting food shortages, or Sweden starting to share Germany's privation. Could these have been caused earlier, to gain that leverage sooner? Maybe some unexplored avenues of commercial shipping leverage didn't incur the risk of a Baltic campaign. For example, in 1940 when Germany attacked Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands, their large commercial shippers chose to stop serving Japan, which considerably damaged Japan's war machine as Japan could not itself make up the difference. Just thinking out loud here ~ this isn't a topic I know in depth, honestly.

[@andrepettersson175]

What is it they say about plans? No plan survives contact with the enemy? I think this plan was a bit optimistic on how things would allegedly play out.

[@josephb7594]

What is the background music you use in your videos? Another fantastic upload btw!

[@OldBritannia]

Thank you. All background music is from Epidemic Sound. If you have a particular track in mind, you can tell me the time stamp and I’ll check the name.

[@thespiritphoenix3798]

​@@OldBritanniaTell me all of them!

[@JoeGibb]

Excellent look at a often neglected figure. You should be proud of your work so far on KZbin.

[@daviddavis1895]

This is a very useful video summary of how the Great War could have been ended much earlier. In my forthcoming counterfactual-historical novel, "From Jutland To Victory" (to be published by Legiron Books before Christmas 2022) I narrate a fictional scenario in which the Admiralty and Beatty give Jellicoe the _correct_ information about the High Seas Fleet, it is anihilated and Britain then takes the newer BEF divisions into the Baltic; and then Germany collapses in demoralisation. I won't spoil the plot for you, so that's enough for the moment!

[@seanmoriarty5756]

where's the book?

[@WindermereWarrior]

The admiralty: you want to do what? Fisher: Y E S

[@DogeOfWar]

Another great video mate. I was wondering if you know anything about the Hanoverian opinion of the War? Did any of them feel strange fighting against their once shared monarch of less than 80 years prior?

[@kiennguyenanh8498]

They did not even like the British even before

[@robertsansone1680]

Excellent. Very interesting. Thank You. I like Churchill for many things but I never thought he was a great strategist.

[@willhovell9019]

An interesting option using resources cleverly

[@andrewwaters9631]

I thing I would add (and someone else may have already said this) that Churchills focus on Galipolli over the development of a baltic strategy may have roots in British designs for the Arab world post Ottoman rule. Weakening the Ottomans would secure British territories and had the possibility for them to expand them. Churchill was trying to win more British global while Fisher was trying to secure more British continental power. Churchill wasnt playing the game of military strategy well (at all) but was instead thinking he could win a larger game (british domination of middle east)

[@rossthomson1958]

Well said

[@davidrodgersNJ]

Thank you so much for posting this. I have become interested in the Baltic Project, and have read both a) it was a crazy idea and b) it was the obvious thing to do. It now seems to me like it was neither. I had no idea the Danes mined their Strait. I have read Corbett's Principals of Maritime Strategy but it offered me no insight into this issue. Could you share what source(s) you used to make this?

[@OldBritannia]

Sources are in the description - mainly Andrew Lambert. If you're interested in Corbett I'd assume you've read Lambert's new biography of him, which I've relied upon heavily in this video. If you haven't though I'd highly recommend it.

[@davidrodgersNJ]

@@OldBritannia Thanks!

[@ThorFerdinand]

The Danes mined the straits under German pressure. Denmark had most likely been occupied if then had not. The Danes, who disliked the germans because of the 1864 war, then leaked to the Brittish where the mines had been placed.

[@davidrodgersNJ]

@@ThorFerdinand Wow! Thanks for the info; I have become very interested in this topic. What is your source for this?

[@mdtrw]

Churchil does have a tendacy to fight the enemy in the peripheries rather than to force a direct confrontation. In WWII too he kept advocating for small and flanking fronts like landing in Greece and the Adriatic

[@Anthony-jo7up]

Isn't periphery-pecking more in line with the traditional British grand strategy though? It is the opposite of deploying millions of men in a head-on engagement. Tighten the noose and allow the naval blockade to starve out the enemy does seem to have been his strategy in both world wars, and it was arguably the most important British strategic decision.

[@UnholyWrath3277]

Because britain never had the manpower to fight germany in a hit for hit war. The public wouldnt have stomached 20 million dead like the russians would. Stretching germany thin in a dozen fronts plays to britains strengths far better and was ultimately the right decision

[@vorynrosethorn903]

His plans were pretty much all terrible and he had a habit of constantly redeveloping troops based presumably on what was in his dreams, attacking any commander competent enough to tell him where to shove it and putting resources into pet projects which often failed with considerable loss of life. You could get into it more as he's one of the worse leaders of a country ever, mad monarchs historically never torpedoed the whole nation in their vainglory.

[@caratacus6204]

@@Anthony-jo7up That is what Lambert is actually advocating, the Seven Years War and Napoleonic war strategy of winning sea control and strangling the enemy's economy. Fighting in the decisive theatre is costly and bloody and should have been avoided, let the land based allies do that job. He actually notes that Churchill in WW2 was forced by the Fall of France to go back to a traditional British strategy.

[@fot6771]

Coming from the boer war video, it seems to me that Jackie Fisher was the last man that could’ve saved the British empire. Who knows if his plans could’ve succeeded but an entente victory in 1916 without needing to finance a large conscription army would have had massive ripple effect on the post war period. The British empire was an economic juggernaut but had vast responsibilities to garrison 35,000,000km2 and maintain the Royal Navy and still out produced the WW2 European axis powers in some sectors (like aircraft production) while still exhausted. If there is a second war in this timeline, all of Britains rivals minus the USA will be exhausted after it and Britain would be just fine and be in an even better position than 1814, pax britannica for another hundred years essentially.

[@herobrineharry7698]

1:38 keep in mind that the dreadnought displaced at deep load a third of the queen Elizabeth, had no radar, and was constructed at a time when it was possible that Britain would, in the lifetime of the vessel, ever use it in combat

[@KevinJonasx11]

epic video

[@silvergalaxie]

J.Arbuthnot Fisher. A brilliant plan,never even "discussed"so to speak

[@rcm926]

Funny how there are thousands of videos about WWI that talk about basically the same things over and over after seemingly running out of topics, and yet this channel once again manages to bring something new to the table.

[@OldBritannia]

Haha, thank you, but I can’t accept any credit when all I’ve really done is abbreviated and condensed other peoples research into video format.

[@krikorklenjian9696]

well said

[@willemvanoranje5724]

Churchill is remembered as a Hero, which he to some degree def was, but knowing this makes him and his arrogant friends the reason the British Empire died.

[@avus-kw2f213]

I don’t see how he is any different to Hitler as if you kill more than 1 million of your own citizens The amount of 0 in my opinion dose not matter

[@willemvanoranje5724]

@@avus-kw2f213 What, you mean the Bangladesh famine?

[@fyrdman2185]

so true

[@consgay3801]

Outstanding video. I'm a huge fan of Fisher and glad to see his thinking get more airtime.

[@nightdragonx123]

This plan fills me with such Glee. The description that WWI was war essentially on German terms is accurate on Reflection and the British opted to use and Expand the BEF (along with all the social and political ramifications attached) one has to wonder what the world would look like if more pragmatic minds opted for the Baltic plan.

[@paulpeterson4216]

I have to disagree with the basic strategy as presented. The fact that Fisher's battlecruisers were faster than the German dreadnoughts does not (in any way) mean that the Brits could not be, quite easily, be cut off from the North Sea and destroyed by the Grand fleet. Meanwhile, I agree that Gallipoli and the Dardanelles campaigns were badly done, Fischer's refusal to risk a few obsolete pre-Dreadnoughts in order to force the channel of the Dardanelles is a far bigger reason for their failure than Churchill wanting a "naval-only" victory.

[@konstantinosnikolakakis8125]

I mean, the Brits would have had access to the Russian fortified harbour at Kronstadt, among others, which they could use as forward bases. And as for the faster ships thing, there is precedent. In the early 19th Century, the US Navy’s strategy focused around small frigates with hulls made partially of Southern Live Oak (a wood that could resist cannonballs), and frigates that were fast, that way they could combat British or French ships around their size, and run away if they encountered anything too large.

[@mikerodrigues9822]

@@konstantinosnikolakakis8125 US was about fight/raid in the Atlantic, not in a glorified lake.

[@paulpeterson4216]

@@konstantinosnikolakakis8125 Yes, but the Baltic is an oversized lake, with very narrow outlets, not the Atlantic Ocean. You can only run until you hit land. The Russian harbors may be a place to hide, but they would not have been much more than that.

[@christianwestling2019]

Interesting video. I wonder if Fisher is related to the former speaker of the house of commons; John Bercow. The look similair, and their temper seem to have a likness to one another.

[@legoGnerd]

A great video taking Lambert's ideas and reminding Britain the maritime thinking it has lost

[@shiveringsheo3253]

2:35 escalating the naval arms race at such a time was probably the absolute worse diplomatic move that could have been done at the time

[@MH-jg6vk]

I think a good future idea would be “the Baghdad berlin railway project” or the “hijaz railway project” to use

[@jakerupp3840]

Can you do a video about the time britain almost joined the triple alliance in the 1880s

[@silvergalaxie]

needa discussion w/Drachinifel. He's a"ship"guy y'all could exchange&share details(please!)

[@cutthroatawesome]

Last time I was this early Germany hadn't yet lost a world war!

[@peppertrout]

The 1905 visit to Germany fanned the flames of the naval arms race and drove Germany greater into paranoia. There was a similar fear on the British side, with even novels written about the defeat of the Royal Navy and a German invasion of England.

[@SomeWiseGuy.]

Well maybe I don't see the reason as I m not at all a naval expert... But what's stopping the German navy from going through the Kiel Kanal with some of their best ships and fucking up all of those lighter British ships in the Baltic?

[@parsananmon]

Its not like British ships locked on Baltic. Since they are fast they would dock at Russian ports to avoid bigger German navy. Plus Atlantic is main deal if German navy diverts their good ships from Atlantic, it would cause more problem to Germany.

[@hedgehog3180]

@@parsananmon If the German navy forces the British ships to hide in Russian ports then they've already won, they've made sure that they aren't blockading trade in the Baltic and can just set up a continuous blockade of those British ships. And I don't know if you know this but Germany had already been blockaded in the Atlantic, their fleet was doing absolutely nothing there and there was literally no reason to keep them there, which is why irl they did actually start transferring ships to the Baltic to act as fire support for ground based offensives.

[@parsananmon]

@@hedgehog3180 If that is case British would pour more into Baltics to support or rescue to baltic fleet as well.

[@flynnstone3133]

“For the next ten years the Kaiser lived in abject fear of being “Copenhagened”. Denmark out here catching strays in a video covering an era 100 years after the Napoleonic Wars.

[@OttoVonRibagnac]

But would France have held on if the UK had not sent so many troops to France?

[@foundationofBritain]

the amount troops Britain could and did amass & send to France throughout the war was far far less smaller than ether France, Germany & Russia could and did amass & sent to their respective fronts... Germany in particular, what with them fight on two fronts... that being East & West.

[@internetenjoyer1044]

@@foundationofBritain once the continental strategy was committed to though, what Britain could muster was decisive

[@bookranter3488]

Please do one on the Anglo-German Naval Arms Race

[@BA-gn3qb]

Jackie Fisher "We'll just bomb Germany from its coasts with our dreadnoughts." Lowly clerk "What about the mines, subs and torpedo boats?" Fisher "Damn." (Gotta keep my mouth shut.)

[@alpha3488]

I highly doubt that a british fleet to build from scratch could've beaten the german navy in the baltics (while keeping a whole fleet in the North sea) after the construction of the Kiel canal. It would've been way easier for the germans to manouver between the two seas than for the british. And keep in mind that the british fleet did not perform well in any way during ww1, compared with the expectations from before. A navy is simply not that decisive in an industrial war with long continental fronts, warfare changed with ww1, so it does make sense that you can't fight this like it's Napoleon again.

[@weeewoooooooo]

But they managed it with the army tho didn't they? On a global scale... Battle plans may be old, but still doesn't make them less prudent.

[@alpha3488]

@@weeewoooooooo Neither was the british army the deciding factor.

[@weeewoooooooo]

@@alpha3488 that's one way of missing the point,and yes the British navy was the more dominant deciding factor by implementing half of fishers plan. Whilst the army was just built from scratch reversing German fortunes on their own turf.

[@hedgehog3180]

Not to mention it wasn't Britain that beat Napoleon, it was mostly Russia. Britain just kept the war going for long enough for Russia to change sides.

[@Anthony-jo7up]

The British never really figured out how to use the navy properly in the context of a world war. Sure cutting off trade was nice, but Britain was nearly itself cut off by U-Boats. The Royal Navy was dependent upon colonial bases abroad, essentially destroying its capacity to be a blue water navy. Add to that the desire to keep the bulk of the fleet at home, the British Empire really lost the capacity to be the globe-spanning power it used to be. That said, navies ARE decisive in industrial wars with continental fronts, it's just that the British never figured out how to make it work. The Americans did. The Pacific War saw the Americans transferring up to 7 million men to foreign islands 15000 miles away from the homeland, with the 4+ million man navy being able to support invasions despite not having nearby bases and airfields. All of this simultaneous with the over 5 million Americans fighting in Europe thousands of miles away on the exact other side of the world. The British lacked both the naval power and logistical acumen required to accomplish this movement of force, as well as the sheer scale of force to be deployed to begin with. The navy is an offensive arm meant to project power abroad, and the British in both world wars primarily used the navy as a defensive tool meant to stave off foreign invasion. Interesting too because in the previous centuries the British DID use the navy in an offensive capacity, to great effect. Also note that naval power was used massively in WW2 to allow the supply of continental allies such as the USSR, Free France, China, etc., solving the issue of keeping allies in the struggle without necessarily needing to deploy a massive army to the continent, though obviously Britain and America would do both. All that said, the British blockade in both world wars was highly effective, one of the most important parts of both wars. It was the conservative approach, less ambitious but with less risk than the Baltic Plan, which could have resulted in German naval parity or even superiority in WW1.

[@tonylove4800]

The introduction should say to "sever trade" not "severe trade".

[@Folgeantrag]

Nice video. I understand the attraction for you that the realisation of the baltic plan could have prevented the massacre of british soldiers on the western front. But even this plan looks good there are serious shortcomings. First a strong BEF Army was needed in France because the Western Front was the decisive theater. Second any close blockade of the german coast especially at the whole length of the baltic would stretch the royal navy made it vulnerable. Third: Why do you believe that the German High Sees Fleet would have done nothing to counter attack a british baltic blockade fleet. Over the whole WWI the Imperial Fleet tried to provoke the Royal Navy to split its strength and than to attack its different forces with the whole High Sees Fleet. Fishers light Baltic Blockade Fleet would have been a perfect target for a German Counter Attack which would have use its inner lines by the Kaiser Wilhelm Chanel and the Grand Fleet in Scotland would have been to far away for any support. Fourth: A close Blockade of a whole coastline is a serious encounter which needed a vast number of ships. For any ship on patrol you need two other ship on rotation and reserve duty and the supply line from the baltic ports back to England is long and also vulnerable. Support of Fuel, Food and Ammunition at sea was imposible at the time of WWI. Fifth: The whole baltic plan depends on a german preemptive strike against denmark. Which the German Govermenent never did. Otherwise Britain had to invade Denmark first to secure Kopenhagen and the Straits which no Cabinett Goverment would have done in WWI. So even this is an attractive counter historical idea there are good and rational reasons why id never happened

[@Pine_of_England]

Do you have a discord server?

[@micahistory]

interesting, I never even heard of this plan, too bad it was never tried

[@silvergalaxie]

I don't understand why,once an oil powered fleet was decided upon,some"one"did not propose a class of ship super armored w/little else to sweep mines by"racing"right into them. How much boom,boom would a 15inch hardened steel hull take,if same was all the heaviest armor,the biggest engines&small,well "protected"crew???

[@andersvaldemarcornelius1224]

A daring plan, and as we know these always survive contact with the enemy.

[@yeeticus7206]

Fascinating plan, I would love to know if it could have worked as planned

[@bcvetkov8534]

This plan is so genius. I honestly can't believe it wasn't implemented sooner. It could've saved a lot of future lives that were unfortunately lost in the trenches.

[@Xenizi]

they did in ww2 , this led to operation weserubung ( invasion of denmark and norway ) . but if they did it in ww1, who knows what's gonna happen could ended up with 3 front and drain more soldiers

[@WWFanatic0]

The plan was insane. It would have needed 600 vessels at a minimum. The total size of the Royal Navy was under 450 ships at the start of WWI. That's not counting the Grand Fleet meant to fight the High Seas Fleet either. The video also fundamentally mischaracterizes the plan. It wasn't just a blockade. The ultimate goal was to land a force on Pomerania and attack Berlin. It even toyed with using Russian soldiers for that purpose. That's why it needed things like monitors, which in Royal Navy usage were ships *designed to support troops ashore.* Also while this force is built up on the Danish islands France is left to fend for itself which given the fact that Germany would attack right away but the British couldn't invade Pomerania right away, raises serious questions about Paris falling. Think about the years of planning and build up that D-Day required and that was with the US help, without the fear of a major surface fleet, and across a much shorter distance. The plan had zero basis in reality. It required a new fleet with more ships in it than the Royal Navy had on hand, France to be fine fighting alone for potentially months, Germany to invade Denmark (while its forces are engaged on two fronts already), and the ability to somehow maintain and supply the BEF (which would be small under Fisher's plans; money needed to go to the RN for those hundreds of ships). It also needed Germany to be unable to stop a force of 6-12 divisions and not see the obvious invasion coming.

[@gustavvanderwesthuizen6173]

A video on the Russian-Japanese war plz

[@ilikelampshades6]

Yes, churchill who was an army major telling the best naval mind and admiral of the fleet how best to deploy the navy

[@Willys-Wagon]

It should always be assumed that a war is going to be fought by ordinary men under ordinary leadership. Any plan that relies on brilliance of individuals is bound to fail.

[@soralb6368]

Excuse me! They carefully planned when the British expeditionary force had their coffee? I think sir, you will find that it was TEA. TEA not bloody COFFEE.

[@avus-kw2f213]

But don’t they drink coffee in France ?

[@giovannirivoira5496]

Jackie Fisher.a real Giant!!(despite short..).

[@accessthemainframe4475]

Yes this might have been more in the spirt of the "British way of war," but would it have worked?

[@foundationofBritain]

Well... it did almost every time the British did that kind of war strategy... the Seven Years & the Napoleonic Wars comes to mined... and many many more.

[@accessthemainframe4475]

Marching in lines with brightly coloured uniforms also worked in those wars -- doesn't mean it would have been smart again in 1914.

[@Mizzurani]

Problem is if they would not have the helpes the French they would have collapsed opening the whole atlantic coast for Germany up

[@BamBamBigelow..]

Britain has the Atlantic, Baltic is another story.........Denmark Narrows is too easy to defend

[@freddekl1102]

Dude in the thumbnail looks exactly like that one guy from Squire

[@Timurlane64]

It is an interesting ‘what if’, but I often wonder if the proponents of ‘anything other than the Western Front’ seriously consider the risk to all of these strategies. I seriously question whether a Baltic Strategy would have been as decisive as envisioned. The loss of Swedish iron ore would have been painful…but war ending? I am afraid that by the time any of this would have borne fruit, France would have been defeated without the BEF and the eventual ground commitment made by Britain. German mastery of the continent would eventually have made Britains position untenable and she would have been forced into an ignominious peace. Some even recognize this possibility as preferable to the horrors that did befall a generation of Brits on the Western Front, but that is more the ‘devil you don’t know’ being able to be spun into any favorable fantasy you wish.

[@RobBCactive]

Provoking Imperial Germany into a pre-emptive response and Denmark's response to RN incursion appear uncertain. Repeating a move of 1905 in 1914 or 1915 and expecting no counter measures seems dubious. How without a general staff and political agreement was the BEF to be kept on the sidelines? Copenhagen remembers Nelson's visit, they may well have feared occupation and being dragged into the war. Frankly Fisher comes over as ineffective here, the Dardanelles operation was hastily put together after the Ottoman empire attacked the Russian empire in the Black sea. If marines and combined forces were required he needed to make the case.

[@lieshtmeiser5542]

Failure to bring Norway and Sweden into the war made the baltic strategy more difficult. I suspect that Kaisers Germany would have had far greater difficulty invading those two countries in that era, than the Nazis did with norway, and wouldve had if they had invaded sweden. Persuading them, even with something crude like bribery, mightve swayed them to the allies side early on, and wouldve supported this blockade strategy. Im not familiar with how easy it is for submarine warfare in the baltic, but I think mass sub warfare against germany seemed to be something that made more sense, assuming it was technically possible. This is what germany did quite effectively against Britain in both wars.

[@konstantinosnikolakakis8125]

German U-boat wars didn’t have much of an effect though. The US Navy fought a much more successful submarine war against the Japanese in the pacific (check out Historiograph’s video on that subject).

[@lieshtmeiser5542]

@@konstantinosnikolakakis8125 The U-boats were deadly effective against Britains supply lines. I think youre being unfairly dismissive of german submarine warfare. Like everything the germans did in the war, they were deadly and extracted a heavy toll on the allies. The US did very well with subs in the Pacific War because of two main things: (1) as soon as war broke out roosevelt authorized unrestricted submarine warfare in japanese controlled waters; (2) the imperial japanese were all offense and no defense and so essentially had no answer to US subs. A corollary to that is it is amazing the IJN didnt engage in unrestricted sub war against the US west coast, as it wouldve tied down a lot of effort on the west coast of the USA. Contrast that to the atlantic where uboat campaigns in WW1 and WW2 were intense and were met with concerted british defensive effort and technological advancement (use of airborne radar for example, capturing enigma machines). In both wars it was the entry of the USA that steadily ground the german submarine force down. Both kaisers germany and hitlers germany vastly underestimated the economic and military might of the USA. The US warned the WW1 germans many times to stop sinking american flagged ships, and the decision was made by the germans to roll the dice that the US would not intervene; the rest is history.

[@hedgehog3180]

During WWII the Soviet Union, after kicking Finland out of the war, did launch a submarine warfare campaign in the Baltic and it was very effective, though that was obviously when the war had already been decided.

[@lieshtmeiser5542]

@@hedgehog3180 If Stalin wasnt a totalitarian communist, and ran an efficient economy, he may have also had the benefit of a powerful navy... We'll never if im exactly right, but it seems likely based on everything ive read and heard about the communist powers. Eg look at PRCs complete inability to achieve a powerful blue water navy, compared to the fact that the UK, increasingly bankrupt, still maintains a far better naval tradition...

[@caratacus6204]

The idea was that Britain threatening Germany's Baltic trade would force them to invade Denmark to counter them at which point the BEF would be deployed to defend the islands that control access to Baltic. In 1916, Germany did draw up plans for an invasion and those were largely what were used in 1940.

[@michaelthomas5433]

Not sure a fuller blockade, which was already pretty complete, would have won the war if France fell without British troops to firm up the French army. Especially since Russia would have collapsed as well.

[@knuppel8875]

How would this plan have prevented Germany from trading with the Netherlands who still had open ports?

[@greywolf7577]

Couldn't they just trade by land?

[@mackenshaw8169]

British decline meant reliance on the French which dragged the Empire into war with Germany. Given this the greatest "what if "and regregret is the failure to develop a genuinely Corbettian grand strategy.

[@chrisholmes4507]

It was something that always made me scratch my head in confusion. I remember a meme(if you will) by a senior British Naval Officer who once said. "... the British Army is a projectile fired by the British Navy". So why didn't the British Navy storm the Pomeranian coast? Was the Imperial German really that strong it could neutralize the far superior British Navy?

[@mjxw]

By mid-1916 the Germans had more than 4 million in the Army. Any landing large enough to even hold off the Germans ashore could not be supplied or supported - and any landing small enough to be supplied would be annihilated ashore.

[@mappingshaman5280]

The german navy in world war one was generally top notch. An attempt to storm the pomeranian coast could well have left the navy trapped if the german kriegsmarine would then block the danish straits, hence why this plan relies on germany attacking denmark so britain has an excuse to secure said straits.

[@theholyinquisition389]

The Gallipoli landing against the ailing Ottomans already failed. There is no way a landing against the strongest land power in the World and second strongest Navy in the world in said powers backyard could have worked.

[@mappingshaman5280]

@@theholyinquisition389 whilst I agree with you the galipoli campaign largely failed because of geography, not the ottoman military power. The fact the British and ANZACs landed on such a tiny peninsula meant there was nowhere to take cover from artillery.

[@larmencio889]

Loads of reasons. The Imperial German Navy was much smaller than the Royal Navy, but it was still the second-largest navy on the planet and it was all concentrated in the North and Baltic Sea coasts. To supply as massive army in Pomerania as it would take to do much of anything to Germany and keep the German Navy from completely cutting off the invasion, it would take an even more massive fleet. Keep in mind that the Battle of Jutland had 28 battleships and 9 battlecruisers alone and it didn't come especially close to destroying the German fleet. Basically, the better part of the British fleet would have to be dedicated to protecting the supplies of the BEF in Pomerania. Then, the BEF would have to be able to take on the huge number of Germans that would be trying to eject them. Getting supplies and men from the Isles around Denmark and into Pomerania would be very slow, predictable by the Germans, easy to harass, and much slower than Germany as the Kiel Canal would obviously be unavailable. Finally, if one of the many, many things that could go wrong would go wrong, every man and bit of material in Germany would be nigh-impossible to recover without an act of God that would make Dunkirk look like a spot of bad luck. The backlash to that would shatter British morale worse than anything I could imagine.

[@forgottenhistory249]

"Copenhagend" is one of my new favorite words

[@davidcunningham2074]

if only the baltic plan had been put into action.

[@xlXNilsXlx]

Don't you think that by 1916 possibly even earlier the advances in aviation would habe led to disaster with british ships operating so close to german shores? Ships at the beginning of the war were barely equipped to defend themselves against attack from the air. I think that plan would have failed.

[@rossthomson1958]

No, aviation hadn’t reached that ability.

[@calj6148]

Fischer's German counterpart Alfred von Tirpitz also attempted to build his nation a comparable fleet of modern battleships to secure its colonial position. He however was in total control of his institution the Imperial German Navy as its highest commanding officer a Grand Admiral and its secretary, second only to the supreme warlord of Germany the Kaiser himself, whilst Fischer the highest-ranking professional officer in the Royal Navy the First Sea Lord but was subordinate to the civilian government's appointed secretary the First Lord of the Admiralty who himself was appointed by the elected Prime Minister. Worse still the First Lord could have been a civilian all his life or from an army background like Churchill by jingo! This drastically limited the amount of work Fischer could theoretically achieve, effectively a ceiling on his ambitions requiring political maneuvering and under the table deals to get things done contrasting Herr Tirpitz's sheer authority under the decree of the Kaiser and budgeting lip service from the irrelevant Reichstag. With the wave of a pen the Tirpitz Plan was implemented to create a strong sea going battlefleet seemingly overnight and raised a generation of schoolboys aspiring to join the navy and man those ships by having schools use sailor uniforms (an artificial culture change to match Britain's centuries old maritime tradition perhaps the biggest social experiment in history). However hindsight shows that public opinion vastly carried Fischer's plans through as his dreadnought building projects and his very own battlecruiser scheme were intensely popular with the warmongering public enough to threaten the Liberal Administration which refused to fund more dreadnoughts to resign in a vote of no confidence. In the end Britain was safe from threat of invasion thanks to Fischer