'...[the] truth of how it began and how it was prolonged has been successfully covered up for a century. A carefully falsified history was created to conceal the fact that Britain, not Germany, was responsible for the war. Had the truth become known later, the consequences for the British establishment would have been cataclysmic'. [My emphasis]
Now being a former history teacher, this revelation is a thing to behold. I've had to contend with the discomforting reality much of what I've taught my students over the years about this event was, to paraphrase Henry Ford, "bunk". Docherty and Macgregor have in one fell swoop peeled away the scales from my eyes, providing at once a disturbing -- yet if we allow it, a valuable -- insight into the past, the present and the likely future. Readers willing to ponder this compelling account of WWI with an open mind I suspect will experience a similar epiphany and insight.
In order to appreciate the forces at play driving England's then foreign policy, along with affixing its relevance to more recent events and developments, a stroll down memory lane is key. Since Napoleon's defeat in 1815 at Waterloo in Belgium, the British began playing the "Great Game" in earnest. This designation alluded to the geo-strategic rivalry between the British and the Czarist (Russian) Empire, said struggle fuelled by their mutual desire for control of Central and Southern Asia (C&SA) from 1815 onwards.
Suffice to say, by this time Britain's great unipolar moment had arrived; it presaged the position in which the U.S. found itself after the USSR collapsed at the 'f*g-end' of 1991. From that point, she had the motive and the means -- to say little of Churchill's much touted "audacity" -- to take full advantage of the moment if she played the "Great Game" for keeps.
The
C&SA region to be sure is still considered the most strategically
important piece of real estate on the planet, not simply because of the
geography and the geology, but other key
factors.
That it remains the principal
driver of
America's geo-strategic ambition is also true, albeit not always one that forms
the official rationalization for it. This is however pretty much what the
"Game" is all about.
Though this key strategic insight -- known as the "Heartland Theory" -- was first extolled towards the end of the nineteenth century by the likes of Halford Mackinder in the U.K. and later on the American geo-strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, it was more recently resurrected by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1997 manifesto The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.
For the U.S., Brzezinski's tome became in effect 'The Complete Idiots' Guide to World Dominance', an updated riff on the Great Game played so assiduously by its parent empire. We're talking here of course, the "game" which led to not one, but eventually two, "Great Wars" -- with the Cold War being 'icing on the cake' as it were. After the seemingly inexorable rise of Germany in the wake of its unification in 1871, England's elites became deeply unnerved by the threat this ostensibly heralded for the Empire's ability to maintain pole position in the World Order. At all costs and by whatever means, Britain was utterly determined no country would threaten her status as the Empire du jour, the one upon which it was said, ''Old Sol' never set'.
Thus , as early as 1890, Germany's remarkable economic, technological and industrial growth -- along with its military expansion, colonial adventurism and presumed imperial ambitions -- would become Britain's sole foreign policy obsession. It was in this milieu the Secret Elite met to plot the Empire's trajectory, a path that in due course would lead to the Great War. The "Game" was still on then, but the chief rival -- if not the endgame -- had changed.
Such was their resolve, the Secret Elite expected that not only was war with the Teutonic 'upstart' inevitable, they embarked on a mission from God, King, Country and Empire to render that 'prophesy' self-fulfilling. The goal here was nothing short of crushing Germany before she even got out of the imperial holding pen. It's an indication of British commitment to this goal they were willing to secure an alliance with the Czarist Russians, their former rivals for Heartland primacy. That they were ready to risk the Empire holus-bolus -- including even its crown jewel India -- is no less an indication of its "commitment".
Yet the hapless 'Deutsch-landers' still didn't see any of this coming, such was the scale and depth of Britain's duplicity, to say nothing of the flawless execution of the plan hatched from it. In itself this proffers some evidence Germany's own strategic ambitions such as they were, may not have been as single-minded and/or as threatening as the Secret Elite made out at the time. Nor we might surmise, as the history books, the political classes, the establishment media, the education system, and the orthodox wisdom would have us all believe for the past one hundred years or so.
Here again contemporary parallels should be obvious, certainly for those who refute American allegations of "Russian aggression" in Europe and its own purported imperial designs, and are fearful of how such provocations by the U.S. toward its former Cold War foe might themselves play out.
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