“Had We Known How Bad Things Were in Germany, We Might Have Got Stiffer Terms”: Great Britain and the German Armistice

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In 1914 British policy makers began the war determined to enhance their postwar security against both their enemies and their allies. Britain went to war against Germany in August 1914 ostensibly to liberate Belgium from German military occupation. But British war aims soon assumed an ideological dimension that continued to color them throughout the war. Even before 1914 many British politicians had been suspicious of Germany's growing power, fearing that it might be dangerous because it was unchecked by a democratic electorate. Once the fighting began, British policy makers quickly conceived of the war as a crusade. Britain was fighting not to crush the German people, but to bring about a change in Germany's constitutional arrangements. They were engaged in a war to destroy the control of the Prussian military caste over the German state. As Lord Kitchener, the secretary of state for war, remarked in March 1916, “The only really satisfactory termination of the war would be brought about by an internal revolution in Germany.”