Kilts in the trenches

[Mike_Oettle]

James Hood wrote: “Eternal personal sorrow for humanity, that far, far, far beyond horrific-tragic, preventable war was ever fought.”

The war was certainly horrific and tragic.
But I greatly doubt that it was preventable – indeed, it was far less preventable than the war against Hitler was.
Under the rule of the Kaisers, Germany was dead set on expanding wherever it could: in Europe, as well as from its colonies.
Its intention in invading Belgium was twofold: to annex Belgium to the Reich (and thereby put pressure on the Netherlands for further annexation) and to take immediate control of the Belgian Congo.
As far as Africa was concerned, that was only the beginning: the next step was to merge the former Congo Free State with German South West Africa, German East Africa and Cameroon (or Kamerun, as the Germans spelt it).
In other words, Angola, the French Middle Congo (today’s Congo Republic), Gabon and Spanish Guinea would simply be rolled up into the colonial version of the Reich.
South Africa was directly in the firing line as far as this was concerned: before the South African Defence Force successfully invaded South West Africa and occupied all of it (apart from the Caprivi Strip, which was held by Rhodesia’s British South Africa Police), German forces invaded the Cape Province and had to be expelled.
And before Germany was eventually defeated, it was making plans to establish German principalities and kingdoms in the regions taken from the Russian Empire – and incorporate them into the Reich, too.
Austria, too, was in an expansionist mood. It had promised Rome that it would leave Italy alone if it was allied with Vienna and Berlin, but if the alliance failed (as it did when Italy persuaded France and Britain to give it a slice of Austrian territory) it dearly desired a slice of Italy’s Adriatic coast, not to mention Serbia and perhaps Romania. It was all set to swallow Ukraine, too.
Even Norway was a territory in contention. A South African entrepreneur had developed an iron mine there, but had been unable to develop it adequately and was forced to sell. A German company bought it, and during both world wars Germany obtained most of its iron ore from there. In the First World War the Germans did not see the necessity of occupying Norway, but this did happen during the next conflict.

The aggression that characterised both the Kaisers and the Führer was something that many in Germany recognised as early as 1871.
One was my great-grandfather, who emigrated so that his sons would not have to spill their blood for the Reich.
Another was Prince Ludwig von Battenberg (known from 1916 as Mountbatten), who joined the Royal Navy and ensured that Britain would command the loyalties of his son Lord Louis and grandson Prince Philip.
There were probably many more.