Grishka:

I had no idea that British and French newspapers of the early 1900s had such such a wide circulation and enjoyed such popularity in Germany. Were they translated and printed in German? For them to have the effect and the circulation they would require I would suppose that they would have to have been - But of course they weren't. By the way if the German Reichstag according to your 1912 election link was so against the military autocracy of those who ruled the German Empire of the day, and they couldn't avert the war, who was it that had to read all these non-existent German versions of the British Press to alter what was going to happen?

The First World War came about because of what happened in Sarajevo, and the Austro-Hungarian and Serbian reactions to that incident. It did not come about because of any "naval race", it did not come about because the world had run out of places available for German colonisation and it did not come about because of concerns related to the industrial or manufacturing capability of the major European powers. It came about because an Austrian Archduke and heir to the throne was murdered on the 28th June and what happened in the month that followed - events over which Great Britain and France had absolutely no control whatsoever.

The actual time line from Peace to War in those summer days of 1914 was so short that no British newspaper articles were ever going to influence foreign policy of any other European power. Great Britain did go to great lengths to make Germany clearly aware of what are now commonly referred to as "red lines" were - and Germany chose to ignore them. Germany's mechanism and requirements initiated by mobilisation of her forces meant that those "red lines" would automatically be crossed, all the other parties (The Austro-Hungarians, the French, the Russians, the Serbs and the British) could all reverse the process once mobilisation had been ordered - the Germans couldn't.

The League of Nations was a joke because all the actors had their own agendas - exactly the same can be said and demonstrated about the United Nations. Your "literal World Police" would be responsible and accountable to? The United Nations or this Tribunal that you proposed? Now what makes you think that the Tribunal members would not have their own agendas? Count out the number of democratic countries in the world today and you will find that they are represented in the UN as a minority (You get a fair idea of how ludicrous the UN is when countries such as Libya and Zimbabwe are made chair of the UN committee on Human Rights - utterly ridiculous, and it serves to make the organisation a laughing stock.)

Your "literal World Police", no-one would give it any resources, manpower or material, of course in the "talking shop" much would be promised, nothing would be delivered, those in dispute would not only ignore it but actively engage it were it ever to attempt to enforce any of your Tribunals rulings. Those are the realities that would have meant that in the case of Iraq and Kuwait and in Syria your Tribunal, and its "literal World Police" would have been powerless to intervene and therefore able to do nothing.

The Kaiser's Fleet? Great Britain could always outmatch Germany's shipbuilding programme. If this was indeed a factor then surely Britain would have started the war earlier in order to guarantee her victory? That would have made more sense wouldn't it? After all it was in 1906 with the launching of HMS Dreadnought that Great Britain's naval superiority in terms of numbers of ships shrank overnight to that of one ship, and it was her mentor and advocate Jackie Fisher who stated in a letter in 1912 that:

Moderation in war is imbecility - hit first, hit hard and keep on hitting.

Not exactly the words of a man who would advocate giving the Germans time to catch up so that the playing field was level before taking them on.