ABSTRACT
The Germans always protested that the function of their new Navy was not that of invading the United Kingdom. That was true. They thought rather that it would make such an invasion unnecessary. Deprived of European allies by the might of Germany's army, Britain would be isolated. The Germans had no Egypt, Tibet, Madagascar, Persia, or Morocco to concede, gain or divide. The year 1911 brought the Agadir crisis. Significant redispositions of the French and British Fleets were taken shortly after the Agadir affair. The Franco- Russian alliance, the British ententes with France and Russia and the co-operation of the Anglo-French Fleets were responses to the dangers of the situation, rather than the cause of them. War came in 1914 not because of the alliance 'system' but because in the end the behaviour of Germany made it seem unavoidable. The Habsburgs were faced in 1914 with great Serbian hostility and by the defection of Roumania to the Russians.
