BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE GERMAN OTHER A Dissertation ...

In the ramp up to World War I, such cultural obstacles to an Anglo-German understanding pale
as determinants of policy beside diplomatic allegiances and the naval arms race. But inflexible
stereotypes of German militarism, Kaiserism and diplomatic blackmail persisted into the inter-
war period and fomented a policy of harsh “realism” when German fledgling democracy called
for idealist appeasement from a position of strength. Douglas Newton has found no little irony in
the fact that many “economic warriors” and advocates of the “knock-out blow” during and after
the war became idealistic appeasers too late, after the Weimar government had been discredited
by a resurgent German Right. 61
What role, then, do national identity and stereotypes play in international relations? In
1910 Norman Angell, an Anglo-American, published a prescient book entitled The Great
Illusion, in which he argued the utter futility and absurdity of war in an modern economically
interdependent world. 62 He did not advocate disarmament but debunked the notion of any
economic advantage to be gained from military power, and he suggested that the victor in a world
struggle would at best be forced to perpetuate the existing trade system. World War I had no
real winners, and indeed resulted in economic collapse that led to fascism and the rise of
totalitarian states. Angell’s controversial thesis really addressed the dangers of national identity
in diplomatic relations—not structural or cultural factors that constitute a day-to-day sense of
nationality, but all of the emotional and Social Darwinist ideological distortions that have
accompanied the worst aspects of nationalism. Angell called for a rationalization of European
diplomacy, by which he meant dismissal of the fallacy that nations act or can be perceived as
61 Newton, British Policy and the Weimar Republic, 424-26.
62 The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage, 4 th
ed., rev. (New York; London: Putnam’s Sons, 1913).
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