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Daily Mail on 5 August 1914. The United Kingdom entered World War I on 4 August 1914, when King George V declared war after the expiry of an ultimatum to the German Empire.The official explanation focused on protecting Belgium as a neutral country; the main reason, however, was to prevent a French defeat that would have left Germany in control of Western Europe.
The United Kingdom declaration of war upon Germany occurred on 4 August 1914. The declaration was a result of German refusal to remove troops from neutral Belgium.In 1839, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, France, and Prussia (the largest predecessor of the German Empire) had signed the Treaty of London which guaranteed Belgium's sovereignty.
British veterans and civilians in the 1920s created a shrine of sacrifice in Belgium. The city of Ypres was made the symbol of all Britain was fighting for and was given an almost sacred aura. The Ypres League transformed the horrors of trench warfare into a spiritual quest in which British and Imperial troops were purified by their sacrifice.
The highly controversial introduction, in January 1916, of conscription for the first time in British history followed the raising of one of the largest all-volunteer armies in history, known as Kitchener's Army, of more than 2,000,000 men. [1]: 504 The outbreak of war was a socially unifying event. [2]
British and French guarantees of Belgian independence were made before 1914 but the possibility of landings in Antwerp was floated by the British military attaché in 1906 and 1911, which led the Belgians to suspect that the British had come to see Belgian neutrality as a matter of British diplomatic and military advantage, rather than as an ...
Since control of Belgium allowed an opponent to threaten invasion or blockade British trade, preventing it was a long-standing British strategic interest. [d] [24] Under Article VII of the 1839 Treaty of London, Britain guaranteed Belgian neutrality against aggression by any other state, by force if required. [25]
Norway is sometimes referred to as "The Neutral Ally". During World War I , while theoretically a neutral country, diplomatic pressure from the British government prompted the government to favour Britain highly in relation to Norway's large shipping fleet and vast fish supplies.
British veterans, along with numbers of Irish veterans of WWI who served in the British army joined the Black and Tans after the war, approximately 10% of the Black & Tan's recruits and 14% of the Auxiliaries were Irishmen. [79] [81] [82] with this organisation then going on to perpetrate a number of atrocities during the Irish War of ...