Why is the German Empire always seen as bad and as an agressive warmongerer (which is true) while people nearly never speak ill off the other big countries like England, France, Russia, etc. which certainly didnt built there empires and colonies by peacefully annexing natives/countries?

by _AGermanGuy_

I dont wanna hate on France or England, thats how it was back then after all. Everyone was doing wars to expand. But why is only Germany seen as bad and agressive when the British Empire as an example was fighting wars to expand its Empire even more than Germany. Again, i dont wanna hate on these countries, its just weird that people always only see the bad agressive expanding German Empire when France and England certainly did the same prior to WW1.

DuxBelisarius

its just weird that people always only see the bad aggressive expanding German Empire when France and England certainly did the same prior to WW1.

This is not the case in academia I would say; Christopher Clark, Niall Ferguson and Sean McMeekin's books on the First World War (The Sleepwalkers, The Pity of War, Russian Origins of the First World War and July 1914) all take a decidedly dim view of the Entente, with McMeekin accusing the Russians of escalating the July Crisis so as to secure Anglo-French support for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. Prior to the 1960s, the dominant narrative of the outbreak of WWI was that no one country was responsible, even that equal blame was to go around. In it's most extreme forms, as with the writings of Harry Elmer Barnes (who later became a Holocaust Denier and Nazi apologist), the narrative reversed the alleged "Versailles Guilt Clause" and accused the French, British and Russians of conspiring to destroy the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires (echoing the 'Encirclement' propaganda of the Kaiserreich).

But why is only Germany seen as bad and aggressive when the British Empire as an example was fighting wars to expand its Empire even more than Germany

For one thing, Germany unified in 1871 and Bismarck largely kept Germany out of the 'Scramble for Africa,' with the Empire collecting Togo, Kamerun, East Africa and Southwest Africa as a result of the Berlin Conference of 1884, as well as territories in the Pacific. With an earlier Unification, or with leadership not as averse to colonial entanglement as Bismarck, it's not unreasonable to suppose that the German Empire would have engaged more aggressively in the acquisition of colonies/overseas empire.

That being said, most talk of 'aggressive Germany' focuses on Germany from 1900 to 1914, when the foreign policy pursued by the Kaiser and his advisors was unquestionably aggressive. Whereas Britain, France and Russia's Empires had been accumulated over the course of decades and centuries, with a wide arsenal of means to obtain them, the Kaiser's Weltpolitik (World Policy) sought to obtain world power status and colonies for the Empire, but in a fairly short time frame, and by provoking confrontations with Germany's neighbours. This played out with the two Moroccan Crises and with the Naval Arm Race with Britain. Africa had already been divided up, but moreover, it was one thing for Britain and France to brush elbows over Africa (as at Fashoda in 1898) or Britain and Russia over Afghanistan (The Great Game was really the 'Cold War' of the 19th Century), but it was a different situation when the German Empire threatened mobilization and war with France over Morocco. The implications of Germany's actions for the balance of power on the continent were serious indeed, especially considering that the balance had been almost undone by the Russian Revolution of 1905.