If war came, Churchill was determined to violate Belgian neutrality himself by ordering the Royal Navy to blockade Antwerp to prevent its becoming a port of entry for goods destined for Germany. “[I]f Germany had not violated Belgian neutrality in 1914, Britain would have,” writes Niall Ferguson. “This puts the British government’s much-vaunted moral superiority in fighting ‘for Belgian neutrality’ in another light.”50 The German invasion of Belgium enabled the British war party to put a high moral gloss on a war they had already decided to fight for reasons of realpolitik.
