Both the Kaiser and the Chancellor were quite encouraging of the Austrians in July 1914 when they foresaw a limited conflict in the Balkans, but they had clearly changed their tune in August when they saw the scope of the war they were facing. As said, the night before the war, the Kaiser was harriedly attempting to broker a peace with London only to be told by Von Moltke, the head of the General Staff that the war preparations could not be undone and that German troops were marching into France within hours. There is no denying that the Germans along with France and Russia were far too bellicose during the 1890-1914 period. I just believe that France wanted the war as much or more than Germany. The French believed that 1870 would not repeat if Britain was on their side and that Germany would succumb within weeks against the Franco-Anglo-Russo army. They woefully underestimated German might ,which managed to fight all three to a stalemate without the war encroaching on German soil and came with 20 miles of capturing Paris in the first weeks of the war.
The Germans sent Lenin back to Russia in an attempt, successful, to undermine Russia and get it out of the war while they finished off the western allies. Anybody who thinks they would not have gone back into what was left of Russia after the Brest-Litovsk treaty to kick out the bolsheviks once they had finished off the brits and french has not paid enough attention to the mental makeup of the goosestepping authoritarian jerks who ran germany at the time. Not that there is any reason why most people should pay a lot of attention to them. They really were a bunch of semi monsters.
The entire point of the conference was that a.) war was inevitable, b.) France and Russia wanted it just as badly as Germany and Austria and c.) France and Russia were beginning to arm themselves for the conflict. Germany was no less belligerent than France or Russia, they were just ahead of the Triple Entente in preparations. Had Britain sided with Germany or remained neutral, the Central Powers would've been the "good guys" to Americans.
I'm amused that anyone thinks there were "good guys" and "bad guys" in WWI. WWI was biggest and most terrible example of human folly ever. WWII was simply a second chapter and while Nazi Germany was definitely the "bad guy" in WWII (Stalinist USSR wasn't exactly one of the "good guys") Hitler probably never would have risen to power had not the "good guys" in WWI like Britain and France not crippled the German economy with that joke that was the Treaty of Versailles. But then again he might have. Sadly a European war was probably inevitable due to the tensions of the time. There were multiple types of government, cultural conflicts, conflicts with labor and the rise of communism and socialism, a transition to an industrial society, and moral and economic tensions tied to the fading of Victorian ideals and the rise of modernism. To paraphrase Crash Davis, they were dealing with a lot of **** there. In the end WWI was the direct result of a failure to communicate/negotiate effectively between both adversaries and allies and a lack of vision by all the leaders involved into the true nature of the battlefield realities of the time. The didn't understand what they were getting into and by the time they realized it, it was too late. Don't get me started on the epic failures of the military leadership on both sides in the early war. That might really ruin my Monday.
One regrettable German characteristic is the tendency to shift the moral responsibility for their actions onto others. That characteristic is demonstrated in spades on this thread.
Is that character flaw limited just to Germans? This is a very interesting thread and I don't have the depth of historical or political knowledge on this issue that many have demonstrated. I do seem to recall from either a history or political science class that Germany attacked "first" because it was able to mobilize its army far faster than France or Russia. If they all declared war on each other, why does the ability to mobilize faster make one side the bad guy? This sets aside the issue of Belgium which does appear to make Germany the bad guy compared to the United Kingdom but perhaps not France since France obviously contemplated the same action.
I guess I should add that it is my rather simplistic understanding of WW I that all the countries are varying degrees of "bad" and nobody is a "good" guy (except probably for the US). As I understood it there was a belief that rapid mobilization and attack would result in a few weeks of war and victory for whomever attacked first. It did not quite work out that way and the Europeans should have paid far more attention to the seige of Petersburg/Richmond in the American Civil War. I do not think diminishing the German's status as the "bad" guy or at least spreading the blame around does anything to rationalize the Nazis. Germany, Italy, and Japan were the unquestionable bad guys of WW II no matter how vindictive Versaille may have been. This sort of goes in the two wrongs don't make a right in my simplistic book.
I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies. - Sheryl Crow
Statalyzer: You’re re-stating the “local roots” thesis, which has already been addressed. If you have some new insight, or if you’ve found some flaw in my posts, then please tell me what that is so I can respond.
