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Essay on Did Germany Intentionally bring about Major War in 1914?
'Home before the leaves fall and 'Over by Christmas' were just two of the misconceptions harboured by contemporaries in 1914. Perhaps knowledge of the American Civil War (1861-5), with its gatling guns and trench warfare, should have made people less optimistic. Yet German strategy depended entirely on the quick victory and one of the great misconceptions that led to this catastrophe was this false assumption by the German government that it could still win the war quickly in the year of 1914.
The decision-makers in Berlin – von Moltke, Bethmann Hollweg, von Jagow, von Falkenhayn, and of course the Kaiser – were all of' the opinion that Germany was surrounded by hostile powers, that Germany's position was slipping and that by 1917, when Russia's Great Military Programme was complete and the Schlieffen Plan rendered redundant, Germany's situation would be quite hopeless. Thus the idea grew up that a war would be better 'sooner rather than later', that war should occur now 'while we can still win'. However, this idea was in fact totally wrong. The Germans had already left it too late: there was a remarkable balance of power in 1914.
But by 1914 it was already too late -- no one power had sufficient military preponderance to achieve a quick victory -- and that is, basically, why the war went on so long.The Central Powers, Austria and Germany, had to achieve a quick victory in 1914 because they did not really have the numbers to match their opponents; they could not win a war of attrition if the Entente powers stuck together. The Germans believed that their superior army would enable them to deliver a knock-out blow. However, modern weaponry, especially the machine gun, was a great equaliser, a great leveller in both senses of the word......
