The question of Germany's responsibility in initiating the first World War is one that has raised many differences of opinion among historians who have attempted to address the issue.

Holger H. Herwig, in his quest to answer this question has concluded;

"...The greatest measure of responsibility, however, remains with Germany. Planners, both civilian and military, were all too eager to resolve their perceived diplomatic encirclement by use of force -- "now or never," as Kaiser Wilhelm II put it."

(Herwig, H. H., The Outbreak of World War I, 1991 )

Harry Elmer Barnes, an American scholar, expressing his discontent with the treaty of Versailles wrote;

".... In estimating the order of guilt of the various countries we may safely say that the only direct and immediate responsibility for the World War falls upon Serbia, France and Russia, with the guilt about equally divided."

(Barnes, H. E., Who Started the First World War?, 1989)

Other Historians tend to be less inclined to any one side, in favour of a position where every one is to be blamed almost equally;

"The unthinkable happened because in each of the Great States, leaders did certain thi

In the final conclusion, one cannot but agree with the conclusion of the historian SLA Marshall, "The unthinkable happened because in each of the Great States, leaders did certain things that inflamed the crisis, or failed to do things that might have eased it. All shared in some degree the responsibility for the general failure." Except that the Great War was hardly unthinkable as the contributing nations had made it quite inevitable, decades before its actual materialising.

As a result of the arms race, all the European powers were prepared for a war by 1914.

The German interest in the Balkan region was on purely economic grounds. If this was a crime, then the same should be said of France and to some extent Russia, which also had an economic interest in the Balkans.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2460
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)