Causes for Germanies entry to WW1

A detailed Summary of Causes for Germanies entry to WW1

World War One was caused solely by the aggression of one country and its allies. It was made possible by the political, military and economical environments inside the aggressor country. These all contributed to the initiation of the First World War by the then mayor European power, Germany.

To the credit of the Prussians, Germany had the largest (except for Russia), best equipped and best-trained army of Europe. With their innovative use of the heavy machine gun (the Maxim gun) in protected pillboxes the German quickly had an edge in over the other European armies. To use this military might in an effective way the Chief of the Imperial General Staff Alfred Von Schlieffen devised an attack plan appropriately named the Schlieffen plan. According to this plan the bulk of the German army had to march through Belgium and Luxembourg attack France out flanking its armies in the process and after a six-week campaign France would be defeated and the whole German Army could then attack Russia. "The Schlieffen Plan rested on two critical assumptions. The first was the preservation of overwhelming German numerical superiority against France. The second was the inability of the R

ussian Empire, with its primitive system of land transportation, to deploy its numerically superior along the German before the Knockout blow to the west"(Kelroy pg.48). This plan should have been very effective when it was conceived. However during 1913 two events happened; one, French male citizen were now required to serve three years not two of military service this change would have brought the French army to the same size of the German army by 1915, 1916; secondly, with the help of France, Russia had created a large and relatively modern railroad system connecting it to the center of Europe. "... the undeniable fact that the German Empire was loosing its margin of strategic superiority in Europe over the combined armed forces of France and Russia"(Kelroy pg. 48). During 1914 this created the feeling in that if the war were not started soon then the military advantage over its neighboring adversaries would be lost. This created urgency for military action in which any excuse was useful; therefore, when the Archduke was assassinated Germany had its perfect excuse to begin hostilities.

An army, however, does not order itself into war this is done by the state, and the German Government's political structure in the early 1900īs proved especially prone to war. " The political structure of the German Reich, as defined by the Federal constitution of 1871, may best be described as a facade of a parliamentary monarchy superimposed upon the edifice of an authoritarian state dominated by the reactionary, militarist, landowning aristocracy of Prussia"(Kelroy pg.44). Therefore, if the Kaiser of Germany wanted war then war he will get. The only democratically elected organ of the German government was the Lower House of parliament or Reichstag its only power consisted in denying the government funds for "operating the state". It is also to note that the

Some common words found in the essay are:
Europe Britain, World War, German Reich, War Germans, Britain Germany, France RussiaKelroy, German Knockout, Prussians Germany, Lower House, German Empire, world war, german economy, german army, world war germans, ruling class, century world, german reich, german government, germany largest, competition german, pg 47,

Approximate Word count = 1255
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History