Who started WWI? Who made it into a World War?

>Austria merely wanted to pacify its periphery and the Russians - backed by the French - turned it into a major European conflict.

Russia merely wanted to protect Serbia from Austria and then Germany turned it into a major European conflict.

Doesnt change anything
France was mobilizing in response to German mobilization

Whether a country fights offensively or defensively once the war is launched is irrelevant to determine who's the aggressor
Who attacked first is

You don't suddenly become the aggressor because you launch an offensive on a country that attacked you

Honestly this. Every nation was ready to jump in obv but Germany was the one that told Austria-Hungary to start a war immediately when it was advantageous.

The goal of Plan 17 was to occupy Berlin, and was initiated before the German mobilization. While it is impossible to determine who declared war first, it was probably the French by about 15 minutes. the Germans would probably not have known this.

Serbia, which was responsible for the murder of the heir of a Great Power of Europe. Austria had all right in the world to punish them for that and Russia, together with France plunged Europe in to war because of a Balkan shithole when they could have simply let Austria have their attempted revenge, everyone could have had a good laugh at the Austrian army's incompetence and and call it a day.

AFAIK, the German Army saw this as their last chance to #btfo a non-industrialized Russia and knock them out of the game forever.

Needless to say, it didn't work.

>Germany was the one that told Austria-Hungary to start a war immediately when it was advantageous.
They told Austria-Hungary to start a war (with Serbia) immediately before it gets out of control. If Germany had their way, Austria-Hungary would have marched on Belgrade immediately. The problem was that most of the Austrian soldiers were at home for harvest and Austria was actually incapable of mobilising.

Austria.

Austria scrapped the ultimatum

Austria bombed Belgrade

Austria's actions triggered Prussian autism

Plan 17 had the goal of cutting out the industrial heartland of Germany - the Rhein-Ruhr area. It was an offensive plan (not a defensive plan) but it didn't attempt to conquer Berlin.

>While it is impossible to determine who declared war first, it was probably the French by about 15 minutes.

Are you fucking retarded?
The declaration of wars in WW1 are well documented facts
Germany is the country that declared war on France, not the contrary
Even your pic states it

>They were the only ones who actually wanted a war
Bro, everyone wanted a war. I know it's a meme on Veeky Forums that they didn't, but the fact they allowed it to go to war shows that they were willing to let it go that far and wanted it to get there.

France was allied with Russia and didn't really advise Russia to back down on the Serbian issue. They knew perfectly well what they were dealing with they knew perfectly well that Austria was determined on the Serbian issue. If they had wanted a peaceful solution they would have had a talk with Russia that this whole Serbian thing isn't worth it. They didn't and thus they share a responsibility.

While it is true its main emphasis was the Ruhr it did extend to Berlin. If you look at a map of the area you can see how easy it would be to include Berlin.

Germany. They were the most dissatisfied with the status quo world order at that time. Potentially having the most to gain from conflict.

Wehraboo samefag

>WWI
>Wehraboo
Lol

Not my pic. The documentation includes telegram between the two countries, which include time stamps provided by the telegraph companies. Enough discrepencies exist on these telegrams to make it impossible to determine who was first,

What does 'Wehraboo' mean?

>Germany. They were the most dissatisfied with the status quo world order at that time.
Why would they be dissatisfied? They had a massive industrial capacity, scientific output like no other country at the time, etc. - they were on their way to dominating continental Europe, if they didn't do so already.

Memes aside: the reason why Germany pushed for war was the fear of the two-fronts war. Germany was afraid of being strategically encircled - the Franco-Russian alliance made them twitchy. What really set them off however was that Russia was also having naval talks with Britain in regard to Baltic landing operations. These were meant to be secretive but due to a spy in the Russian embassy the German chancellor learned about it and caved in to the demands of the military, thinking the encirclement was complete with all major Great Powers against Germany. I am by no means blaming France and Russia for securing their position in Europe in a strategic manner, it is what anyone would do, but I would argue that ironically this bulwark of treaties and assurances antagonising Germany was Phyrric in nature, as it left Germany no way out but to push for war - a war that should become the permanent ruin of the Russian Empire. Sun Tzu argues that one should always hold his enemy in the belief that he has a way out lest one wants him to fight with the strength of desperation. This advice was ignored.

Someone who doesnt recognize the need to dismantle Germany

>everyone declined British offer of mediation
>only germany's fault

>waaaaahhhaaaaa why didnt france stay neutral after we started a war to invade their ally!!!

Really?

Austria-Hungary made it a Third Balkan War: imposing intentionally impossible terms in their ultimatum to provoke conflict with Serbia.

Russia's entry made it major regional war: spending the July crisis mobilizing for war didn't help a damn thing.

Germany made it a World War: fully committing both the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente to war with the invasion of Belgium.

Agree with everything you said. But I am of the opinion Germany was dissatfied with the world order. The Germans were on a roll 'emerging' much like Chins is today. Finding their rightful place in a world order which was decided upon before they were even a sovereign nation. They lacked yet desired a 'proper empire' like the other European powers. They possesed minimal diplomatic clout outside of Central Europe. Indeed blessed with an enviable industrial capacity but still could not manage to outproduce Britain in the construction of dreadnoughts and battleship, considered the yardstick for military mite in the era.
Just coming off a night shift. Best I can do with half a functioning brain.

>still could not manage to outproduce Britain in the construction of dreadnoughts and battleship, considered the yardstick for military mite in the era.
This is a misunderstanding of the German strategy. What Admiral Tirpitz proposed was not to outproduce Britain but to build a fleet that would be enough of a deterrent to secure the few colonial assets that Germany had. The goal was to get a navy that had 2/3rd the size of the Royal Navy. This clashed however with the two-powers standard of Britain which decreed that the Royal Navy had to have twice the size of the largest continental navies. The press spun this into an arms race, but I would argue that to call it an arms race does not capture its true nature as Germany never intended to 'win'. The goal was not to overtake Britain. It would have made no sense to do so as Germany had too few oversea assets, it would have been nothing but a big waste of money - at least from the German position back then (arguably it was the British naval blockade which contributed the most to their loss of WW1 so actually having a larger navy wouldn't have hurt). Still, unlike Britain, Germany also had to maintain a large army due to being a continental power with no real natural defences; they had to focus somehow.

Fantastic response. The production of dreadnoughts has always been presented to me (British education) as a arms race scenario, but you have opened my eyes to the Germans intention and perspective.
I believe in a way this potentially makes Germany even more proactive and dangerous than i first considered in that they weren't preparing for yet another proxy colonial conflict or border skirmish. They were preparing, if it came to it, to deliver a knockout blow to their rivals namely France and Russia on their home turf. Very much a doctorine of escalation. I refer back to my precious assertion, this is not the behaviour of a nation satisfied with its position.

You're not wrong but no country expected the war to devolve out of their control into a meatgrinder. Even if Germany didn't intend for a "World War One," their posturing is what ultimately let it happen.

the mediation thing was bullshit. no power was actually willing to sit down and negotiate at that moment and it was all for appearances

>what is partial mobilization

>They were preparing, if it came to it, to deliver a knockout blow to their rivals namely France and Russia on their home turf.
Yes, however, the military planning of all continental nations was offensive in nature. Nobody planned for a defensive war in continental Europe. The French Plan XVII as well as the Russian Plan 19 were all offensives that would push deep into enemy territory and end the war within weeks. All continental powers were under the impression that a lengthy war of exhaustion would be their ruin. We just don't hear much about it because all plans have failed. All offensive campaigns got stuck somewhere on the way. Germany made it the furthest, which is why we only have the Schlieffen plan in mind when it comes to that, but the planning of France and Russia was not so different. Only Britain had defensive military planning - but mostly due to the strategic disposition of a sea power and due to having a professional army that too much longer to assemble than the drafted armies of the continental powers.

This thread, again.
Why are you baiting wehraboos?

>would be enough of a deterrent to secure the few colonial assets that Germany had.
That was never realistic because Germany would have needed Britain's permission to move its fleet through the north atlantic and the channel (see Russian baltic fleet in Russo-Japanese War). Germany didn't need to outbuild Britain for the simple fact that the British fleet was scattered the world over protecting its colonies and keeping commerce safe for global trade, while the germany navy was concentrated all in one area.

Also, while the German public did get behind a Weltpolitik that saw Germany obtain world influence and overseas colonies, those colonies obtained were a huge drain on German finances and saber rattling by the Kaiser in the morocco crises of 1905 and 1911 was loathed by the German govt establishment iirc and the landing of the German gunboat panzer in morocco made britain and france chimp out. So even if the fleet was purportedly to protect colonies, it was diplomatically retarded and backfired in the end

>see all this civil discussion
>"Fantastic response"

Did I take a wrong turn somewhere, this clearly can't be Veeky Forums

It's a portmanteau of Wehrmacht and Weeaboo.

I would argue that Germany sorta put themselves in that strategic encirclement. Russia was content with the league of three emperors, but Germany time and time again kept shitting on Russia in favor of Austria. Eventually Russia had enough after the Congress of Berlin where Germany pretty much fucked Russia out of their winnings in the Russo-Turkish war in 1878 because it would of interfered with Austrian ambitions in the Balkans.

That might as well be the case, but what are they supposed to do as a consequence upon the realisation of their mistake? It's not like they could go back in time, they had to deal with the situation at hand. And the reasonable thing to do would be to step up the diplomatic game. However, this goes both ways: instead of exploiting Germany's strategic predicament to the fullest and putting them under so much pressure that war was the only way out for them Russia and France should have applied their strategic leverage with more moderation. They should have known that the threat of war would not make Germany back down as Germany knew fairly well that if they let themselves get bullied into submission at this point, it would happen the same way in the future - even worse, as Russia was getting stronger by the minute. All that considered I am not so eager to pin the blame here exclusively on Germany, although they share a big part of overall responsibility.

ATTENTION
EVERYONE IN THIS THREAD IS FULL OF SHIT
Read the new historiography (ie. Stéphanie Burgaud's thesis, only in french atm, it doesnt hurt to see an actual author being named once every year on pol).
>Muh Prinzip
>Muh Archduke
>Muh it was all Germany's fault, it totally makes sense, espacially without argument

Responsibility for wwi can and should be traced black to Napoléon III (It's Napoléon Bonaparte's nephew, u dumbfuck) and Bismarck.
The trigger was the Archduke's death, but it could have been anything else

you seem butthurt
>traced black to Napoléon III (It's Napoléon Bonaparte's nephew, u dumbfuck) and Bismarck.
this is nothing new. anyway you're insistence on one cause is just more retarded than the posters in this thread

This exact thread appears once every week on his, and i.ve basically never seen anyone not talking about the alliance systems and the murder of the archduke. Of course Bismarck didnt declare the war himself or anything. But I would very much like it, if once on a while people here could stop trying to look like they know their shit when all they've done is reading the wiki page. I'm not more knowledgeable than them, but the difference is i keep my mouth shit and dont tryhard.

k

The reason it's only in French is because if it was in German or English they would be fucking slammed for daring to publish common historiography and calling it new.