Childhood is blaming Germany for WW1

Adulthood is realizing that no country is fully responsible for the war and that all the early war belligerents deserve blame for the war.

Here's how I would have done things if I was Germany, let russia stomp Austria Hungary, when then empire collapses then incorporate Austria into Germany

>Things just happened man, it was nobody's fault!
>Literally dindu-nuffin tier

>hit someone in the face
>he fights back and knocks you down
>when the police question you you try to put half the blame onto him since fought back

G*rman """logic"""

>Russia tells Austria to stop bullying Serbia
>Germany suddenly decides it's a good idea to declare war on everyone and their mother
>WE DINDU NUFFINS

>now alone in central Europe
>only ally is the Ottomans

Even Willy wasn't this dumb

>Germany suddenly decides it's a good idea to declare war on everyone and their mother
I very much doubt France would have let Germany and Austria kick (their ally) Russias ass without intervening so it doesnt matter who declared war first

Still nobody mentioned
>Muh total submarine warfare
Was it the pinnacle of autism?

...

>want to fight someone
>they have friends who will protect them
>fuck it, I'll start a fight with all of them!
>it is their fault the fight has started since they were going to protect their friends

Germany invaded neutral Belgium. Nobody forced them to do it, they chose to on their own initiative and hubris.

Everything the Germans have ever done has been autism. How do we stop German autism?

Its called a preemptive strike

If you preemptively strike someone and then get blamed for the conflict when you lose, you should not be surprised.

True but that doesnt mean you deserve the blame

>IT'S NOT MY FAULT THE FIGHT STARTED
>YEAH, I PUNCHED HIM FIRST BUT I THOUGHT HE WAS GONNA PUNCH ME
>THAT MEANS IT WASN'T MY FAULT

>half
More like every day since that warm serbian summer afternoon

>thought
It was going to happen no matter who punched first

desu France was mobilizing its troops, and it was kind of obvious that France was going to respond in some way to Germany declaring war on Russia

Daily reminder that Belgium doesn't exist.

>HE WAS GIVING ME THE STINK EYE FROM ACROSS THE BAR
>THE FIGHT WOULD'VE HAPPENED ANYWAY
>IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT I PUNCHED HIM FIRST IT'S NOT MY FAULT IT HAPPENED

Then maybe Germany should've moved soldiers to the French border instead of declaring war first and invading Belgium.

Lots of people (notably Dan Carlin and Indy Nidel, but others as well) say that Germany invading Belgium to execute the Schlieffen Plan was a mistake; because it gave them a really bad rep and drew Britain into the war. But what should/could they have done instead? The Franco-German border was so well defended that a direct assault there would have been suicidal. What choice did the German high command have?

Don't invade?
Wait for France to try to invade across the aforementioned well defended border?

Yes but Belgium is a much better place to invade France from. The elab-lothringen border was heavily fortified and the French were well prepared for an attack through there.
Same reason Germany blitzkrieged through Belgium in WW2.

When war was delcared on borth sides, the Germans were using the Schlieffen plan, and the Kaiser didn't expect Britain to declare war.

>and the Kaiser didn't expect Britain to declare war.
Anyone who isn't completely retarded could see that they would.

You dont mobilize your army for nothing so it was a bit more than just
>THE STINK EYE FROM ACROSS THE BAR

In hindsight it seems obvious that the Germans should have shored up their defences on the French border and focused their attack on Russia. But then what was to stop France from persuading Belgium to join the Entente and launching a combined French-Belgian invasion of Germany from Belgium?
IMO it seems that even if Germany had simply shored up defences along the Belgian border, the Belgians (or even the Entente) still would have viewed that as some kind of provocation.

Nobody could say for sure, but yes, the Kaiser is the real person to blame for everything that WW1 caused

when that happens Germany invades belgium and is justified in doing so

But in that case they would have had to repel the French and Belgians first, and that would have been a much more costly manoeuvre than simply invading Belgium in the first place.

Russia offered to have the conflict mediated instead of resorting to armed conflict, Germany refused.

I know, Germany still declared war on Russia anyway

>But what should/could they have done instead?

Just don't try to invade France. Kinda obvious.

Adulthood is realizing that Germany is to blame but was still the good guy

But the trade-off here is that by invading Belgium you bring Britain and ultimately the United States into the war. You can't look at a war as just a bunch of chess pieces. Diplomacy also matters. You have to have allies who will take your side in a conflict. And invading small, neutral Belgium was like kicking a puppy in the eyes of most of the world.

You missed
>July 29: Tsar Nicholas unilaterally aborts Russia's mobilization and offers to submit the Serbia dispute to arbitration in the Hague. Wilhelm ignores this offer.
>July 30: The German military attache in St. Petersburg telegrams Berlin reporting Russian war preparations appear to have no aggressive intention.
>July 31: With Austrian mobilization ongoing and no assurances from Germany, the Russian General Staff browbeats the Tsar into resuming Russian mobilization.
>August 3: The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes the correspondence between Nicholas and Wilhelm. The letter of July 29 is excluded because it "was not important."

Prussia was a signatory to that treaty as well and by rules of succession so was Germany

it's honestly really sad that 6 million jews would go on to die in WW2, it should have been 60 million germans that died instead with the rest steralized.

I blame the bourgeoisie.

I sometimes wonder how many historical problems could have been averted if cell phones had somehow been invented 1000 years earlier.

Serbia started WWI.

Belgium had no interest in joining the Entente. King Albert was so committed to neutrality and so suspicious of both sides that, when the Belgian Army mobilized, he refused to allow them to deploy on the German frontier and held all of his divisions back behind the Meuse so they could defend against either direction and not appear to offer aggression.
This was sadly mistaken - although General Joffre had previously submitted a war plan proposing that France should preemptively invade Belgium to outflank the German armies in Alsace, the French government refused to permit him to violate Belgian neutrality.

For similar reasons, the French Army deployment orders in August 1914 explicitly held the covering forces a minimum of 10 miles from the German frontier to avoid committing an act of aggression.

Meanwhile, the Schlieffen Plan not only preemptively invaded Belgium but included orders to violate Dutch neutrality and take the Maastricht rail hub if the Liege Forts did not fall fast enough.

Hötzendorf plz leave

Serbia immediately complied with all but one Austrian demand and Austria responded by chimping the fuck out.

Germany's entire strategy was based off of bring able to mobilize faster than the other powers.

At this point:

> Russia was defending a state sponsor of terrorism

> "Oh my pet Slavs' terror group killed a member of the Austrian royal family? Oh, the Serbs won't turn anyone over or respond to your ultimatium? Well if you do anything we'll war you."

> Start to mobilize. French start to mobilize.

> At the last minute: " H-h-hey slow down Germany, stop the war and lose your speed advantage, maybe we can work it out, or if not, well, I guess we caught up to you on mobilizing hahaha."

Russia should never have declared war on Austria. They started it.

Oops, looks like you made a spelling error! Here, I corrected it for you:

> Start to mobilize. French start to mobilize.

*Implement the operational plan for invading France. Advance into Luxembourg and Belgium. French start to mobilize.

The French had no fucking choice but to mobilize when German cavalry were already across the Belgian frontier.

>Oh, the Serbs won't turn anyone over or respond to your ultimatium?

But the Serbs did respond and they agreed to basically everything.

It doesn't matter who started it. The USA ended it for you guys.

Maturity is realizing that all the craven imperialist powers were responsible for the war and that the only heroes were the Bolsheviks, Spartacists, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and other gallant working-class revolutionaries.

So why the hate on Germany?

What led to them getting kicked around by everyone?

Their prime location on the northern European plains? First one stupid enough to kick up an industrialized war in Europe?

Or is it that the US / UK / France were potentially closer allies at the time and Russia just happened to get into that constellation.
Or did they not play the "game" of colonialism and warring against each other like the UK and France did?

Or is it a more fundamental error: Not implementing German as an official language in the Holy Roman Empire instead of Latin?

But the Serbs agreed to all but one of Austria's demands.

Except that one was the biggest one, the right for Austrians to participate in the investigation with their own people.

Otherwise the investigation is the Serbians investigating themselves, and most of us know the result they are going to return is "We dindu nuffin, everyone who was complicit in the assassination is already punished".

Think about more recent events. Would you trust the MH 17 investigations if the Russians denied Dutch investigators and released a report that only they themselves contributed to?

>Except that one was the biggest one, the right for Austrians to participate in the investigation with their own people.

It was a Catch-22.

>6 million jews are the only important casualty of WW2

desu should have dissolved Germany after ww1

This Willy played too much EUIV and didn't realise paradox was just catering to its autistic fans like himself

>muh France
Maybe if Germany made a pact with France not to intervene then they wouldn't be blamed, but they rejected that idea

To show you'll protect your allies?
Because it was a defensive war, whilst Germany stokes on Austria Hungary now that the crown prince is dead, who wanted a Slavic state and no war

>France would invade the person it signed independence with
Just because Wilhelmina was drunk on power doesn't meant King Albert was

But they're the master race? Why care about the inferiors

>dude we'll just say you're guilty so we can invade
They literally said that tho

Except that the German War plan invariably called for invasion of France, the idea being to eliminate France (who had a limited area into which they could retreat) before turning to grind Russia down with the full might of the German Army. It was, admittedly, a rather conceited plan, but the Germans also considered it inconceivable that the United Kingdom would enter the war, let alone on the side of the Entente. It wasn't apparent even to the Entente whether the British were allied with them until around 1913, and Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg were blindsided by the British ultimatum over Belgium, who was guarded by a multilateral treaty giving the Great Powers the right, not the obligation, to ensure militarily Belgian neutrality.
Germany tried to convince Britain that they weren't infringing Belgian neutrality, and, so long as the Belgians didn't resist German troop movements, there were no intentions of taking Belgian territory. Obviously, this only exacerbated the situation by insulting Britain.
It wasn't so much a mistake as a miscalculation, but there was no other alternative. German Diplomacy had failed to prevent Germany from being surrounded by a hostile alliance, and secure German hegemony over the continent. Austria-Hungary and Italy were unprepared to fight a war against Great Powers, and the Triple Alliance only guaranteed defensive assistance, so Germany lost Italy as an ally right away.
and get the jist of it. Austria-Hungary was chomping at the bit for war with Serbia, and were being lied to by German diplomats telling them that Russia wouldn't mobilize. They also weren't expecting Serbia to accede to their ultimatum, so when Austria ignored Serbian attempts at diplomacy (the Ultimatum was seen by the outside world as unduly harsh and extremely transparent, effectively demanding Serbia's sovereignty).
Also this This is horseshit
This almost won

The Kaiser's only really to blame for destabilizing German diplomacy. He was the person in German government who probably least wanted war. Willy was simply incompetent. Firing Bismarck was a mistake. Giving Tirpitz what he wanted was a mistake.

>Germany all along who turned a regional conflict into a world war

No, it was the Entente's stance that a war between Austria and Serbia should lead to a general war.

Germany stance was rather 'A localized war between should happen in order to weaken the cohesiveness of the Entente and to strengthen AH, and if if that leads to a world war, so be it"

>Declare war on Russia before Russia declares war on Austria
>not at fault
Germany's stance was one of aggression. Deal with it.

But the Schlieffen plan was only needed if they went to war with both France and Russia. War with France wasn't a prerequisite to defeating Russia

The Germans, and, I think, the French didn't see it that way. If Germany attacked Russia, France would be obliged to defend Russia due to their obligations as part of the Entente. Germany declaring war on Russia preemptively was the deciding factor--it made Germany the aggressor. Germany could have not declared war, and this is what most nations thought would happen at the time. Why go to war over Serbia? Even Austria-Hungary wasn't prepared to go to war over Serbia, they wanted to occupy, but not face Russia. The Germans promised the Austrians that Russia wouldn't defend Serbia, but Tsar Nicholas was backed into a corner due to past humiliations and a crumbling hold on his Empire.

>The Germans promised the Austrians that Russia wouldn't defend Serbia

Why would they make promises that hinge on the actions of a third party which is outside of their influence?

Because Germany wanted war. It was the only way for them to secure continental hegemony. Austria-Hungary was collapsing and Italy was flaking. The Ottoman Empire was still neutral until German Admiral Souchon forced them into the war some time later. Germany had no friends. Japan was allied with Britain, Britain had an agreement with France, who was allied with Russia. The United States was sympathetic to Britain and Germany, but U-Boats literally sank American goodwill. Their options were either to be encircled and lie down and face being at best an equal power with France (who had significantly greater colonial holdings, meaning Germany would necessarily take second fiddle to France and in particular Great Britain), or to try to break free, beat Russia and France and negotiate peace with Britain. If that happens then France is kicked to the curb and Russia collapses, giving Germany a much smoother path to expansion.

So basically the first one stupid enough to kick of an industrialized war (with no friends to speak of).

>But what should/could they have done instead?

Not start a global war?

Are you implying that Russia wouldn't have attacked Austria?

This is rubbish. The Austrians were well aware of the danger that Russia might intervene on Serbia's side. They chose to go to war anyway since they thought it was necessary to ensure the survival of their state.