In 1914, the war to end all wars began; it would later become known as World War 1. Every major power in Europe became involved in it at some point. What all these powers had were individual war plans which stated how they would rise above their enemies and claim victory. Unfortunately for some, not all of these plans were created equally. Unlike the other powers of Europe, Germany had created only one plan known as the Schlieffen Plan. The Schlieffen Plan had been created to be used as the perfect tool to winning a war, unfortunately the plan had been born from the arrogance of Alfred von Schlieffen and later altered by Helmuth von Moltke. Due to how the Schlieffen Plan was both created and altered, both von Schlieffen and von Moltke were doomed to bring Germany only failure in a multi-front war.
In 1888, Kaiser Wilhelm II ascended to the throne of the German Empire and began a new era of foreign affair policies for Germany. Two years later, in 1890, Wilhelm dismissed the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck had united the various nineteenth century German Kingdoms and created the German Empire of the late nineteenth century. Bismarck had also helped to forge various alliances throughout Europe in order to maintain the German political and military position favorable with numbers. In less than two decades time, Wilhelm had essentially destroyed most of the alliance systems Bismarck had created and put Germany in a position where it was both allied with the weaker major powers of Europe and at a disadvantage when it came to numbers. Wilhelm went from having France, the enemy of Germany in the nineteenth century, isolated to having Germany nearly isolated politically and surrounded by enemies.
In 1904, the altered d...
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After establishing a unified Germany after several continental crises, Bismarck retreated to conservatism and preservation of the established order . Bismarck had isolated a revolutionary France, pinned Russian interests against British policy in the deteriorated Ottoman Empire, and propped up the Austro-Hungarian Empire with the refortified Dual Alliance3. All of these measures were calculated and precisely timed thanks to Bismarck’s uncanny political capabilities. Wilhelm II’s forced dismissal of Bismarck signaled the end of rational negotiations with all the great world powers, but also the beginning of the pursuit to win over the British as a lasting ally3.
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