How It All Started

Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Germans wanted to spread east, to take out part of Russia, but felt that they couldn’t do it alone.

Austria-Hungary was an friend and ally of Germany.

The trick, or so the Germans thought, was to get Russia to attack Germany, or at least to threaten Germany, so that the Austro-Hungaria ally could be brought into the fight.

How to provoke Russia into belligerency?

The assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Arch-Duke Ferdinand provided the trigger.

Austria-Hungary had been wanting to cripple Serbia for a long time; here was an excuse!

If Germany could persuade Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia (and now it wouldn’t take much), Russia would mobilize to protect Serbia.

That would constitute a threat to Germany.

At the last minute, Germany would urge Austro-Hungarian to deal with Serbia (later) but first, rush Austro-Hungarian’s troops to the North to help protect Germany’s borders from the Russians while Germany sent most of her troops West to take out France, who, allied with Russia, could mobilize faster.

The plan for Germany was to keep the back door (East) firmly closed while rushing out the front door (West) to knock out France in six weeks, then to rush troops to the East and join Austria-Hungary in wiping out Russia.

Austria-Hungary could then take Serbia and Germany would have her spread eastwards.

Britain, it was at first assumed, and then hoped, would remain neutral, as long as she could be persuaded that the war was about a small Balkan state, unworthy of Britain’s attention.

Sadly, an essential part of Germany’s plan was to wade through Belgium.

That brought The United Kingdom into the war.

The rest is theirstory(!), that of other writers.

But now you have the gist of it.

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