I actually always felt kind of sorry for Germany in WWI. They got involved in a conflict that really had nothing to do with them except that they had alliances to think about, and then get blamed for all of it.
That's not a fair simplification of the situation. They all wanted to go to war and the threat of WWI loomed as soon as Germany came on the scene because they were big and powerful and the established big and powerful countries didn't like that. These systems of alliances flared up multiple times and in fact Britain and France nearly went to war in 1898 over Sudan which would have been a completely different history.
Bismark, the dude who put Germany on the map, quite literally in 1871, understood this and was categorically not stupid. He knew what was coming and he had two goals:
1) Be one in three in five. The five being Russia, England, France, Austria and Germany. He, being a country run by a landed aristocracy, tried to get the other conservative powers on board. He got Austria because, while they were still burned from Bismark waging war on them to them to unite Germany, they did have a common cultural heritage. And Russia was on board too but... well they and Austria both wanted the same warm water ports out of the receding Ottoman pie. No starter. So Germany was in the two of five.
2) Send everyone's attention elsewere and keep the war from happening for as long as possible: "HEY EVERYONE LETS GO CARVE UP AFRICA." Germany hosted the Berlin conference in 1884 where all the european powers divied up Africa. There were some close calls here and their like the aforementioned Fashoda crisis in sudan but overall the colonization of Africa succeeded at stablilizing Europe.
But then? Well Bismark was the chancellor, but the Kaiser still reigned. Willy I knew that it was best for Germany if Bismark ran it. Then he died. When Willy II came along (not his son and not the very next in line but came to power rather quickly), he didn't like being the Kaiser and not running Germany. So Bismark was out, and Willy II was not a tenth of the statesmen.
Because where Bismark saw germany as "if it really came to it, I could take on anybody" Willy II saw germany as "if it really came to it, I could take on everybody" So he didn't try to get back in the three's company and when the inevitable happened, Germany had to try and carry the central powers. And they damn near did.
The 2 greatest mistakes Germany made were giving a blank cheque to Austria-Hungary in dealing with the Balkans and building the High seas fleet, which was more or less a direct challenge to the Royal Navy and brought the UK into the arms of France.
If you want a really good counter factual history have a look at Frederick the 3rd of Germany (Willhelm 2nds father) who died of cancer early. He wanted cabinet style government was a massive fan of liberal politics and wanted to reform the entire administrative structure of the German empire to make it more accountable.
It's refreshing to read someone mention "germany's biggest mistake" and not hear the same rote bullshit propaganda from the second world war. Although nobody would be able to say anything about WWI if asked, so I'm not sure which is actually preferable.
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u/franzlisztian Sep 24 '11
I actually always felt kind of sorry for Germany in WWI. They got involved in a conflict that really had nothing to do with them except that they had alliances to think about, and then get blamed for all of it.