[bravo whiskey]

most of the blame for WW1 rests on the head of a narcisstic, incompetent, arrogant, petulant, childish, clinically insane ruler named wilhelm II. description sound familiar?

[PUGACHEV]

My grandfather, who lived through those times, always blamed the British. In his view, by denying German goods a market in the Commonwealth countries, and by doing their utmost to restrict German goods from other countries, like Argentina, for example, the British prevented Germany from taking its proper place in the world economy. It also put a huge chip on their shoulder, and guaranteed a war at some point. Germany was just too large, and too dynamic to be kept down for long.

[rellimpank]

—nonetheless, in another of the weighty tomes on the subject which I have read, it is asserted that the German General Staff , knowing his kinship to and ties to Great Britain, usually didn’t let him know what they really were planning-—

[drbuzzard]

I’d say it’s a lot more complicated than that. You can’t lay all the blame on Wilhelm II. He was a major player of course, but there were quite a few trigger points at which individuals could have stopped the war, and he was just one of those individuals. Now you can make a case that he was a strong contributor to the powder keg that was waiting (with his provocative positions such as his naval race with the UK), but the rulers of Serbia, Austria, or Russia could have stopped the war from occurring as well.