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"I agree, though the program is still pretty good in detailing Ludendorf’s mental breakdown."

I'll watch the whole video then. Thanks.

"The seeds of WW1 go back to at least 1805 and probably 1796 as it was the French Revolution that led to Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars that were the Genesis of the Franco-Prussian War which was the precursor to both World War 1 and the Russian Revolution and then WW2"

To put the situation in the broader context, though, Frederick William I started the Prussian buildup for conquering. After he died in 1740, the effort to conquer really started to take off under Frederick II.

"Not that I want to blame everything bad that’s happened in the last 250 years on the French but, well, there it is."

Oh, the French. I'm influenced by reading complaints against the French by the descendants of their other Catholic neighbors towards finding out where that animosity started. I find such fraternal conflicts odd but interesting.

As most of us do, I have a few German ancestors (but mostly northwestern European). And we all probably have some French ancestors, because you know what people said in our parents' generation about Frenchmen. ;-D

familyop: "To put the situation in the broader context, though, Frederick William I started the Prussian buildup for conquering.
After he died in 1740, the effort to conquer really started to take off under Frederick II."

Well... let's put it in the broadest possible context: it is the very nature of empires to fight wars and expand their territories.
It's what empires do, it's what they've always done, they don't need excuses, reasons or justifications of any kind, wars are part of the very definition of "empire".
In 1914 Germany was an empire which saw an opportunity to expand its holdings through war, period.

familyop: "Oh, the French..."

In 1914 the French were also an empire, who would like to recover their lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, but they did not initiate the events which lead to the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in August 1914.