I don’t disagree with your assertion, but the Europeans had experienced all the wars I listed AFTER both the Civil War and the Boer Wars, and none led to catastrophe. Okay, the second Boer War I did not list, but it was the guerrilla war aspects that were particularly nasty, not the conventional fighting of army against army.
I can’t see how one avoids the conclusion that Europe was still looking at war as it had in 1864, without realizing that the nature of war had changed by 1914. Everyone understood what total war meant in 1945, because they had been through two before and had seen atomic bombs in action. No one could imagine WWI in 1914.
I think we’ll both agree there was massive failure of imagination in the decision making when going forward to war in 1914. The Germans in particular were expecting to fight and win a quick, decisive conflict as they had in 1870. I can’t believe that any of the European leadership, as inbred and decadent as it was, would have jumped for mobilization if they had any clue it was going to mean millions of dead four years later.
I generally agree.
However, the problem, as in the Japanese decision to attack Pearl, is often that elites believe they have no choice. It’s fight now or die. Whether that belief in lack of alternatives is accurate or not is much less important than whether it is believed.
In 1914 the Germans saw that they had turned every other major Power against them. That this was primarily due to Willie’s blundering about was by then irrelevant.
France hated Germany because of 1870, and there was no way to reconcile them. Russia had become an enemy because Germany unnecessarily opposed Russian ambitions in the Balkans and Black Sea. Britain, even less needfully, because Germany insisted on challenging Britain’s naval and colonial predominance.
Germany had by 1914 achieved essentially all it could within the existing framework. They could keep pace with UK and France, but would inevitably lose ground relative to a Russia starting from a very low base but rapidly catching up, and with enormous advantage of resources and manpower. Extend the Russian economic and military gains of the previous decade for another decade or two, and the German position for a two front war starts looking pretty bad.
So the General Staff, the only institution that really mattered in the German Empire, saw war in 1914 or shortly thereafter as their only chance to defend or expand their position.
They were probably right.