[dfwgator]

Britain and France didn’t like the fact that there was a “New Kid On The Block”.

[Rockingham]

No wonder that Britain and France did not like the "new kid"(Germany) in 1914. Germany had won the return of Alsace-Lorraine in the France-Prussian War but still built a large army aimed at France. Germany also built a massive navy designed to threaten Britain. Those considerations forced Britain and France together as allies against Germany.

Yet the real reason for the Great War as it came to be called was that it was not realized just how long, brutal, and destructive a war it would be. Based on history, it was widely assumed by Germany in August 1914 that the war would be a short and successful affair ending in a negotiated peace, with her troops home before the end of the year.

Germany's military successes though fell short of victory but were too great to permit a negotiated end to the war. Germany also saw a prospect of victory almost until the end, in part because as in WW II, in WW I the German General Staff lacked a full appreciation of the decisive effects of America's entry into the war on the side of the Allies.

By the fall of 1918, Germany was starving due to the Allied blockade and masses of fresh American troops were poised to join in a decisive offensive into Germany itself. Mutinies, riots, and a revolution at home though forced the Kaiser to flee and brought a German surrender.