If only the Kaiser hadn’t been a fool, or had the sweet disposition of Lassie ... German historian Holger Herwig adequately established that the principal reason was that the German government wanted a war.
The Kaiser didn’t want war, he begged Cousin Nicky to stop the Russian mobilization, but both were powerless to stop what was coming. The generals on both sides called the shots.
> If only the Kaiser hadn’t been a fool… <
The Kaiser dismissed Bismarck in 1890. And Bismarck died in 1898. Yet it would have been interesting to see if WW1 could have been avoided if Bismarck were still advising the Kaiser.
“One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”
Otto von Bismarck (1888)
It wasn’t driven by the government but by the Generals. There was a lot of opposition to the war in the German Government.