“What does Germany and Russia not being allies anymore have anything to do with Germany trying to conquer France?”
By the way, I realize the answer is that Russia starting it by throwing its weight around and thus causing war with Germany would have left Germany vulnerable to a backstabbing by France, which justified them in a preventive attack. Not only do you now justify Germany in treating a country throwing its weight around as a cause for war, which was never the case before. But they are also justified in invading another country because they might at some point in the future attack them while they’re fighting the aforementioned war. Which, also, was never the case before.
Reminds me of those who argue that the Soviets were justified in conquering Eastern Europe because they had been invaded a couple of times in the recent past. Which, first of all, ignores the imperialistic wars they fought shortly before being invaded against Poland and Finland. But it also acts as if everyone else is just a pawn in the nation in question’s strategic calculations. As if they have no dignity of their own.
Never have I heard such thin justifications for empire. At least in the dark old days of colonialism they argued that their rule was better for those they had conquered.
League of Three Emperors?
Russia was an Empire too. Who do you think dismembered Poland?
“Germany in treating a country throwing its weight around as a cause for war,”
A Russian invasion into East Prussia, is cause for a defensive war. The Germans in the First World War, did not have the same goals as in the Second World War. Nor did they fight in the same manner or the same fashion.
Outside of the opening year, the entire war was defensive. Russia collapsed in 1917. Then France held on, and Germany finally collapsed in 1918, after the US came into the war.
The Germans did not want war in 1914. They knew that if they fought everybody, they would lose. They did the best they could in a hopeless situation, and darn near pulled it out in the end.