They had been neutral in European conflicts since Crimea, 60 years prior to the first world war.
The Entente was signed in 1904. The Schlieffen Plan was intially designed the year after. If the plan were designed to be an offensive plan, why did Germany wait 10 years to implement it?
It was designed as a reaction to the Entente as a defensive counterattack to the alliance of France and Russian.
“If the plan were designed to be an offensive plan, why did Germany wait 10 years to implement it?”
First of all, because, as I’ve been saying, it was also their plan to look like the victim. And you can’t do that until after France and Russia look—to people who don’t know better—aggressive, for instance during an international crisis like the Austro-Serbian war.
Secondly, it was never my position that Germany’s entire leadership was war-crazy. The belligerent faction carried the day, eventually, and for reasons relating to the frenzied circumstances and the perceived weakness of Russia, France, and Britain.
It’s not as if I imagine Germany planned world domination in 1905, then sat on their hands and waited for the right time to spring their trap, like evil geniuses. This describes some of them, no doubt. The big story is that they were upstarts and an emerging power, with a proven propensity for aggression (as in 1870), that had a contigency plan for continental domination which happened to be put into practice when the war faction got their way.
It’s not necessary to ask why they acted when they did, specifically, except to say that they must have thought they could get away with it. Either that, or they went crazy. The main point is that they did it. It was carried out. Not successfully, but nobody’s perfect.
“It was designed as a reaction to the Entente as a defensive counterattack to the alliance of France and Russian.”
Counterattack? For there to be a counterattack, there must first be an attack. Germany attacked (Belgium) first. How was this “defensive”? It wasn’t. I can’t understand why you take Germany’s perceived fear of France and Russia so seriously all these years later. Germany’s the one who invaded first. If France and Russia were paranoid by mobilizing, they had reason to be. They were right! Germany was bent on European mastery.
If Germany was isolated and had much to fear from its neighbors, France and Russia, though they had eachother, also had much to fear. Which ones’ fears were more justified? Tie goes to the countries that don’t declare war and invade first.