Germany had the most to gain from fighting the British and French; what could France and Britain and gained from a land war in Europe, since the colonies were increasingly the field of economic competition? Germany had pursued colonial possessions for decades but had failed to capture much that was useful. Germany, as it constantly complained, was “land locked,” and “encircled.” It had “no choice” but to “attack first.” This is well-established German rhetoric. And it’s just the first example in a long line of such complaints - Hitler’s Sudeten Germans, the unreasonableness of the Poles, the Soviets’ insistence that the “bourgois imperialists” were “endangering the revolution,” and so on, down to the Islamists’ ridiculous claims today. The Germans, in fact, complained that its 80 millions were forced to live inside German borders, when it was clearly going to be much larger than France (so it said) and deserved something like “lebensraum,” particularly in Polish-Ukrainian territory.
The Kaiser’s courting of the Ottomans, particularly via the Berlin-Baghdad railway, as well as training the Turks’ modern army, began decades before World War 1 began. For an account of the Kaiser’s ostentatious visit to Ottoman Palestine, see the book Jerusalm 1913 - he sought to become the protector of the Muslims and made gestures about jihad to them (even as he made promises to the Jews there and in Germany).
It is also well-known that Britain had only a very small expeditionary force; it had nothing like the mammoth land army of the Kaiser or the strategic reserves of the Tsar. France did have a rather large army, but it was distracted by political crisis after political crisis. It was in no mood to simply attack Germany, which by then had clearly surpassed it in terms of economic and man power.
The Belgian atrocities of the Germans were the first propaganda opportunity for Britain and France, aside from the invasion of neutral Belgium itself. They burned down some library or other and were appalled that Belgians would resist, so they adopted terror tactics in limited cases. These of course were played up for all their worth by France and Britain.
I think this game of “who benefits?” is dangerous and not really that helpful. This also leads people to conclusions about “international banking” that make them sound like Lenin in his inaugural address upon the creation of the Comintern, among others.
Russia was teetering on the verge of ungovernability since 1905, a decade prior to the war, and was busy in its great game.
So in fact, according to the correlation of forces, Germany was pretty much the only power that had a real interest in starting a land war in Europe that it believed it could win.
I had indicated to the person who had originally asked for WWI info that it could be interpreted many ways; this bears that out. I understand your points, but don’t think they make the case that Germany had anything to gain through the war, or even had any real hope of winning it (at the start).
Britain’s army was much larger than indicated; after using it to seize Germany’s colonies (which I’m sure Germany knew it couldn’t defend), it then used colonial troops against the Central Powers themselves. It was their empire that was most threatened by Germany’s rise, and their building of a navy.
I don’t believe Jews had any role in the war other than to support whatever country they happened to live in (like any other citizens of those countries) - I’ve never seen/read anything to indicate otherwise.