The war that became WWI had been planned for years before its late July, 1914 kick-off. The three main players — Britain, France, and Germany — had it all planned out before Archduke Franz Ferdinand ever thought about paying Sarajevo a visit. Hapless and conflicted Russia was a “fourth” for bridge, but was never taken seriously.
Austria-Hungary — with prodding and encouragement from Germany — presented Serbia with an impossible ultimatum, which guaranteed war; which is what Germany had wanted all along. Sarajevo was just the “trigger” that was used as an excuse; if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. But the three major European powers were going to go to war, and all three knew it.
The main culprit? Germany.
Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II thought Germany was not afforded the respect and recognition it felt it deserved. It is one of the reasons Wilhelm began a crash program in naval development, with the goal to eventually rival Britain on the seas, or at least keep the vaunted British fleet occupied. Germany felt it could dominate any land war in Europe, and Wilhelm reasoned that with a stalemate at sea there would be nothing to stop Germany from emerging as the absolute power in Europe; and, really, the world. Wilhelm saw it as Germany’s destiny. He believed Germany was ordained to fill this role.
Then, in 1910 with the death of Britain’s Edward VII, Wilhelm saw his chance, and himself as the undisputed European monarch; and he was going to take that and run with it. Dusting off the Schlieffen Plan — drafted a half dozen years earlier — which set out in detail Germany’s plan for conquest, it took only some tweaking by Moltke the Younger to get the ball rolling.
The plan called for the invasion of France from the north via neutral Belgium, with a subordinate move by a smaller force across Alsace-Lorrain against France’s eastern border. The main thrust, through Belgium would move south and invest Paris, while the smaller force kept French forces tied up in the east, preventing them from moving west to support Paris.
The plan was to keep Britain’s fleet busy with the German fleet, especially in the Chennel, and thus prevent or retard the delivery of British ground forces to the continent.
However, both Britain and France had concluded years before that such a plan would be exactly what Germany would embark on. Thus, the three major powers planned accordingly. And the plans of all three called for using neutral Belgium as the playing field, at least initially.
Russia? No one thought it would play any greater role than a nuisance on Germany’s eastern front. And they were pretty much spot on with that conclusion.
And so it came to pass.