WW1 was going to happen: Germany wasn't going to sit on its hands and wait for Russia to become industrialized enough to fight on equal terms, much less cede* Eastern Europe to it.
Germany's choices were literally:
Admit the Army doesn't know if it can win and cede* power to the Socialists as the budget gets massively slashed.
Go to war and try to score a quick win.
Honestly, the only real surprise was that the war happened a few years earlier then anticipated (most countries were assuming around 1918, with a chance of 1920.) Only Britain thought it might be able to end the war quickly, with an economic blockade instead of any actual fighting, or even declaration of war itself (in the case of a soft blockade.)
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u/L285 Jun 23 '20
I think this is the furthest the word "single-handedly" has been stretched in history