Schlieffen and Germany's Strategic Failure

In any broad survey of the European landscape over the last three hundred years, it is evident that nearly all paths go through Germany. It becomes impossible to study German politics and diplomacy without quickly realizing that all roads in Germany lead to the military. Militarism and strict obedience shaped every form of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German life and culture. In the weeks prior the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, the French journalist Georges Bourdon made an observation that embodies the core of this book. He wrote, "such and such country may possess an army, but Germany is an army that possesses a country." This book focuses on "the cult of the offensive" that developed within German militarism, its crucial role in her rise to prominence in Europe, and the consequences for Germany, and for Europe, when a military culture dictates domestic and foreign policy.